Slashdot Mirror
An Old Hacker Slaps Up Slackware
cdlu writes "What do you get when you mix an old hacker with an old distribution? A good old review of the recently released Slackware 10.2." Joe Barr over at Linux.com (owned by the same company as Slashdot) lays down his thoughts on everything from the install to reliability and user loyalty.
Redhat 5.0? I cut my teeth on Yggrassil. An add in Nuts & Volts magazine featured the Yggdrasil release way back. I believe it was 1992. I've been running Linux ever since!
And the maintainer is fantastic. I deal with him often.
While I appreciate Slackware getting press (I used to run 8.0 on my server) this isn't much of a review. He talks about ever step of the installer, which hasn't changed in years, so there's nothing to tell here. He talks about how he adds a root password cause he always does (?) and goes on to tell about how since Slack doesn't support dependancy checking for installs he doesn't use any of the other tools (swaret, slapt-get) that do this for you (?). So don't get me wrong, Slack is still my fav Linux for servers since it paved the way for me to move to FreeBSD, but this isn't much of a review. (oh, and I commented on the article cause he says that RPM handles deps, but it doesn't; yum does. right? I haven't used RPMs for a time, but I'm pretty sure I'm right there)
fak3r.com
I slacked off, so forgive me since this isn't the true FP.
I thought Slackware was only for leet hackers, so why do they need a HowTo?
Old Hackers don't die
They become a zombie process and have to be kill -9
It was about 60 floppies. My first crash was several weeks later when I ran GnuChess under X on my 486DX2/66 w 8MB RAM, and made my second move...
If this is the same Joe Barr who can't even install and use MPlayer, do I really give a shit about what he thinks about Slack? I mean if he can call the best video player ever "The Project From Hell", he's just proven himself to be entirely unreliable.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I've always thought of Slackware as sort of the HeathKit hobbyist version of Linux... sort of the build your own robot dog, vs. the Aibos of Linspire, SuSE, or Mandrivacoriscalifragilisticexpialidocious.
When I first decided to play with Linux, many many moons ago, I think I bought the Walnut Creek CD-ROM of Slackware at Fry's or by mail order. I got a decent install up and running with XFree86 and a window manager. But it was very definitely a steep learning curve.
Recently, trying out a free copy of Linspire, it was probably the easiest install of any OS (Microsoft, BSD, or Windows) I've seen. Ubuntu was pretty simple too. I could have given my parents Linspire and had them up and running almost without my help.
But if you want to learn Linux, not just install it, Slackware is probably one of the best for that. IMO, Despite all the up-and-comers, it's still a good starter kit for the people who want to learn a little about how it works while getting it working.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Strict glibc compliance and relatively few efforts to make it palatable to the desktop crowd is exactly what has made it perfect for a task specific server platform. Having stuck with it since 1994, when I first started down the road of discovering what Linux could do. I've never been disappointed (in terms of uptime, security and resource control) I will probably keep using it as long as it can be maintained. A learning curve isn't a bad thing. That's why I got into this in the first place. I'll leave Red Hat to the '1337'. This just works.
Can somebody please explain why every single Linux review has to spend so much time on installation? Monday's post of a SuSE review spent a third of the article just on installation. Today's Slackware review spends half of the review on installation (actually a bit more than half if you cut out the conclusion that takes up a quarter of the last page). People, installation is a solved problem! SuSE and Redhat have had competent installers for nearly a decade. Even Debian is slowly getting into the act. When Corel first integrated a game of tetris while packages installed, installation was a done deal. What possible reason can there be to spend all of your time reviewing the installation process, rather than everything else? (and by "everything else", I mean the integration that a distribution brings -- how well are menus configured in your chosen desktop environment, does it have a good package installation story that keeps those menus up to date, does it provide you with recent and stable versions of popular software, etc)
Yes, I know that installation of Linux is critical since you can't easily go out and buy a PC with Linux pre-loaded. I get that. However, the installers for pretty much every distro are simple and clear enough that it doesn't take a genius to use them. Skim your chosen distro's installation manual and have a go at it. Just please stop wasting review space writing about the installation process! Here's a hint: If your review is too short when you leave out the installer part, maybe you don't need to be writing a review.
http://www.arouse.net/despair-linux/slackware.jpg
Neckbead (n):
See "RMS"
The one thing that really made me go "Ahhhh" when I was first exposed to Slackware was the fact that the packages included with Slackware are much closer (or almost identical) to what you would get if you downloaded them direct from the original maintainer (SSH, Apache, ect...).
Consequently you don't find stuff hand hacked and installed in strange places. If the man page says its in "X" location, that's where it is. Too many distros take a third party app, modify it so that the way they install it is different from what the original INSTALL file says, which makes it fustrating to troubleshoot.
(1) "Open Source" means "you can access the source code". Source code is nearly useless if all you can do is read it - you have to be able to compile it/interpret it. Do not strip out every single possible file having anything at all to do with source code. Slackware keeps the compilers and interpreters and libraries and header files and documentation needed for programming in about 15-20 different languages. You'd think that is a given - "Open Source" - "programming tools" - DUH! - but in fact, it's an exception. Damn near a freak.
(2) "Following the herd" is for lemmings. Slackware has kept it's text mode installer while the whole world has gone GUI-crazy. Listen, GUIs are a great idea when you're watching a movie or editing graphics or surfing the web - get it? That's what you need a GUI for. When all you need is to read and write text, a GUI is a useless, superfluous, wasteful, unnecessary overhead.
(3) "Popular" is for homecoming Queens. Slackware has gone halfway to divinity by ditching Gnome. Now I'd love it if it took the other step and ditched KDE, too. Check out the two-disk distro - know why you need two disks instead of one? KDE. The other window managers are any one better than Gnome and KDE combined, but if nobody ever tries them, no one else will ever know.
(4) Distributions are released on disks for a reason - to put the operating system ON THE DISKS! Not putting in a patch-work kernel that's just enough for it to wheeze it's way online and download the other 99.99% of itself. I don't know which I get more annoyed with with other distros - wasting the money to burn all those disks, or discovering I am expected to pay for another internet connection just because the system is helpless without the umbilical cord of the internet connected to it. You can take a computer, an electric generator, and your two Slackware disks to a desert island and end up with a complete system ready-to-go - and able to reproduce copies of itself if need be, thanks to those handy programming tools. I just can't figure out how Slackware does so much more on two disks than other distros do in five.
(5) Read docs - documentation good. Slackware has the full compliment of man pages, info system files, docbook, and various contents of /usr/share/doc, and in addition includes HOWTOs and FAQs from the Linux documentation project.
(6) Keep it simpler than simple. I've practically thrown up when I explore the directories of soem distros. Pointers to pointers to pointers to nothing, programs missing half the files they need to run, everything scattered to hell and gone. Then people wonder why their system can't detect it's hardware and freezes up. Slackware follows the traditional directory structure and abides by it, going by the rule that conventions form over time because they make sense, and are not to be disregarded in the pursuit of arrogantly asserting how bold and creative you are.
(7) There is no Slackware For Dummies. And well there should not be, because this distro is one that actually *compliments* your intelligence. And you'd be amazed how smart you are, when you're given the chance to be! So the package manager is minimal, and I hope it never changes. Packages are un-needed anyway, when the system can handle any source-code tarball you throw at it.
Thank you all for glancing through it. We now return you to your regular grandstanding about Photoshop, Ubuntu, and Star trek.