Why Slackware Still Matters

An anonymous reader writes "In a rebuttal to the recent opinion column "Does Slackware still matter?" at Linux Watch, cRaig Forrester provides insight into Why Slackware DOES still matter--and not just to "hard-core group of hobbyists" or "highly professional" Linux server administrators--but desktop users and newcomers too."

Comments

A number of years ago

[Namronorman]

I used to use Slackware, and I'd imagine it hasn't changed that much since then. Granted it was fun while it lasted, I think it was too high caliber for me. When I finally switched to using distros with package management, everything felt alien. Recently I've been using Ubuntu though which I'd like to say is absolutely amazing so far.

Re:A number of years ago

[phantomfive]

Slackware has package management. If you read either of the articles, you would have noticed that. In addition, you can choose between package managers. From the article:

On Slackware, you have a choice of package managers! Swaret? Slapt-get? SlackUpdate? Take your pick! In fact, I would venture to guess that given its agnostic design, more packages are installable on Slackware than any other distribution.

Personally, I like Slackware because it is clean, simple (once you understand it), and easy to administer. With Slackware, I can understand everything going on in my computer, and that makes me feel happy.

Re:A number of years ago

[JPriest]

I tried Ubuntu also, but I found that it was just too difficult to install software. There is limited community support with sites like ubuntuguide.org but the descriptions on that site are just too difficult to follow for me. The other thing I really hated about it were the overly bright colors and useless eye candy, it gives me a head ache. I with I could change it to something a little more earthy and easy on the eyes. It is out of my price range.

Re:A number of years ago

[BrokenHalo]

Slackware has package management.

It does. It's along the lines of

./configure --prefix=/usr/local && make && make install

Re:Slackware is the best

[Anonymous Coward]

easy to customize using vim

Come again?

Slackware? I'm still using SLS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't hear about this newbie distro "Slackware" since I'm using SLS and I'm happy with my kernel v0.97.1 (a.out)
I guess I'll look into upgrading.
I still need to have a "boot" floppy and a "root" floppy for my system to IPL, right?

It's a good first distro

[kavachameleon]

Slackware was my very first distro. After Slack, I tried suse and mandrake, but found that when I had problems with using the GUI or configuration tools, that the experience I had gained in Slack was my most useful tool in solving the problems. No, I'm no Linux guru. I use XP on my box for various reasons: particular software availability being the primary reason, and ease-of-use quite honestly being the second. I just don't have time to learn a new OS as well as I know Windows. I use the tool that works best for my situation. Frequently, this means OSS. Sometimes, it means Microsoft. Oh well. But anyway, just gauging from my own experience, Slackware definitely has a place, even for new Linux users.

Re:It's a good first distro

[garcia]

It's a "good first distro" like DOS was a good first OS. I don't mean that in a good or bad way. It's just the way you may approach and then grow while using any OS.

With DOS/Slackware you have to actually know some structure, commands, and have a bit of basic knowledge to do anything more than whatever the base install can do. Sure, plenty of people can use Slackware, type startx, and use a window manager just like you could have typed "win" when you booted your DOS OS and gotten to the same thing.

Slackware was my first Linux distro and I learned a ton from it. I learned how to compile my own kernels (after screwing them up 100s of times), how to make sure my system stayed in order, and how to edit my own .conf files. DOS taught me quite a bit of the same stuff.

I run Debian now (after trying various other distros but mainly RH 5.1, 5.2 and 6.0) and with the knowledgebase I gained over the years running Slackware I'm comfortable using maintained packages while still being able to know what the fuck is going on in my system.

Problem is that people don't typically want to "learn" how to "properly" use their OS. They want to turn on the machine and surf the web. That's fine. Slackware is not all that great for that. I would recommend something more modern for that type of user.

So, if you're looking to actually *learn* about Linux, use Slackware first for a couple months and then switch to something else that's fancier... If you're looking to use Linux to replace your XP experience and you don't want to fuck around with a bunch of work, use something modern right off.

Re:It's a good first distro

[Hatta]

It does encourage you to learn a lot, but in that you're going to scare a lot of new users off. The attitude of slackware is really well described in the article:

Alan Canton simply took nearly 500 words to express what could have been summarized in one sentence: "Linux, as an operating system, is too complex for me."

Slackware users seem to have this odd puritanical notion that makeing things hard on yourself is a good thing. That somehow they're better people because they can make Slackware work. In my opinion, anything that can be automated should be automated. That's what computers are for! It's not necessarily that anything debian does for you is complex, it's just tedious. What's the benefit of doing all that extra work?

Also, it's worth pointing out that in your case using slackware as a first distro lead you to not choose it as a primary desktop OS. Had you tried something better you might still be with linux.

Gentoo

[jimmyhat3939]

I was under the impression that Gentoo had gotten a lot of the users who want the level of deep control and configurability that this article is associating with Slackware.

I don't think most people would agree with the following: "So, does Slackware matter? Simply put, YES. Slackware matters because Slackware IS Linux." The reality is that many people who are experimenting with Linux for the first time now use Fedora or Ubuntu.

I will say this though. I definitely harbor fond memories of using Slackware from 1995. I remember vividly those Boot and Root 1.44MB floppies and trying to install from their extremely early packaging system. Ah the memories...
--
Free 411! 1-800-411-SAVE

Re:Gentoo

[CSGeekPyro]

Gentoo got me!

I started with running linux "for real" (that is, outside of a VM, as a real, permanent OS on my box) with RH6 way back when. I stayed with RH until the great "piss of everyone with [gnome+kde=bluecurve]" scandal...they still have me drawing a blank on how THAT math works...anyway, after that, I was having to have so much junk on my system to do basic things with it without waiting forever for apps to load.

After RH did this mess, I went to mandrake linux, but wasn't happy there either: it has almost the same level of bloat. And RPM hell. Don't get me started on that -- I've spent hours fixing rpm dep problems after deciding to try the "development" yum repos on FCx boxen. Why there can't be a "yum downgrade" option...

After 2 months with Mandrake (I give every distro at least 2 months to learn it's idiosyncrasies before I toss it out of rage or sheer disgust) I tried slackware. It wasn't as shiny as the other previous distros I'd tried, but I figured what the hell and got it up and running. After a week and a half of my slack box up and running, a friend of mine asked me to help fix his gentoo system. He gave me root on his box because he was about to reformat it anyway. The machine was on it's last leg -- the entire HD was such a mess that I told him to back the machine up and we'll reinstall it. I tried to talk him into FC2 (at the time) but he persisted in Gentoo. I thought he was off his nut until I actually installed it. I've been a gentoo user since then and never looked back.

I have one FC4 box that I use for my router at home, which is only that way because I need fast updates without too much risk of things breaking. Since the system doesn't have X on it, it doesn't seem to have any problems with RPM's with the exception of openssl being the breaking point for just about every pkg on the system.

Otherwise, my amd64 desktop, my HTPC box, my #2 computer at work, and my Dell Inspiron 5150 all run Gentoo exclusively. I even have an iPaq running familiar+GPE that talks to all my boxen without any problems :). The laptop is a slight exception: it has vmware on it to run windows when some jerkwad just HAS to give me code in one of those .HELL languages with LoseForms that Mono+GTK# can't work well with. I think it's a bit of irony that I went from a windows user with linux in vm's to the exact opposite.

Re:Gentoo

[Orgasmatron]

Quote:

I don't think most people would agree with the following: "So, does Slackware matter? Simply put, YES. Slackware matters because Slackware IS Linux." The reality is that many people who are experimenting with Linux for the first time now use Fedora or Ubuntu.

I think you may have missed the point of that quote that you used. When he says "Slackware IS Linux", he doesn't mean that Slackware is the biggest, or most used, or whatever distribution around. Instead he is saying that it is plain; raw.

When you master running a Slackware box, you've learned UNIX. When you master running a Fedora box (to pick one example at random), you've learned how to use Fedora's tools.

Reading good

[PetriBORG]

I don't know abotu anybody else, but when I first read this headline I read "Why Slackers Still Matter" to which I thought to myself, "Of course Perl programmers still matter!"

In all seriousness though, I will always feel that Slackware (and others like Gentoo, or home-rolled linux) will matter because installing and using these sorts of distros really do give you an understanding into how Linux works(tm), and maybe more importantly, how to change how it does something. You can't make improvements to something as complicated as Linux without first understanding how it works.

New Slackware user

[MaelstromX]

Throw me in the "newcomer" camp.

As it happens I just installed Slackware on an old PC I had lying around. Though I had installed and used other distributions before my experience with them was quite limited and I've been mostly a Windows user.

I chose Slackware merely because it was the easiest to acquire. They offer the torrents right from the official website and they're always well-seeded. I got both CD's in what seemed like no time at all.

After about a week of usage, it's been holding up fairly well, even with the ancient specs my old PC has. It was even able to support a wireless adapter I stuck in there after I installed madwifi. However I definitely needed a lot of outside help in accomplishing that task, and overall though I was able to get it installed and running fine, a total newbie would have gotten nowhere. If Slackware wants to appeal to that demographic at all (which it very well may not) it needs to fix that.

It matters to me

[Lispy]

As an admin of a dozen of boxes that handle almost anything from webserver, Tomcat/SQL Server to mail/OpenXchange Server and since last weekend a Samba Domaincontroller to name a few, I must say I am the most happy Slackware User in the world.

Stability, flexibility and sanity are the main reasons for me to use Slack.

Personally I like my uptime in the three digits and a straightforward configuration. This is where Slack delivers for me. Combined with Dropline Gnome it also makes the most lovely Desktop box. ;)

Keep slackin, Pat!

Slackware matters because...

[chipster]

• It's quick and easy to install - even for someone who has never installed it before (folks tend to judge Slackware by it's dialog`-based installer right off the bat)
• Slackware's simple package manager is exactly that - simple (and portable)
• Longevity and survival (and Slackware has been, and will be around for a very long time - believe me)
• Light on the patches (Slackware has a philosiphy to keep the packaged software as pristine as possible)
• Small footprint if you don't need the graphical stuff
• Slackware is always on top of security
• Unique, controlled development model which fosters stability (some could argue it's a bad model, but she's still purring!)

I could go on.

Slackware is simpler

[wbhauck]

In my opinion, many things are simpler in Slackware. Since there are no (or very few) GUIs to use to administer your machine you can go right to the configs and make things the way you want. Red Hat, like Microsoft, hides the configs behind layers and layers of GUIs. It also doesn't seem to do things in a standard way. (I ran RH from 4.2 to 7.2)

I'm a geek so my opinion might be skewed toward text-based configs, programs, etc. But then again, /. is for geeks. I run Slackware 10.2 on my Dell Inspiron 5100 with everything working, even suspend--the wireless doesn't restore, though.

Just a disclaimer, I started with Slackware. I ran it for three years before switching to Red Hat 4.2. I stayed with RH through 7.2. I did it mainly because the company i worked for used RH. I switched back to Slackware in late 2003.

Bottom line: Slackware is very fast, very stable, and very useful. What more could I want?

Re:Well, I am still using Arch Linux

[Homology]

which is based on slackware. Aren't here a bunch of other awesome distro's, besides slackware itself, that are based on slackware?

You don't get it. It's all about some clueless individual writing some uninformed inflammatory comments, with slashdot blessing. The name of the game is "Ad money".

Why Slackware

[everphilski]

Slackware doesn't suffer from all the bloat the "other distros" seem to suffer from. From the simple but sufficient text installer, to just the right number of packages - its not bloatware. They also tend to stay a step or two behind the other distos with respect to upgrading libraries and such so your applications tend not to break as often...

Besides, what other distro has aSmoking Tux Logo?

-everphilski-

Package management!

[snark23]

It's all about package management. Slackware has long since been replaced as the hobbyist distro-of-choice by Debian and Gentoo, and the casual users who simply want a "basic distribution that works" have turned to Ubuntu, Fedora, Knoppix, etc. Slackware has not evolved.

My roommate, I suspect, is the typical Slackware user... using it because it's what he was using in the 90's, when he chose Slackware for its laid-back, non-commercial attitude and for its geek-chic. More power to him, but I think that the newbie-hobbyists of today are not choosing Slackware as their first distribution crush... it simply doesn't offer the compelling technical advantages of Gentoo or Debian.

(note that the author of the linked article doesn't even mention Gentoo... -1 credibility...)

I mean this in the nicest way, but...

[devphaeton]

....slackware does matter. I am seeing a trend of ppl who try out linux first with either Mandrake or Fedora core. Nothing wrong with that, but as n00bs the do the usual thing such as install everything and turn everything on. Nothing wrong with that either-

-however-

Instead of going the classic route of tuning a 'big' or 'bloated' installation to fit their needs, they seem to be tossing it all aside and jumping on the Gentoo bandwagon. Not a bad thing in itself, but by comparison Gentoo will *seem* faster to them because the only experience they had was their Mandrake box running KDE, Apache, Samba, et all and having all these background services running. It perpetuates the Gentoo Myth and creates some zealotry. (or maybe the zealotry is unavoidable regardless, i dunno).

Very "straight forward" distros like slackware and debian will always have a place for advanced users to build the linux they need. It also serves as a good demonstration that the benefits of linux aren't unique to Gentoo. Whether Gentoo's model is good or bad is up for debate, but it is good to have different philosophies and different development strategies.

Besides, Slackware is classic.

Rules for Me, Rules for You.

[Franciscan]

I've noticed that a lot of tech pseudo-journalism boils down to the following:

(1) I like technology X, Y and Z.

(2) I don't like technology A, B, and C.

(3) A,B, and C shouldn't exist, because by existing, they distract people who don't know they really shouldn't like A,B, and C, and if I could just force them to see things my way, they'd do as I do.
I find it amazing that people bother reading the original article, to which this article responds, and dignify it by any response at all. Slackware will exist as long as at least one slackware developer/maintainer finds it useful, pleasant, or in some way desires for it to continue to exist, and thus Slackware, or something very like it, is likely to continue to exist. It's the oldest surviving linux distribution, with a longer history that even RedHat or Debian, if I remember correctly.
I'm a Debian fan. I like their packaging, I like their stable/unstable/testing partitioning. I like the community and the debian process. That doesn't mean I feel any need to impugn the Fedora/RedHat fans, or the Slackware, or any other Linux distro fans. Guess what guys, it's splitting hairs. I have compiled thousands of tar.gz (tarballs) containing thousands of software packages, on over 100 different versions of over 20 different distributions, and the differences are so vanishingly small, compared to amount of things that are the same, that any kind of "my distribution is better than your distribution" discussion ends up mostly moot. If Ubuntu has some better feature than basic Debian, or if Slackware people invent something neat, chances are most of the rest of the Linux world will borrow, adapt, and absorb whatever they can into the environment they prefer.
These people who claim it should be otherwise should go to Apple, or Microsoft, and say, "here's my money, now control everything and make it uniform, and make sure everybody does things the same way, all the time". Those who are attempting to do this in the Free Software World, suggesting that something is irrelevant, dead, unimportant, or detrimental to the free software world, because it exists, are idiots. Ignore them.
If technology really has become irrelevant, it requires no commentary to establish it. Anybody remember Yggdrasil Linux? I can now dare to say that Yggdrasil Linux is probably pretty close to dead. Anyone want to disagree with me?
Regards,
Warren/Franciscan

Two points, really quickly...

[Noryungi]

1. "Alan Canton" is a very well known Usenet troll, who regularly spews nonsense in alt.os.linux.slackware. He seems to think that Slackware is going to die out, because of dwindling market share. Reasoning with him is a waste of time (I know, I have tried).
    
   AFAIK, He seems to think that, because he is some sort of entrepreneur, Patrick Volkerding should abase himself in front of his intelligence and follow his every advice. Since Patrick Volkerding avoids this Usenet newsgroup like the plague, Alan Canton is very unhappy and disses him, and his distro, every chance he gets. In short, he behaves in a very unprofessional and immature manner, criticizing and belittling everyone who disagrees with him.
    
2. As a simple rebuttal, I am currently working as a system administrator for a small company, managing 16+ servers, almost all of them running Slackware -- from an ancient 7.0 machine, all the way to the latest 10.2 distribution. I could not be happier! Slackware is simple, light and powerful, which makes it ideal for most uses. Even at home, I use Slackware, and I am using it right now to type this message under Firefox.

As an aside, if you haven't tried Slackware, give it a spin. Its simplicity and power are enough to shame many other well-established distribution...

I use Slackware...

[TCM]

I use Slackware tarballs to extract libs needed for Linux compatibility on NetBSD. This way I don't need to install a full-blown Linux tree including rpm tools when I just need some library.

Yay for .tar.gz!

Re:Well, I am still using Arch Linux

[G-Licious!]

Quote from Arch's wiki:

Arch Linux is descended from Crux.

Does it really?

[goofyheadedpunk]

I'd planned to submit an Ask Slashdot about the article this one rebutts, but decided that it was really too childish to spend any time one. I suppose that since it's come up now I can go ahead and ask.

Does Slackware really still matter? The author of this article seems to think so, but he also doesn't seem to be the most partial. So, what do you guys think? (No need to be partial, but it sure would help.)

Slack is easier

[blindbat]

I find Slackware the easiest distro. I use it on servers, desktops, and laptops. Granted, I came to Linux from FreeBSD so I had no fear of text files. Doing everything in a GUI can only take you so far, especially when the GUI tools do not fix the problem. I find it is also the easiest install for selecting what you want and do not want based upon what you intend to do with the computer. I also tend to be very eclectic in the software that I run. I like to pick and choose the best file manager, text editor, etc. for the job. I use fvwm for my window manager. I use Linux because it affords the best choices. I try to get new Linux users to try Slackware because once they understand how to do things they learn that they can do almost anything with their computers. I have heard of people that use Linux for a year and still don't know how to do anything with it because they are limited to what they can point and click in the default menu.

Re:Slackware? I'm still using SLS!

[tchuladdiass]

You do realize that you can use rdev to set the root filesystem on your kernel, don't you? That way, you can copy your "root" floppy contents to a hard drive partition, stick your boot disk in the drive, and "rdev /dev/fd0 /dev/hda1". Now, next time you boot from that floppy, it will mount your hard drive partition as it's root filesystem.
(ok, I'm really showing my age here :-)

Re:Slackware is the best

[Shakrai]

Slackware was the first distro I was successful using (had trouble making SLS work) and despite trying 'the big three' (Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake) over the years, I'm still a dedicated Slackware user

I recall once upon a time when Slackware was considered part of the 'big three', which also included Red hat and Debian. In fact my introduction to Linux came in the form of a $3.99 CD that I purchased that included all three of those distros. Back then they were all small enough to fit on a single CD -- yet large enough that I didn't feel like downloading any one of them on my v.34+ modem :)

I installed Slackware and never looked back. The few times I've tried forks of the others (tried Conectiva once, Stampede while it lasted, and Fedora) it seems too alien to me. A lot of the fun stuff is hidden behind package managers and I always thought that the boot script layout was a little over complicated.

To each their own.

SuSE and Ubuntu wouldn't install, enter Slack

[kronocide]

Ubuntu froze during the disk partitioning program on my PIII 700MHz, 64MB Thinkpad. SuSE spelled it right out, "You have too little memory to run the installation program, please activate a swap partition." (Sure, if you would just let me run fdisk!) Slackware installs and runs without a hitch. Slack matters to me.

Re:Slackware is the best

[quarkscat]

I have to add my kudos to Slackware also.

While it does not use a slick GUI for installation, and (arguably) does not have the "latest-and-greatest" package manager, it does have A LOT going for it. It installs cleanly. It puts packages where the originators expects them to be -- this means that I can download a source tarball, build it, and have it actually work. I can download the latest kernel directly from "www.kernel.org" and build it without it borking my system. There are no surprises with weird directory structures from one release to the next, and there is no "backporting and patching" shenannigans that have me waiting for the next official (distribution) kernel release. If there were ANY linux distribution that were to be elevated to be the model for "Standard Linux", Slackware would take my vote without question.

Slackware is the only distribution that I have tried that I could support SCSI||IDE and RAID and XFS using the 2.6 kernel without scrounging around on the net for patches and missing libraries. It just works.

There are also unofficial ports in ISO format for the UltraSPARC, the Mac PPC, and a real 64-bit version for AMD-64.

Re:Hell Yeah Slackware Matters

[JamaisVu]

I totally agree with you. I've always been wary of RPMs, probably due to the same ignorance that people claim that slackware either doesn't have or has inferior package management. There have been situations where my RPM database said that an RPM wasn't installed but it was, and I didn't have the patience to sort it out. Also, the RPM dependencies insistence, only defeatable with --nodeps (which maybe caused my RPM db issue) always interferes with a project. Slackware now has slapt, although one can easily do an upgradepkg ./* from a directory of packages. The dropline and freerock management systems make keeping your windowing system up to date a breeze.

And most importantly, Slackware has actually prompted me to _understand_ what all the bits are for. I have an edge now, because I never started with magical RPMs or a magical up2date (although those tools are available now in various carnations for both RPM and tgz packages). I still recommend slackware to people who want to learn about linux.

It's also considered a conservative distribution, which tends to mean it will stay with a stable version for longer before upgrading. That's official though. You can always compile your own from source and then CREATE a package.

There are great home-made packages available from www.linux-packages.net and various other sites.

I love slackware, and hope Pat's healthy and having a good time.

Yeah!

Dead distros

[massysett]

Yggdrasil, Stampede...does anyone out there have a list of dead distros? It would be interesting to know why each of them died.

Looks like Slack is outlasting many a distro. If Slack weren't important, this guy wouldn't be writing an article about why it's not important. Long live Slack.