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Slackware 12.2 Released

pilsner.urquell submitted a quote from the announcement saying "Well folks, it's that time to announce a new stable Slackware release again. So, without further ado, announcing Slackware version 12.2! Since we've moved to supporting the 2.6 kernel series exclusively (and fine-tuned the system to get the most out of it), we feel that Slackware 12.2 has many improvements over our last release (Slackware 12.1) and is a must-have upgrade for any Slackware user."

351 comments

  1. Great work! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure both of you still using Slackware will be very pleased! ;)

    1. Re:Great work! by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm sure both of you still using Slackware will be very pleased! ;)

      There's somebody else? ;)

    2. Re:Great work! by TheSovereign · · Score: 5, Funny

      i still use Slackware and i still find it superior to any Distro out their.

    3. Re:Great work! by adamjaskie · · Score: 5, Funny

      We can make it if we try, building castles in the sky; just the two of us, you and I.

      --
      /usr/games/fortune
    4. Re:Great work! by hitest · · Score: 0, Redundant

      "I'm sure both of you still using Slackware will be very pleased! ;)"
      LMAO, funny stuff:-) Congratulations, Mr. V! I've been Slacking since 10.0:-)

    5. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You might be surprised how many people use this easy to re-configure distribution.

      I came to slackware seeking a clean and simple distro (10 yrs ago now)! I was in the middle of building a custom diskless cluster for CFD and grew tired of Redhat's complex init scripts made even more so by the need to Guify everything.

      My only complaint is that there is no (official) slackware 64bit build. If this does not change soon, I will be forced to move on....sadly.

    6. Re:Great work! by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

      Ha ha, yeah! Unh! Unh!

      (with apologies to Will Smith and Lionel Ritchie.)

      --
      You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    7. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Which raises the question, out their what?

    8. Re:Great work! by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      Shhh! Dont tell anyone! I'll lose my street Cred if they find out I'm using slackware!

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    9. Re:Great work! by stuntpope · · Score: 1

      I'm sure I will be.

    10. Re:Great work! by 222 · · Score: 1

      Ha : P

      I dual boot Ubuntu and Windows at home, but my firewall still runs Slackware. (It's an old 233 Mhz HP PC!) The choice of Slackware wasn't anything zealous, it was simply the distro with which I was most familiar at the time. I love Ubuntu, but Slackware has a certain elegance that's hard to find. Considering I built the box around 6-7 years ago and it's still chugging away just fine, I'd imagine they're doing something right.

      On a side note, is it just me or is Slackware one of the most source friendly distros out there? I've been using Linux for a pretty good while now, and I've had the least trouble building stuff under Slackware.

    11. Re:Great work! by cab15625 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I know it's not "official" (in that it is not overseen by Pat) but slamd64 runs quite nicely. I've been running it for almost a year now on a core2 system with almost the same ease as official slackware on older systems. Just in case anyone is looking for 64 bit slack.

      Now if only I could get an install that works easily on my PS3.

    12. Re:Great work! by cab15625 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually, you will strike fear and awe into the hearts of all those redhat (linux equiv of gingers in southpark?) and ubuntu users. Telling people you use Slackware even makes gentoo users gasp in amazement. By using Slack, everyone around you will know that your kung-fu is the best kung-fu.

    13. Re:Great work! by Zashi · · Score: 1

      It's because pat throws in everything 'cept gnome and the kitchen sink. Yeah, I too have found building under slackware a breeze compared to some distros. I used lunar linux for a while, but I got tired of the problems that arise when you're on the bleeding edge. So back to slack I went. For those of you who like slack, but want a little more eye-candy and dependency handling, I recommend kateOS. It's basically enhanced slackware.

      --
      Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
    14. Re:Great work! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      By using Slack, everyone around you will know that your kung-fu is the best kung-fu.

      Actually, everyone around knows that your Slack kung-fu still can't beat my LFS karate, punk.

    15. Re:Great work! by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      I use Slackware your insensitive cloud! :)

      (At work and at home)

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    16. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My only complaint is that there is no (official) slackware 64bit build. If this does not change soon, I will be forced to move on....sadly.

      Meh.. I've been getting along so far with PAE on the desktop. Yeah, I know there's overhead, but with a modern multicore processor I don't care.

    17. Re:Great work! by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      We can make it if we try, building castles in the sky; just the two of us, you and I.

      Please tell me that I'm not the only one that first thought of Verne Troyer

    18. Re:Great work! by Bandman · · Score: 1

      Seconded

    19. Re:Great work! by jonaskoelker · · Score: 5, Informative

      By using Slack, everyone around you will know that your kung-fu is the best kung-fu.

      Using Srack gives not the kung-fu. Disciprine... come from within.

    20. Re:Great work! by Bandman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Judge me by my distro do you?

      My Ubuntu on the desk and CentOS in the server rack don't tell you that I ran Slack for 10 years while you were still trying to figure out how to make the magic black screen go away ;-)

      hrmph.

    21. Re:Great work! by mrdoogee · · Score: 1

      Nah, the community saves all of its elitism for Ubuntu users now.

    22. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      as do i. out there anyway. hardcore linux kids run slackware. by the sweat of my brow, rock solid, and develops a keen and deep understanding of how linux works.

      slackware was my first distro, and one i always come back to, and i credit am a better sys engineer because of it.

      when people ask me how to "learn linux" i tell them to go back to 1996 and run slackware.

      ubuntu and the other desktop targeted distros make linux desktop users, and i love them.

      slackware makes linux geeks, and systems admins, and i love it more.

    23. Re:Great work! by H0p313ss · · Score: 3, Funny

      By using Slack, everyone around you will know that your kung-fu is the best kung-fu.

      Using Srack gives not the kung-fu. Disciprine... come from within.

      This one has grasped the Tao of Linux, pray that we do not grow to fear him in time.

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    24. Re:Great work! by Hordeking · · Score: 1

      I'm sure both of you

      Fuck, I thought I was the only one using slack anymore. Let's have a Slack-Con. I'll bring the paper plates, someone else can bring the chips, macaroni, keg, and beer bong.

      --
      Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
    25. Re:Great work! by agrounds · · Score: 1

      On a side note, is it just me or is Slackware one of the most source friendly distros out there? I've been using Linux for a pretty good while now, and I've had the least trouble building stuff under Slackware.

      It's not you. It really is easier. The file layout is cleaner and the libraries are in the correct place. I started using slack in the late 90s and still have a laptop at the house running it. I have never found a better system for development or custom source builds. Gentoo was close (before I gave up on it), but never quite as clean and streamlined as slack.

      The only real addition that I have to go out of my for on any slack install is Dropline. I just can't get past how butt-ugly KDE was/is. I never could stand it.

    26. Re:Great work! by Arthur+Dent · · Score: 4, Funny

      At least, he didn't accidentally the whole one.

    27. Re:Great work! by Bandman · · Score: 1

      I think we have much in common.

    28. Re:Great work! by spiderbitendeath · · Score: 1

      I've been using Slackware since version 4. Everytime someone tells me they want to learn Linux I pull out my Slackware discs.

      --
      Sometimes when I'm working on projects things disappear, I suspect gremlins.
    29. Re:Great work! by Leebert · · Score: 1

      You laugh, but Slackware helped get me my current job, nearly 8 years ago.

      At the interview, I mentioned I used Slackware at home, and was thinking of switching to Debian.

      I said this to someone who is, unbeknown to me at the time, a Debian developer.

      He later told me that the fact that I used Slackware was part of why I was chosen over the alternate.

      I'm sure the Debian comment didn't hurt. :)

    30. Re:Great work! by Windows_NT · · Score: 1

      I bet 90% percent (if not more) of source project i build, work in Slackware .. maybe thats cuz i do a full install :)

      --
      Go go Gadget Nailgun!
    31. Re:Great work! by frosty_tsm · · Score: 1

      There was me until about a month ago. :-)

    32. Re:Great work! by khellendros1984 · · Score: 1

      My first Linux distro was in 2001 or 2002. Mandrake. I played with it for a while, but some of my hardware didn't work out of the box, I didn't know how to fix it, and all the automated scripts made it worse. Exact same problem when I tried Red Hat. Fast forward to 2003, when I entered college...and my neighbor in the dorms introduced me to Slackware. I ran it for the next two years, and it was an *awesome* basis for my Linux knowledge.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    33. Re:Great work! by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1

      Actually, you will strike fear and awe into the hearts of all those redhat (linux equiv of gingers in southpark?) and ubuntu users. Telling people you use Slackware even makes gentoo users gasp in amazement. By using Slack, everyone around you will know that your kung-fu is the best kung-fu.

      It's funny, and maybe because Slack is the only distro I've ever used by choice, but when forced to use RedSplat it makes my brain cry. Slack's so easy, you know exactly what config files control what, couldn't be easier. I'm not complaining that it strikes shock and awe into people when you mention you use Slack, but I'm not sure it's deserved.

      My only gripe is that when attempting to compile yer own kernel, they don't ship with a kernel config with sane things enabled by default. Sometimes it's a bitch to figure out what kernel flags need to be set (for things like SATA drives, for instance) but that's more of a Linux gripe in general.

    34. Re:Great work! by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Yea, slamd64 is as close to 'official' as it's going to get. Good support too! Heck, I've been helped by Fred directly in IRC! (the guy who runs slamd64)

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    35. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, just schizophrenia

    36. Re:Great work! by DamnStupidElf · · Score: 1

      I've had good luck with slamd64 as well. It runs on a couple of boxes at home and my main box at work, and I haven't had any problems with it. The most annoying thing is that Firefox doesn't release 64 bit packages.

      Installing the official Slackware packages for 32-bit compatibility has worked very well for me if slamd64 doesn't have a 32 bit version of a library for some reason, and I can just run the 32-bit version of Firefox until slamd64 puts a new version out.

    37. Re:Great work! by Evil+Pete · · Score: 1

      Of the distros I have tried Slackware is still the one I find a pleasure to admin. A couple of years back I moved on to Debian, not because it is better but because I cannot trust a distro that relies on one human being. However, Slack is very impressive. Easy to configure, ie it has a logical and easy to understand config scripts etc ... some distros (yeah RedHat, I'm looking at you) are hopeless. In fact it is an ideal distro to learn Linux on. In comparison Debian is good but not as good as Slack. Redhat ... have I said how much I hate Redhat ...

      --
      Bitter and proud of it.
    38. Re:Great work! by mazarin5 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Accidentally what?

      --
      Fnord.
    39. Re:Great work! by Shikaku · · Score: 4, Funny

      The whole one.

    40. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      using linux from scratch is the best kung-fu.

    41. Re:Great work! by rhomp2002 · · Score: 1

      There is also BlueWhite64 which is another Slackware based 64-bit system that works very well. I have been running it now for almost a year and find it very satisfactory. Excellent performance and the people behind it really are very responsive to any questions you might have. I highly recommend it. Best 64-bit distro I have tried yet.

    42. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can second the slam64 slackware. I am running it on my wife and daughters computer and on my laptop. In all cases its was a painless install. I updated the kernal on the laptop recently for wireless support. Uptimes well into the 4+ months (power cuts due to a faulty breaker)

      The only time i have had a issue was with the SDL 32 bit compatibility libs. Something was not quite right with the original install, but this only affected 32bit compiling and was easly fixed.

    43. Re:Great work! by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 1

      Slackware..... Gentoo.....!

      It's LFS (Linux From Scratch) or nothing for me ....

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    44. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I abandonded slack for debian over a decade ago... Back in the day there wasn't much friendliness about slack at all, so I can't comment on slack's source friendliness. I can give you my debian source experiences to compare though.

      Debian offers source for all its packages, so just using "apt-get source <package>" would get the source package and debian diffs. I never use that. If software is available in a binary package I will just apt-get it, if I want to compile from source it's probably because I want some (version of) software not offered by the Debian packages.

      I've compiled all kinds of apps from source be it in c, c++, ocaml or python... the only thing I've ran into are missing libraries. So I apt-get the lib<..>-dev and try again until it works ;-) Sometimes I don't know what dev lib package it needs and I need to search the packages for the file configure complains about. Apt-cache search to the rescue, or often just this debian page

      It might be worth noting that I always chose to do a minimum install and add things when I need them. I'm pretty sure the installation offers a development task you can add so you won't need to apt-get many dev libraries, if any at all.

      All these comments about slack srsly make me want to see what's become of it... Good thing I'm getting a new machine with 4GB of ram this week *cheer*... good ole slack's gonna be the first install in my new virtualization playground.... :)

    45. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Say, whatever happened to the guy with the sig: "Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Slackware is too hard for me"?

    46. Re:Great work! by Nesman64 · · Score: 1

      Version 4? You've got me beat. I started at 6. ;) It was super secret. Not everybody could download it.

      --
      coffee | nose > keyboard
    47. Re:Great work! by mweep · · Score: 1

      Screw this flame...Pat Volkerding created a helluva distro, thats still being used today by those of us with the balls to say "Screw X"! Its more Berkeley-like .rc layout, cpio-inspired package installer, and easy compile features make it, along with Free/Net/OpenBSD, and possibly Solaris, the choice of true UNIX jocks everywhere...Debian used to be in my list, too, but they, along with SuSe and Fedora, have caved in to the whining, puling wanna-bes who are afraid to get their hands wet with bash or zsh, and hang to the GUI like a baby to it's mommys breast.

      --
      mweep:the sound made by the system bell on a SPARC workstation.
    48. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      me!

    49. Re:Great work! by bigredradio · · Score: 1

      So you have enough processing load that you need over 4GB of ram?

    50. Re:Great work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      funny madafakazzz :D

  2. Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They'll be more pleased than all the rugged individualists using Ubuntu.

    1. Re:Ha! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The rugged individualists all left Slackware and went to Gentoo. After the fighting got out of hand, those that didn't move off to one of the Gentoo forks went to one of the BSDs.

      The rest of us got sick of spending most of our waiting for our system software and applications to compile and moved Debian. Some of us got sick of Debian's lack of polish and went to Ubuntu. Probably a few went back to Slackware.

      In the meantime, predictably so, a bunch of n00bs started using Ubuntu mostly because we told them it was a good idea. Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc.

      Personally, I'm getting sick of the whole mess. Slackware is looking cooler by the minute... ;)

    2. Re:Ha! by adamjaskie · · Score: 1

      I stuck with it. Mostly because it works for me and I haven't seen a need to change. Switched to Slackware because Mandrake 7.1 sucked.

      --
      /usr/games/fortune
    3. Re:Ha! by Bandman · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Ubuntu ate my computer" is a great phrase. I've got to figure out how to work it into daily conversation ;-)

    4. Re:Ha! by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In the meantime, predictably so, a bunch of n00bs started using Ubuntu mostly because we told them it was a good idea. Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc.

      Well yes, because the Linux zealots discredit or moderate down any part that states that Ubuntu isn't as user friendly as Mac OS X in any area. So when a person who wants to, or forced (via system crash and lost CD's or key) to get off Windows they read up and see oh Ubuntu is the second coming of Jesus. Install it and shortly after using the basic features (Grandma Level computing) they find they hit a wall where they need some more expert level to do things that in other OS's were either automatic or a right click away.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:Ha! by FictionPimp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My solution. Use ubuntu, ignore the forums. File bug reports and use man pages. WHy bother even reading the noob posts.

    6. Re:Ha! by FictionPimp · · Score: 1

      Such as? Can you give me a few examples in ubuntu 8.10 that require expert level of skill that an average computer user would want to do and would be able to do on windows or mac?

    7. Re:Ha! by caution+live+frogs · · Score: 1

      First Linux distro I tried for my own box was Slackware 9, and I did it on purpose after installing a RedHat build for a server I had been asked to maintain. I wanted to run Slack on my own box because I felt it would make me learn more about Linux than RedHat did.

      I stuck with it through Slack 11, and it was a pain in the ass - my beat-up crusty Dell PowerEdge server gave me fits trying to install, because it would boot from the CD-ROM and start the installer, but the install program wouldn't mount the CD it was running from to finish installing after launch... talk about a WTF. It took me forever to figure out a workaround, and every upgrade I dealt with the same issues.

      I finally said to hell with it, installed Ubuntu Server and haven't had an issue with the machine since. I admit it was painful to dump the work I'd put into making Slackware work on that computer, but not as painful as keeping it working.

    8. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc.

      Have you looked recently?
      After running RH9, Fedora 2/4/6/8 and now Ubuntu (because it really does 'just work' on my hardware) over the years I decided a few weeks ago to try to 'give something back' by answering 'n00b' questions on the Ubuntu forums. They seemed remarkably free of the sort of thing you mention and generally quite intelligent.

    9. Re:Ha! by deroby · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One simple example would be : getting the hardware to work. Followed closely by getting the wifi to work.
      Ubuntu is getting much more user-friendly with every incarnation, but it still has a rather long way to go before it will reach the ease-of-use of a recent Windows platform IMHO.

      Seriously, I like Ubuntu and I have 2 portables running myself + have put it on my mom's computer since she wanted a localized OS. The personal ones are for me playing around with it a bit since I'm curious what's all the fuss about. The other one is in use by my toddler-girl who enjoys to play GCompris on it or watch some DVD-rips of Dora The explorer on it. My moms is being used solely for a bit of mailing (Thunderbird) and browsing (Firefox).

      In the old days, those 3 computers (all dell portables btw) ran Windows2000 Professional. Setup was simple : put in Wind2k cd in the tray, startup, go through the setup, download the driver installations from Dell and run those too. At worst you had to fiddle around a bit with tcp settings. After that the system was up and running and I'd lost half a day at most per machine... (format + setup + setting up mail accounts etc takes a bit of time).

      Getting Ubuntu running on them has been a hassle for all 3 of them.

      * getting video running has been HELL : with only 1 out of 3 I managed to get the nvidia blob to run after reading days and days of forums, trying out every single trick they propose. The two others still run in 'software' mode, which is fine for firefox/thunderbird or GCompris (more or less), but has cost me several days trying anyway.
      * wifi wasn't always (properlty) recognized : pcmcia went mostly fine, usb was hell. Finally got it working via ndiswrapper
      * each time there is an upGRade something breaks and I'm back in the 'problem-chasing' game =(

      As a side-note : people always complain about Windows Update pushing lots of bytes, but boy oh boy, same is true for ubuntu IMHO. Not that I find that a bad thing per-se, but then again, stop complaining about Windows.

      --
      If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
    10. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the meantime, predictably so, a bunch of n00bs started using Ubuntu mostly because we told them it was a good idea. Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc.

      This is why redhat said linux isn't ready for the desktop and everyone flamed them. They knew exactly what would happen and that would ruin their name. So they made fedora now "fedora ate my computer!" still leaves RedHat with a solid brand name. They were right.

    11. Re:Ha! by nametaken · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is the lesson for all linux distros. When forums are full of "it ate my computer", figure out why. Don't be so quick to get pissy with the user.

      I started with slackware in the late 90's and have been using various distros ever since. I use Ubuntu now. I still get pissed when I run updates in Ubuntu and have to spend another 30 mins fixing my vid driver.

      All the silliness about binary drivers aside, we're talking about a VERY common video chipset here, and honestly, the vast majority of video cards in the world come from a very short list of manufacturers who only release closed binaries. It's time to start being a little more realistic about making sure the upgrade processes account for that.

    12. Re:Ha! by jmyers · · Score: 2, Interesting

      First Linux I tried was Slackware. I downloaded a slew of 1.44 diskette images, 14 or 15 I think over a 14.4 modem connection on a 386sx25 with 4 meg of ram running win 3.1. My ISP had a usage limit except from midnight to 8 am. It took we over a week to download because I would start a disk downloading at midnight and maybe stay up to start the second disk and go to bed. Once it was all downloaded I used rawwrite to write all the images to disk, put in an extra 20 meg hard drive to avoid trashing my system. I installed with no problem and was able to connect to the net and access email and Usenet, I was impressed.

      That was the last time I installed Slackware.

    13. Re:Ha! by orasio · · Score: 1

      Same here. Only I never thought of Gentoo as such a good idea, only messed around with LFS.

    14. Re:Ha! by Andr+T. · · Score: 1

      Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer

      I can't understand you people. There are noobs everywhere, and I personally think it's a good thing that some of them start using Linux. And the idea of popularizing Linux to the average user is one of the main questions here in SlashDot.

      What I think you really want is to feel smarter than the average user. "Bleh, you're using Ubuntu, it's too easy."

      --

      Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.

    15. Re:Ha! by swillden · · Score: 1

      My solution. Use ubuntu, ignore the forums. File bug reports and use man pages.

      Now if only Ubuntu would get a decent bug reporting system. They really should pick up Debian's.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    16. Re:Ha! by digitig · · Score: 0, Redundant

      * getting video running has been HELL : with only 1 out of 3 I managed to get the nvidia blob to run after reading days and days of forums, trying out every single trick they propose. The two others still run in 'software' mode, which is fine for firefox/thunderbird or GCompris (more or less), but has cost me several days trying anyway.

      Somebody mod that insightful or informative, please.

      * wifi wasn't always (properlty) recognized : pcmcia went mostly fine, usb was hell. Finally got it working via ndiswrapper

      Somebody else mod that insightful or informative, please.

      * each time there is an upGRade something breaks and I'm back in the 'problem-chasing' game

      And somebody else...

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    17. Re:Ha! by Nursie · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I was considering flaming you, then I remembered that Ubuntu did the same to me. I'm a fairly hardcore linux user (Software Engineer, posix threads, C and crypto, amatteur and professional Linux sysadmin) and *I* got pissed off with it.

      Could not get any of the nVidia blobs playing nicely with my laptop, alsa sound needed rebuilding to detect the headphone jack, a bunch of other stuff. And then on upgrade it would undo all the work I'd done to get it going and I'd have to solve the same problems again.

      I solved it by switching to Debian, but then I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty, just annoyed when I can't see how or why things are broken.

    18. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have programmed since 1983 (currently C#) and am a power windows user. I installed Ubuntu and I spent lots of time trolling forums and copy/pasting in terminal commands to do these basic things on my 64bit PC:

      install flash
      install skype
      get a DVD to run
      plug my laptop into my TV and switch desktops
      get firefox to highlight the url when you single-click on it
      get firefox to navigate back a page with the backspace key

      Things I still can't do:

      recognize my video cam
      double-click on the window icon on the top left to close (I've spent >10 years closing windows that way)
      Make a youtube video full screen by single-clicking the icon

      Ubuntu is DEFINITELY not ready for a majority of Windows users, but it is getting alot better with every release...

    19. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the install program wouldn't mount the CD it was running from to finish installing after launch

      Umm.. what?!?!

      Slackware doesn't need the CD to "finish installing" - you install off the CD, then take the CD out and restart.

      From your description, it sounds like it was a problem with the sysadmin not being qualified.

    20. Re:Ha! by Reapman · · Score: 1

      Well one basic feature I am annoyed about is the ability to, oh I don't know, customize a screen saver in Ubuntu (not talking Kubuntu)? The number of posts I had to read up on how to do something like having it display pictures that I chose for the screensaver was laughable. The thing is from what I can tell this is a Gnome "Feature" to hide complexities.

      PS - Yes I figured it out, yes I use Ubuntu and love it, but i'm not going to be installing it for friends or family until basic stuff like that is fixed.

    21. Re:Ha! by onionlee · · Score: 1

      The rugged individualists all left Slackware and went to Gentoo. After the fighting got out of hand, those that didn't move off to one of the Gentoo forks went to one of the BSDs.

      well said. the thing is personally i never moved off of slack because slack offers a mix of both customizability and stability and hands-on ness without the god-awful mess that youd have to (or at least had to in the past) to use gentoo. seems like its rather easy to use these days, especially with portage.

    22. Re:Ha! by techwrench · · Score: 0

      Despite the flamers, there is a lot of information for people trying a linux distribution for the time.

      It is forums with information from experienced linux users that make Ubuntu what it is, and that is what brings people to try Linux.

      --
      It's You and I against the World... When do we attack?
    23. Re:Ha! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      * getting video running has been HELL : with only 1 out of 3 I managed to get the nvidia blob to run after reading days and days of forums, trying out every single trick they propose. The two others still run in 'software' mode, which is fine for firefox/thunderbird or GCompris (more or less), but has cost me several days trying anyway.

      Getting 3D video working properly on Windows 2000, XP or Vista is no better. Go cruise the gamer forums and you'll see what I mean. That being said, I use nVidia cards exclusively and every release of Ubuntu since 6.06 has worked for me out of the box, automagically (after allowing restricted drivers) with no problem.

      * wifi wasn't always (properlty) recognized : pcmcia went mostly fine, usb was hell. Finally got it working via ndiswrapper

      Wifi works on my two Dell notebooks out of the box on 8.10. USB wifi sucks and should be avoided at all costs. Even if you get it working with ndiswrapper, it's slower than PCMCIA or built-in Wifi. The last bit is true even on Windows.

      * each time there is an upGRade something breaks and I'm back in the 'problem-chasing' game =(

      Upgrading is a choice, not a requirement.

    24. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The rugged individualists all left Slackware and went to Gentoo

      You misspelled "ricers".

    25. Re:Ha! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      Perhaps I've exaggerated a bit -- it's probably not as a bad as I'm making it seem -- but it's still pretty bad.

    26. Re:Ha! by armanox · · Score: 1

      So...you're still using that system or haven't used Slackware in the past 15 years?

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    27. Re:Ha! by kwabbles · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Ubuntu ate my computer" is a great phrase. I've got to figure out how to work it into daily conversation ;-)

      Well, I successfully found a way to work "circus midgets ate my balls" into most of my daily conversations - so the Ubuntu line shouldn't be too difficult.

      --
      Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    28. Re:Ha! by Bandman · · Score: 1

      I think you can hardly call an end user a sysadmin. And this was a case of ignorance, not stupidity.

      Ignorance is skin deep. Stupid goes straight to the bone.

    29. Re:Ha! by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc.

      Have you looked recently?
      After running RH9, Fedora 2/4/6/8 and now Ubuntu (because it really does 'just work' on my hardware) over the years I decided a few weeks ago to try to 'give something back' by answering 'n00b' questions on the Ubuntu forums. They seemed remarkably free of the sort of thing you mention and generally quite intelligent.

      All the 'Ubuntu sucks' posts get deleted every time they upgrade the server, the upgrade goes all fubar and they get give up at 4am, nuke it and reinstall from scratch.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    30. Re:Ha! by Fallingcow · · Score: 1

      Switched to Slackware because Mandrake 7.1 sucked.

      You got out at the right time. 8 was even worse, and 9 was terrible. They eventually drove me to Gentoo, and by its 3rd or 4th version Ubuntu won me over.

      But hey, at least some of those earlier Mandrake releases were better than Red Hat was at the time. It had that going for it. Hell, I'd say 7 and maybe even 8 were still better than their analogous Red Hat releases.

    31. Re:Ha! by harry666t · · Score: 1

      """In the meantime, predictably so, a bunch of n00bs started using Ubuntu mostly because we told them it was a good idea. Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc."""

      Conclusion, also based on my own observations: Linux is perfectly ready for the Desktop; it's just the users that are not ready for computers at all. I'm perfectly sure they'd have a very similar class of problems if they didn't mess with alternative OSs.

      Makes me wonder whether the "FOSS for the masses" was a good idea.

      I've been using Debian for two years, and I've installed Ubuntu on another machine recently, and was amazed how almost everything "just worked". The place for Ubuntu in my personal universe is now: "the thing to install on a new machine when I need it to do some actual work and don't have three days to set it up".

    32. Re:Ha! by H0p313ss · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Ubuntu ate my computer" is a great phrase. I've got to figure out how to work it into daily conversation ;-)

      How about "Edubuntu ate my homework." ?

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    33. Re:Ha! by jmyers · · Score: 1

      I have not tried it since then. The system is long gone, but I may I sill have the installed hard drive stashed somewhere. I doubt I could find an ST506 controller to run it. I moved about 2 years ago and threw away a bunch of old hardware going back 20 years, even an old televideo CP/M system.

      In about '95 or so I ordered a red hat CD and have mostly stuck with RH/Fedora/RHEL/CentOS. I have tried other distros over the years but never run them for any significant time/project.

      I may give slack another try for old time sake.

    34. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      system-wide WPA configuration. I truly expect that there exists a simple solution, but I haven't found it yet.

      So, here goes: how do I configure a wlan connection with WPA2/AES encryption for the system, instead of using per-user configuration via wpasupplicant or network-manager?

    35. Re:Ha! by maugle · · Score: 1

      Well yes, because the Linux zealots discredit or moderate down any part that states that Ubuntu isn't as user friendly as Mac OS X in any area.

      Whereas Mac forum admins would simply delete the thread.

    36. Re:Ha! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Getting 3D video working properly on Windows 2000, XP or Vista is no better. Go cruise the gamer forums and you'll see what I mean. That being said, I use nVidia cards exclusively and every release of Ubuntu since 6.06 has worked for me out of the box, automagically (after allowing restricted drivers) with no problem.

      Normally most of these posts are from people trying to tweak their system for max performance, upgrade to new driver. For most gammers it really just works. For Linux as you stated that you need to choose to turn on 3d acceleration. Most people when they want to play a 3d game it just kinda loads up without people thinking oh it is no longer in Visa mode but now in 3d mode.

      Wifi works on my two Dell notebooks out of the box on 8.10. USB wifi sucks and should be avoided at all costs. Even if you get it working with ndiswrapper, it's slower than PCMCIA or built-in Wifi. The last bit is true even on Windows.

      Here is a situation i had using a lenovo T61. I got it it found the Wireless card all well and good and worked fine at home using WPA2 Personal However it didn't work at Work with WPA2 Enterprise. Being replaced with a T60 it worked just out of the box. Windows for both the systems WPA2 enterprise and Personal worked just perfectly. Just because it works for you it doesn't mean that other people have the same situation. Windows does handle supporting Wi Fi better.

      Upgrading is a choice, not a requirement.

      Except for when it is a fix on something you really need fixed. Or a security issue that you really want to avoid. Sloppy even if it is a choice having a sloppy upgrade that break things is inexcusable. We all laugh of the inepties of Microsoft when once every 3 or 4 month there is an upgrade that breaks some obscure thing, but being apologetic for upgrading you linux and having well known things break every month, is a bit of a double standard.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    37. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using dual monitor screens.

    38. Re:Ha! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc.

      Me too!

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    39. Re:Ha! by armanox · · Score: 1

      RH/Fedora is good. I started on RH6.1 and moved to Slackware 8.1 from there. Slackware has come a long way since the old days without sacrificing simplicity.

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    40. Re:Ha! by I.M.O.G. · · Score: 1

      Your newish to Linux... Don't discount all the time you've spent using Windows. A lot of things seem easy because you've used the system so long and become accustomed to how things work. Familiarity with a system does not make it easier.

      While it may seem mindless for you to go to some random website, search thru some proprietary layout, find a piece of software, download it, click confirm/next X number of times and end up with a working device... You can see it looks insane compared to the way you do it in Linux thru a package manager with a standard format and a trusted repository.

      I'm newish to Linux also. I use Gentoo (transitioned from Ubuntu) and I've struggled my ass off getting a lot of things to work. I'm picking up how things work in a matter of months as compared to the years it took me to transition from a n00b windows user in 1998 to a proficient system administrator by 2003. Spending time in Linux I find the way things are done is often highly logical and this is exemplified in many ways - package management, software repositories, file hierarchy (solitaire/minesweeper/hearts in C:\windows? WHAT?), etc. The list goes on, and yes theres some exceptions to the logicality of Linux, but overall its a much more sane environment to learn and understand how it works.

    41. Re:Ha! by DrgnDancer · · Score: 1

      You misunderstand his problem. He was trying to install. I've seen this before, the BIOS boots to the CD, but the kernel image on the CD doesn't have drivers for the SCSI card or the CD-ROM drive or whatever. The installer will boot, but fail to see the CD it just booted from and refuse to install. It's been a long time since I saw this, almost all CD-ROMs these days are IDE/ATA, even on server class hardware, and all modern distros support IDE/ATA drives in their install kernel images. On older systems with strange SCSI cards or non-standard CD-ROM buses it happened though. The solution is fairly non-trivial and involves compiling a new kernel with the drivers you need, then building your own install CD (or less painfully a boot disk if you can fit the kernel image on it and have a disk drive on the target system).

      --
      I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
    42. Re:Ha! by Bandman · · Score: 1

      I had a matsushitsu drive do that to me once.

      *That's* something I don't miss from Slack. Trying to figure out which kernel on the boot disk would make things work. I'm glad they switched to the bighuge a while back.

    43. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see...

      We can summarize all of that to say:
      "You didn't need that anyway"
      and
      "Works for me"

      Two of the most common replies you see on any Ubuntu forum thread. Neither of course actually does anything other than to serve as a public display of e-penis, and neither contributes anything constructive to the conversation.

    44. Re:Ha! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      Ever consider that may all the 'works for me' comments exist because it's true?

    45. Re:Ha! by caution+live+frogs · · Score: 1

      Pretty much nails it right there. The system is a PowerEdge 1300, dual-500mhz PIII (single processor when I got it); it has a SCSI HDD, and two CD drives. Depending on which IDE slot the CDs were located, the system either would not boot from CD or would not be able to locate the install files post-boot.

      I had so much fun building a kernel that worked. Even more fun trying to get that kernel onto a boot floppy. And when Slack 10 came out, I had gotten my hands on a second processor, so I had to go through the whole thing again - while enabling SMP.

      When I did install Ubuntu on it, I expected similar issues, but it went like a dream. For an old-ass computer it's been damn useful. And for what it's worth, no, I don't miss compiling my own kernels.

    46. Re:Ha! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      Normally most of these posts are from people trying to tweak their system for max performance, upgrade to new driver.

      No. First hit on Google for 'nvidia geforce 8800 windows hang'. Do I need to keep searching?

      Here is a situation i had using a lenovo T61. I got it it found the Wireless card all well and good and worked fine at home using WPA2 Personal However it didn't work at Work with WPA2 Enterprise. Being replaced with a T60 it worked just out of the box. Windows for both the systems WPA2 enterprise and Personal worked just perfectly. Just because it works for you it doesn't mean that other people have the same situation. Windows does handle supporting Wi Fi better.

      I suggest checking out this post I saw on the Ubuntu list a couple of months back. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't, but check it out.

      Point taken on the last paragraph in your post. I can't say I've never had upgrade troubles, but I tend to not run with an out-of-the-box configuration. ;)

    47. Re:Ha! by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      By calling yourself a "Windows Power User", you have lost all credibility.

    48. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If only it would get manpages. You cannot hope to fix or reconfigure anything in Linux that doesn't work automagically. This is because it is grown instead of developed.
      My OpenBSD laptop requires 1% of Ubuntu disk usage, all the latest versions of the software I want unlike the outdated packages of Debian and Slackware, a sublime documentation unlike that of any Linux, and hardware support that doesn't flicker with each update like in Linux.
      I keep a large Ubuntu partition to run proprietary software for Linux and Wine, but I now use OpenBSD most of the time. I report the bugs, and with a bit of mails here and a patch or two there and everything that didn't work yesterday, is working today in CURRENT.
      This is with a tiny fraction of Linux's manpower.

    49. Re:Ha! by swillden · · Score: 1

      You cannot hope to fix or reconfigure anything in Linux that doesn't work automagically.

      Meh. I've been fixing and reconfiguring things in Linux for nearly 10 years now, since well before anything worked automagically. It works fine.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    50. Re:Ha! by FictionPimp · · Score: 1

      The problem is you guys want it to work like windows.

      I know this because of my switch to mac. My mom check it out and got one too. She said everything was so hard to do on a mac. Why? Because she wanted it to work like windows.

      I however use the blank slate approach to computing. I do not expect anything to be like windows or linux. I've never had any trouble be it windows, linux, bsd, solaris, or osx. They are all very simple to use after you spend just a little bit of time learning how they work.

      As long as you keep expecting things to work like windows you are never going to be happy with anything but windows.

      Not that there is anything wrong with running windows.

    51. Re:Ha! by FictionPimp · · Score: 1

      I have the exact problem in the other direction. I have a computer with onboard nvidia graphics that constantly locks up on me when it had windows. Installed ubuntu, no problems.

      I have a wireless card that constantly loses connection (linksys card) on my wife's computer. Never loses connection (or requires setup) in ubuntu. My work laptop (dell D830 fully works without installing any drivers after the install). In windows I have to hunt down drivers to get things to work smoothly. Dells website has bad drivers for sound that disable line-in.

      I have a computer with a nvidia 8800GT that I use to play games on. One day after a driver update to the latest nvidia driver it started getting tearing. I could not fix it, even after going back to older drivers. For fun I put ubuntu on it (assuming a reinstall of windows might fix the problem). I then installed the game in cedega and found it worked just fine with no tearing (team fortress 2).

      On 5 machines using ubuntu 8.10 I have yet to have a need to touch a single file using the command line. Every change I've needed to make was done though a gui. In 8.04 I was able to do about 90% of my changes via gui. Only one computer required ndiswrapper on 8.04 and it no longer requires it on 8.10.

      It seems to me it's only harder because you want it to work like windows. But linux is not a clone of windows. It works differently. I don't feel that it is more difficult, just different.

      Here's another problem with windows I can't fix. It simply will not do what I tell it to do. My work requires automatic updates. This morning I came in the office and it wants to reboot. I was jumped with a problem to fix the moment I walked in the door. I did not have 15 minutes to wait for a reboot (all the novell crap we have). So I clicked later. Now every 5 minutes it tells me I need to reboot.

      Thanks microsoft.

    52. Re:Ha! by JK_the_Slacker · · Score: 1

      Funny, I rarely hear about problems with Nvidia cards or sound in Slackware anymore, and I'm in the irc channel all the time. Maybe Ubuntu needs to hurry up and join the modern distros like Slackware?

      --
      I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
    53. Re:Ha! by rantingkitten · · Score: 1

      Hang on a second..

      it still has a rather long way to go before it will reach the ease-of-use of a recent Windows platform IMHO

      Okay, but let's see how you back that up.

      getting video running has been HELL

      The average yob has no idea how to deal with video driver issues in Windows either. :) Unless they're gamers most of them will probably never notice that Windows isn't using the correct driver, and won't care either. Personally, since 7.04 I've never had an issue with video drivers in Ubuntu, but my point is really that to the average user, finding out what video card they even have, then going to the manufacturer's website and downloading an executable and installing it is just as mystifying as anything you had to do in Linux. To them it's all voodoo. How is it "easier" in Windows? I've fought epic battles with ATI drivers in Windows.

      wifi wasn't always (properlty) recognized

      In all my life I have never -- not once -- had Windows XP or Vista recognize my wireless out of the box. Half the time it doesn't get ethernet either, so I have to get the drivers using a spare machine. I realise that's my experience and your mileage will vary. Anyway, since 7.04 again, I've never had an issue with wireless under Intel, Broadcom, or Atheros. Atheros and Intel worked out of the box, and with Broadcom I had to click the little "Enable Restricted Drivers" thing -- which is prominently displayed for even a total newb to find. I haven't had to futz with ndiswrapper since the heady days of 6.06.

      That being said, why do you think this is easier on Windows? Even resorting to ndiswrapper is only a couple of commands, and these days I believe there's even a GUI for it. With Windows, if wireless isn't working, you think the average zeeb knows how to find out what wireless chipset they have (Windows sure ain't gonna tell you) and install the driver properly? I've seen tons of people stumble on this under XP. Downloading and installing drivers (and then cleaning up the crapware and party favors they leave behind) is no easier than ndiswrapper, and frankly, since half these drivers insist upon installing their own network manager alongside Windows' inbuilt manager, I'd say it's harder.

      ach time there is an upGRade something breaks and I'm back in the 'problem-chasing' game =(

      Windows updates tend to break things all the time (and there are frequent stories on slashdot about it). With the default repositories under Ubuntu I've never seen anything break. Ever. I'm pretty sure I've never even heard of anything breaking.

      Are you maybe talking about the upgrades in versions? If so, then I somewhat agree. My old vmware stuff didn't work from 7.04 to 8.04 and I had to kick it for an hour to get it going again, and a few other minor things. No big deal really, though I agree it could have been more smooth. But you cannot compare that to the Hell of moving to different versions of Windows with a straight face. Let's be real -- migrating platforms is kind of a pain no matter what. Ubuntu (actually, any Debian-based system) has been the easiest for me so far. Moving from XP to Vista is something that would make Marquis de Sade cringe. What, precisely, do you think is "easier" about Windows than Ubuntu in this regard?

      --
      mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
    54. Re:Ha! by allanc · · Score: 1

      This one just came up for me: Formatting a USB thumbdrive. Required dropping to a shell to run fdisk and mkfs.vfat.

      (Which I could do, since I was a Slackware user from about '96 until this year, but I was expecting the procedure would be along the lines of 'Right click, select "Format"', not "Determine the device name, fdisk it, and run mkfs" like on Slackware)

    55. Re:Ha! by fudgefactor7 · · Score: 1

      Could be worse...Ubuntu could have eaten your balls!

    56. Re:Ha! by allanc · · Score: 1

      Problem is that Slackware is so low-level that to do anything with it requires the knowledge and confidence to fiddle around with the system. With distros like Ubuntu, people who would think nothing of recompiling their kernel under Slack are uncomfortable doing something that might put the package management database into an inconsistent state.

    57. Re:Ha! by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Switched to Slackware because Mandrake 7.1 sucked.

      You got out at the right time. 8 was even worse, and 9 was terrible. They eventually drove me to Gentoo, and by its 3rd or 4th version Ubuntu won me over.

      But hey, at least some of those earlier Mandrake releases were better than Red Hat was at the time. It had that going for it. Hell, I'd say 7 and maybe even 8 were still better than their analogous Red Hat releases.

      Unfortunately, that was the main thing they had going for them, and they abandoned it. When I started using Mandrake (5.1 IIRC), it tracked Red Hat release for release, being an enhanced Red Hat. It took each Red Hat release and fixed everything wrong with it. I loved it and happily switch from Red Hat. It stopped tracking things quite so closely with 6.0, but it was still decent. I installed 7.0 and switched to Debian shortly thereafter...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    58. Re:Ha! by DamnStupidElf · · Score: 1

      Most likely it's because Slack comes with a proper development environment, and the nVidia drivers generally compile and install well. I've never tried using a prepackaged kernel driver. ALSA just works. The only issue I have sometimes is the kernel not recognizing the sound card and automatically loading the module, but a line in rc.modules (or a file in /etc/modprobe.d) fixes that.

    59. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure what to say. All this time, I keep hearing that the "beauty" of Ubuntu and some others is that it has this "wonderful package management" -- now you're telling me that I can't do something as basic as build a custom kernel without making the package manager barf?

    60. Re:Ha! by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      The thing is from what I can tell this is a Gnome "Feature" to hide complexities.

      Oh yeah... I remember why I stopped using desktop Linux now. The Gnome developers did everything in their power to make it damn near impossible to use, while paradoxically claiming this was being done to make it easier. They had done it wrong on the previous versions (with an expert "level" that you had to choose globally to see the occasional advanced configuration detail you only occasionally needed to tweak), then they "corrected" this by removing all such configuration options entirely except through using a RegEdit-type interface (RegEdit for Linux! Let's take the worst feature of Windows and port that!). All the while ignoring the obvious solution of an "Advanced..." button to keep those options available but out of the way most of the time.

      I gave up when I realized the "UI experts" just didn't have a frakkin' clue, save that if it was a solution that worked in a certain other popular OS, it ought to be avoided here, even in those cases where it made sense. Except for the RegEdit thing, of course -- that apparently they thought that, of all things, was a good idea to steal... I don't see how this can be explained without invoking "brain damage" in the explanation somehow...

      I love Linux, but Gnome is pure comedy...

      It may be better these days, I dunno. I stopped using Linux on the desktop in 2005. Still use it every day, but I ssh to it from machines with decent desktop OS's...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    61. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't "Ubuntu" Afrikaans for "I'm too stupid to use Slackware?"

    62. Re:Ha! by allanc · · Score: 1

      I dunno. Maybe you can. I'm too much of a pussy to try it.

      And, well, the kernel they install has worked fine for me. That's the upside to it--I haven't *needed* to recompile my kernel. It's nice not to have to go through and decide each individual damn "Do you want to install driver for X?" question in make xconfig...

    63. Re:Ha! by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      All the silliness about binary drivers aside, we're talking about a VERY common video chipset here, and honestly, the vast majority of video cards in the world come from a very short list of manufacturers who only release closed binaries. It's time to start being a little more realistic about making sure the upgrade processes account for that.

      No no, ideology trumps practicality. If you want things the other way around, you'll have to pay for it.

      I have no problem with an OS designed around a particular ideology. I have a problem when it doesn't just promote it but insists upon it. "If you (some company) don't do it the way we think you should, we'll make sure someone else (innocent end-users) are made to suffer for it!" Yeah, that's really effective. Way to stick it to 'em!

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    64. Re:Ha! by stim · · Score: 1

      Your copy of windows includes the nvidia 3d drivers?! Either A) your a troll or B) or an idiot. Windows and Linux both require you to manually install a proprietary 3d driver.

      --
      Browse at -1 to keep an eye out for abuses.
    65. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look at one of the BSDs. Why, even flash works! Sorta. :)

    66. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am still a virgin AND Ubuntu ate my computer :(

    67. Re:Ha! by Voyager529 · · Score: 1

      Funny, I rarely hear about problems with Nvidia cards or sound in Slackware anymore, and I'm in the irc channel all the time.

      Forget Slackware...there's another person using IRC?

    68. Re:Ha! by synthespian · · Score: 1

      Reading your post I realized how amateurish the whole Linux "scene" is. I can't believe people are still dabbling in basic things like getting things to work.

      It kind of reminds me of where I was, before I dumped Debian, then Ubuntu (because it still sucked, it still broke between upgrades and they still had no proper documentation), for FreeBSD and Mac OS X.

      --
      Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
    69. Re:Ha! by Nursie · · Score: 1

      It may surprise you, but in ten years of using Linux, I've *never* built a custom kernel.

      Having said that, the package manager for Ubuntu is the same as for Debian. I don't know if it would barf, but you take the risk of making it less useful if you mess with too many things. You know, like if you installed a package and then deleted a library it provides, you'd end up with a system that thought it had a capability and would be happy to install dependents, but they'd never run.

    70. Re:Ha! by deroby · · Score: 1

      Not sure you're replying to me : but NO the video drivers are not (generally) included in windows. There's a 'generic' driver usually that IS present, but most of the time you have to go the website of the manufacturer, find the driver for your model and run it. Reboot and presto, it works.

      To get my nvidia geforce4 440 to work I had to :
      * install ubuntu
      * all 'restricted drivers', which comes telling me there is no restricted driver
      * read through forums, find nvidia driver from website
      * fight with GDM to get the driver to install, it KEEPS complaining about an X-Server running even though I've stopped it plenty of times
      * finally get it to run and then read that the driver is not compatible
      * read more forums, find beta nvidia driver from website
      * fight with GDM to get the driver to install, it KEEPS complaining about an X-Server running even though I've stopped it plenty of times
      * finally get it to install and make necesarry changes to xorg.conf file
      * reboot
      * see how ubuntu boots (scrollbar grows), then turns of your screen and gives the drum-roll that says you can login. However, the screen is pitch-black
      * try to poke gdm to live using the console
      * read lots of forum posts
      * mess around in the console trying to modify xorg.conf manually, starting stopping gdm until you grow very tired of it as it's all no good =(
      * find out that although you can't get the running x-server to live, you do can start a new one that then sits under ctrl-alt-F8
      * verify/set display settings using nvidia applet
      * reboot to find that AGAIN nothing is visible under ctrl-alt-F7
      * read more forums to find out if other people ever had that same issue ?
      * install/configure remote desktop via the 'second x-server'
      * reboot
      * try to log on using vnc from other pc => connection refused
      * log in "blindly" => works, but you don't see a thing so rather user-unfriendly
      * then log in remotely using vnc : works !
      * via vnc, start the nvidia applet and notice that the default panel is disabled and that the signal is going to the CRT for some reason !?
      => why does it use the crt on console 7 but the default panel on console 8 I ask you ????????
      * enable default panel (I don't have one available), disbale crt, save
      => error writing to configuration file !?
      * write to file in home folder, use console to copy from home folder to the proper location (overwrite)
      * reboot
      and everything works perfectly !

      So yes, I think the Windows experience was a LOT nicer on this one.
      I'm not saying that Ubuntu will always fail on this, and probably it's mostly nvidia's "fault", but please come down from that ivory tower because it worked for you ! Maybe more recent hardware means less problems, but it's cheaper to buy a (second hand) windows license than it is to buy a new pc.

      --
      If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
    71. Re:Ha! by deroby · · Score: 1

      I must say that the main reason I've not given up on Ubuntu is the synaptic thing ! It's ABSO-F*ING-LUTELY FANTASTIC and unlike anything I've ever used before !

      Again, once things work I consider ubuntu a joy to work with, it's responsive and (rather) user-friendly, so I'll probably have it running alongside my windows (xp) job-portable for quite a while.

      I don't think Ubuntu is bad, far from it. I might even add that I do realize that being 'fluent' in windows-management might be a drawback in ubuntu (*nix?) usage because I expect things to work one way and well, they often aren't ...

      Then again, for me personally, the Windows experience has always been : get things working in the default configuration without a hassle. If you want to make changes or tweak something you'll need to learn how it works using blood, sweat & tears; once you get the hang of it, it quickly sets apart the plebs from the guru's. Ubuntu (and again *nix in general) on the other hand seems to skip the first step, although again I'll add that it's been improving with huge steps. (I jumped on the train with 5.10)
      In the end you'll run into walls on both platforms, but it seems to me that windows keeps those walls a bit further down the road by providing a much more streamlined & uniform configuration GUI. Ubuntu also has a tools, but they feel more like a bunch of tools thrown together instead of a thought-through set of programs.

      We can bash on Microsoft as much as we want, but they DID manage to get computing to the general population. If the (overly) simplified windows GUI already is troublesome to mom & dad, just imagine where we would have been if we'd have been stuck with unix only.

      ps: yes I'm ranting, but it's mostly due to the (other =) ranters out there... I'm sure most people are smart enough to see there's room for both OS's to co-exist but sadly it's the fanboys that make the loudest noise all the time and annoy the hell out of me.

      --
      If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
    72. Re:Ha! by deroby · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying windows is without flaws; and it's remarkably I know only few people who 'enjoy' Vista. But having been using Win95, Win2k Pro, WinXP Pro myself, I've never ever had one piece of hardware not being supported, I'm sorry to hear you did.

      Off course I DID run into situations where a driver update (or a simple apparently non-related windows-update) messed up something and I had to manually reinstall the driver. Annoying : yes, difficult : no.

      I don't mind that it works differently, I do mind that it's "incomplete" and "non-uniform".

      As for the 'Computer wants to restart' nagging thing :

      Start / Run / gpedit.msc / Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update / Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations

      Somehow the 'disabled' does not seem to do what I want it to do (eg : "nothing"), but I've set it to 1440, and that is "long enough" for me.

      --
      If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
    73. Re:Ha! by deroby · · Score: 1

      Point taken, the default VGA driver *is* worse than the 'open' drivers included in Ubuntu. However, getting the correct drivers to install so you get proper 2D acceleration (I' don't care that much about fancy 3D screensavers) is lots easier in Windows than it is in Ubuntu. In both cases you need to find out the model & make of your hardware, but it's simply more easy to download and install the correct driver for windows than it is for Linux.
      Age of the hardware might play a (huge) role in that, I'll agree.

      I've dealt with 2 wifi problems on windows. Both came down to the fact that the WEP protocol wasn't functioning properly. The first time was 5 years ago and I "solved" this by using MAC-address filtering, the other 3 weeks ago I which I "solved" by using WPA2 instead. Heck, WEP is broken anyway so I don't know why the ISP botherd setting it up in the first place =(.

      Ethernet MIGHT have given me problems too, I'll admit that much. But then I simply downloaded them elsewhere, put them on usb-stick and ran them on the computer at stake. In Ubuntu things are SUPERB when I can get them using synaptic, however, when I have to do things manually I go from "wow, awesome" to "ohnoos, let me put a fork in my eyes" mode =(

      And yes, I was thinking about the upGRades, not the upDates.
      And yes, going from one windows version to another is, well undo-able. It's usually a matter of backing up all data files you want to keep and then starting afresh from a new install. That said, I feel confident running any windows version for like 5 years in a row. (eg 95 => 2k => xp => 7?). As Ubuntu has a new version every half year that is presented as 'the next best thing since sliced bread', I'm unable to resist the temptation to press that Upgrade button... and then spend lots of free time in the next weeks trying to fix things again =( But yes, it's my own choice, and I must admit, since I have nothing 'important' running on those ubuntu laptops, it's no biggie. If something important were to be running on it, I probably would stick to some LTS release.

      Heck, I'll wholesomely agree that Ubuntu rules, it's just that people (especially) here enjoy complaining about windows just a tad too much. If one says 'evil' about ubuntu you'll get 20 reactions saying you're either trolling or retarded. If you say windows sucks you'll get modded insightful and offered 3 virgins.

      --
      If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
    74. Re:Ha! by FictionPimp · · Score: 1

      Seems like something that should not require an expert computer user to change. I mean start run, type in a command!!!! What is this, Linux?

    75. Re:Ha! by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      Gparted? Qparted? There's no shortage of graphical partition managers in Linux.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    76. Re:Ha! by allanc · · Score: 1

      There's just so much wrong with that response I don't hardly know where to begin...

      1. Thumb drives are often not partitioned. There's no particularly good reason to do so. Just put a fat32 right on the bare drive and it works fine. Most people don't know what a partition is. In Windows, you only really need to deal with partitions when setting up a new hard drive, which most users never ever actually do because the drive comes pre-loaded from the store.

      2. "Download this confusingly-named external piece of software" is not really a good counterargument to "Ubuntu has some spots that will still trip up a non-techie user".

      (I know that G=Gnome (or Q=Qt), PART=Partition, ED=Editor makes perfect sense to us nerds, but it does not to normal people)

      3. "Choose between either the Gnome one or the KDE one or some other partition manager" does not make the user happy. They just want to format a damn drive, they don't want to explore the ideological rift between KDE/Qt and Gnome/GTK. And to head off a potential response that they should use the one that corresponds to their desktop environment: They should not have to know what their desktop environment is.

      4. Even disregarding all of that, this is just one thing. There are other little things like that. Even if each little problem has a solution, it's still a separate solution for every little problem that shouldn't bloody well be there in the first place. About 50% of the time, my laptop decides that networking is flat-out disabled when I bring it out of sleep. About 25% of the time, gnome-power-manager dies and it won't go to sleep when I hit the power button. Every once in a while pulseaudio dies and nothing will play sounds. Changing my Windows Networking workgroup requires a trip to the config file in a text editor. There's no obvious way to change the number of desktops without a trip into gconf-editor.

      These are all just little things off the top of my head. There are probably more I've forgotten, and there are certainly more I haven't personally encountered but others have.

    77. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ubuntu ate my homework.

  3. What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As a 10 year veteran of Slack, I really like that Patrick is still doing the work, but I don't even have to go to the page to know that PAM still isn't supported, and that there's not a package manager that can compete with yum/apt-get/ports.

    Last year I switched to Ubuntu on the desktop and CentOS on the server. I look back at Slackware with a lot of fond memories, but managing even a medium sized installation of Slack machines was just too time consuming to continue.

    1. Re:What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd also like to note that we continue our Slackware subscription because we appreciate what Patrick and Slack has done for us.

    2. Re:What's still missing by adamjaskie · · Score: 4, Informative

      Pat doesn't like PAM, which is why it isn't in Slackware.

      --
      /usr/games/fortune
    3. Re:What's still missing by schon · · Score: 3, Funny

      Pat doesn't like PAM, which is why it isn't in Slackware.

      And it's also why I'm still using Slackware. :)

    4. Re:What's still missing by Sfing_ter · · Score: 1

      But has he seen Polythene Pam?

      --
      A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
    5. Re:What's still missing by nightwaves · · Score: 1

      Same with Gentoo. I'm a desktop Gentoo user but I will never use it on a production environment. Too time consuming and risk-taking. I populated two racks of servers with Gentoo and I moved to another linux after 2 weeks.

    6. Re:What's still missing by j79zlr · · Score: 1

      She's so good looking she looked like a man?

      --
      I'm not not licking toads.
    7. Re:What's still missing by swillden · · Score: 1

      Pat doesn't like PAM, which is why it isn't in Slackware.

      What doesn't he like about it? I quite like it. It's especially great if you want to add different authentication mechanisms or use the normal ones in unusual ways. A couple of years ago I implemented smart card-based authentication for a handful of PAM-based distros, and I was really impressed with how flexible and powerful PAM was, and how consistently the right decisions had been made security-wise.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    8. Re:What's still missing by evilviper · · Score: 4, Insightful

      PAM still isn't supported,

      Does what's "supported" or not really matter? It's a fairly standard Linux system, to which you can add-remove anything you like.

      and that there's not a package manager that can compete with yum/apt-get/ports.

      That all depends on what you're looking for in your package manager. I certainly like Slackware's package manager more than any other, because you can very, very easily install any mixture of binary packages and code compiled from source that you want. No other system includes the (tiny) -dev headers necessary for compilation in their binary packages, nor do they reasonably easily allow you to ignore listed dependencies and handle it yourself with eg. a source package.

      I also appreciate Slackware's init scripts... Just about every other Linux distro has at least 3 levels of indirection to their scripts, just making for needless hassle. On a similar note, never have I seen a note in an important config file on Slackware suggesting: "Do not edit this file. It will be automatically overwritten." But that's sadly common practice everywhere else.

      I'm glad Slackware has pushed against Linux stupidity, and stayed away from the PAM mess. I just wish Patrick had been able to hold back the switch from OSS to the clunky mess that is ALSA as well. Oh well... Linux looks a little more like Windows every day. Luckily Slackware resists. But then there's always the BSDs... they all do just fine without PAM, ALSA, sysV, apt-get/yum, etc.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    9. Re:What's still missing by McDutchie · · Score: 2, Informative

      Pat doesn't like PAM, which is why it isn't in Slackware.

      What doesn't he like about it?

      From the Slackware 9.1 ChangeLog as quoted in the alt.os.linux.slackware FAQ:

      If you see a security problem reported which depends on PAM,
      you can be glad you run Slackware. I think a better name for PAM
      might be SCAM, for Swiss Cheese Authentication Modules, and have
      never felt that the small amount of convenience it provides is
      worth the great loss of system security. We miss out on half a
      dozen security problems a year by not using PAM, but you can always
      install it yourself if you feel that you're missing out on the fun.
      (No, don't do that)

      I don't know if this criticism is still valid or not, since this is old, but it's still true that nothing stops you from installing it yourself.

    10. Re:What's still missing by McDutchie · · Score: 1

      As a 10 year veteran of Slack, I really like that Patrick is still doing the work, but I don't even have to go to the page to know that PAM still isn't supported, and that there's not a package manager that can compete with yum/apt-get/ports.

      I am thankful I use Slackware every time I want to add something of my own to the system and I can do it without having to fight with dependencies and other stupid nonsense (like countless tiny -dev packages) to get it to compile and into the package system.

      Windows and Mac OS X both do fine without that kind of ultra-fine-grained automatic dependency resolution. It's a bad idea and just makes life needlessly complicated.

      Last year I switched to Ubuntu on the desktop and CentOS on the server. I look back at Slackware with a lot of fond memories, but managing even a medium sized installation of Slack machines was just too time consuming to continue.

      Automated package downloading and upgrading does exist in Slackware, you know. Why would something like slackpkg (in /extra) not make this as easy as with any other distro?

    11. Re:What's still missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      slackware missed 2 or 3 remote vulnerabilities just becouse it doesn't use pam(one was in sshd)

      so, pat has an excuse this time :)

    12. Re:What's still missing by muckracer · · Score: 1

      > we continue our Slackware subscription because we appreciate
      > what Patrick and Slack has done for us.

      That's fantastic...same here. IMHO this is one thing gone somewhat under in "the Linux community"...the showing of appreciation in whatever form. Countless threads of bitching by noobs about various issues and the "fix it for me...pronto!" attitudes that's so contrary to what Linux, Open Source and the collaborative effort is all about. Reminds me a bit of 1995/6/7 when the Internet got swamped by the AOL hordes.

      Linux is free. It is my belief, that if you decide to make use of it (it = the work of others) you have an obligation to return something. Whether that's buying a distro to support it, a bug report, a suggestion for improvement or even just a "Hey...thanx for writing this stuff" kinda note to an author of a program and/or distro, it's up to you. But do give something back.

      On that note....Thank You, Pat and everybody else involved for a great distribution! :-)

    13. Re:What's still missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same with Gentoo. I'm a desktop Gentoo user but I will never use it on a production environment. Too time consuming and risk-taking. I populated two racks of servers with Gentoo and I moved to another linux after 2 weeks.

      I just know you didn't compare the stability of Gentoo and Slack with the implication that they're on par with each other. Gentoo is a hackish piece of ricer shit while Slackware is a solid if plain distro that has stability on par with the BSDs.

      About the only thing they have in common in their default configuration is that they're quick and not very bloated. Yes, I acknowledge that Gentoo comes out on top on both of these.

    14. Re:What's still missing by Dan+Ost · · Score: 1

      The whole reason we like Gentoo around here is that it's a huge time saver as opposed to RedHat.

      Please give a description of what you found to be so time consuming with your Gentoo servers so that we can attempt to help you.

      --

      *sigh* back to work...
    15. Re:What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not. Around that same time was when PamSlam came out and Cartman boxes all over the net were able to be compromised ridiculously easily.

      Things are better now, and PAM is terribly useful and gives more benefits than it's complexity takes away.

    16. Re:What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 1

      I really appreciate your outlook, but the facts that you're mentioning also allow the other distros to scale adequately.

      I'm the sole technical resource of a company that manages an unbelievable amount of data across three states and 5 data sites, I do all server, storage, security, network, and user support. I really just ran out of time administering Slackware.

      I do agree that not including the development files necessary is a huge pain in the ass that should be fixed, but I'm not aware of the best way to do it.

    17. Re:What's still missing by mishehu · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you, but if I wanted yum/apt-get/ports, I'd not be using Slackware or its derivatives. I use Slackware because I specifically do NOT want to use those package managers. On modern hardware, it's not much trouble to run a slackbuild script and get a nice install package that I can reuse on my other installs. And if I really want PAM, I add it... Of course, I've been a Slackware user since circa 1994, and although I do use mythbuntu for my mythtv boxes, I am still primarily a Slackware user.

    18. Re:What's still missing by harry666t · · Score: 1

      What's wrong with PAM? (asking as a satisfied user of libpam-usb)

    19. Re:What's still missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > there's not a package manager that can compete with yum/apt-get/ports

      Thank all gods! The last thing we need is yet another package management system (maybe let's call it YAPMS).

      If Slackware is ever going to adapt such a solution, I really hope it'd be one of the existing tools.

    20. Re:What's still missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      is it your slackware?

    21. Re:What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 1

      Do you really find Gentoo to save you more time than using RH/CentOS? I'm interested in hearing how that time breaks down.

    22. Re:What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 1

      It's so much like BSD anyway, ports would fit right in.

    23. Re:What's still missing by agrounds · · Score: 1

      The whole reason we like Gentoo around here is that it's a huge time saver as opposed to RedHat.

      Please give a description of what you found to be so time consuming with your Gentoo servers so that we can attempt to help you.

      emerge world

    24. Re:What's still missing by aberkvam · · Score: 1

      But then there's always the BSDs... they all do just fine without PAM, ALSA, sysV, apt-get/yum, etc.

      PAM is part of the base system on FreeBSD, not sure about the other BSDs.

    25. Re:What's still missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another elitist faggot using Slackware. What a shock.

    26. Re:What's still missing by JK_the_Slacker · · Score: 1

      You'll be interested to know that slackpkg is now in /ap, and that unlike apt or yum, it doesn't try to remove half the system when you decide you want to finally be rid of BitchX.

      --
      I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
    27. Re:What's still missing by allanc · · Score: 1

      I look back at Slackware with a lot of fond memories, but managing even a medium sized installation of Slack machines was just too time consuming to continue.

      s/a medium sized installation of Slack machines/a single Slack machine/g

      That's why I switched over to Ubuntu. Firefox kept crashing and wouldn't run Flash Player 9, presumably because some library somewhere wasn't updated enough. Every time I wanted to upgrade something, I'd spend days in Dependency Hell trying to track down all of the other software that I needed to upgrade too to make it work.

      Eventually I just said fuck it.

    28. Re:What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the update, that's an improvement, anyway.

      Also, just so you know, Ubuntu fixed most of the bizarre weirdness with dependencies by using dummy packages.

    29. Re:What's still missing by adamjaskie · · Score: 1

      Uh... sorry, but "dummy packages" just sounds like a bad hack to me.

      --
      /usr/games/fortune
    30. Re:What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 1

      They're empty packages that software requirements can remove without removing the software they're pretending to be.

      It's not perfect, but it'll improve.

    31. Re:What's still missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      If you don't mind using a third party package manager, slapt-get worked brilliantly for me 3 or 4 years ago when I was* running Slackware. I haven't checked lately but if its still around its a great package manager, as the name suggets its basically apt for Slackware packages.

      *I don't have any linux boxes at the moment as I don't have a need for a full time nat/download/gateway box, otherwise I'd still be using Slackware.

    32. Re:What's still missing by Dan+Ost · · Score: 1

      You're not doing an emerge world on all your machines, are you?

      If you've got a rack of identical machines, you use one as a build machine and push the results to the production machines.

      Also, why are you doing the 'emerge world' in the first place? The only reason I can think of to rebuild the entire world is for a toolchain upgrade (gcc, glibc, etc), but you wouldn't do that on an otherwise stable production machine. You'd create a new image with the updated toolchain on your build machine and then, when you're happy with the results, push that image to your production machines.

      --

      *sigh* back to work...
    33. Re:What's still missing by Dan+Ost · · Score: 1

      We're an R&D group, so configuration changes come fast and furious with whatever new projects come down the pipeline. Gentoo configuration is extremely transparent and easy to understand.

      RedHat configuration has many levels of abstraction (designed, no doubt, to make GUI configuration tools possible) that makes hand editing of config files a nightmare. I guess this wouldn't be a problem if the GUI tools could do what you needed them to, but it never seems to work out that way.

      It takes about 15 minutes to roll out a new Gentoo server (grab the appropriate disk image from the build machine, untar it to the new box, make machine specific config changes (often via a script), and boot).

      We do keep some RedHat boxes around, but trying to install software that didn't come in the RPM bundle for whatever version of RHAS you've got usually forces you to build from source...and if you're building from source, why are you using RHAS?

      --

      *sigh* back to work...
    34. Re:What's still missing by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

      Uhhh... Here you go.

      --
      I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
    35. Re:What's still missing by adamjaskie · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that's a bad hack. Slackware's solution: ./configure will tell you what you're missing.

      --
      /usr/games/fortune
    36. Re:What's still missing by ploxiln · · Score: 1

      No other system includes the (tiny) -dev headers necessary for compilation in their binary packages, nor do they reasonably easily allow you to ignore listed dependencies and handle it yourself with eg. a source package.

      I also appreciate Slackware's init scripts... Just about every other Linux distro has at least 3 levels of indirection to their scripts, just making for needless hassle.

      Archlinux also includes the dev headers with the primary binary packages. It also is generally less complex than the typical distro. Not nearly as minimalistic as Slack, but a good balance.

    37. Re:What's still missing by Bandman · · Score: 1

      Cool, glad gentoo works for what you're doing.

      I think most of the abstraction in RH is so that it's flexible to put up with several ways of configuring it. GUI, yes, and also stuff like Redhat Network and Spacewalk (and kickstart, etc etc)

    38. Re:What's still missing by macavity1977 · · Score: 1

      FYI you dont just "add PAM" to the distro... you recompile shadow/glibc et al with PAM support and do a shit load of reconfiguration. Guess why 3rd pary GNOME on Slackware is still a hit-and-miss afair?

  4. Wow. Still chugging... by Slartibartfast · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's nice to know that some things just don't change. Niagara Falls keeps falling, the New England Atlantic is always just a bit too cold to really enjoy swimming in, and my first Linux distro keeps on going.

    Kudos, Patrick! Long may you release! (And, since I just found out about 20 seconds ago that he's a month younger than me, I look forward to seeing Slack releases into my nursing home years. "Why, when I was your age, youngster, we used xf86cfg to set up X; none of this X.org junk! You kids have it so easy!")

  5. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by TheSovereign · · Score: 2, Insightful

    wow. are you assuming that every person from a windows backround does not have the mental facilities to actually learn how to use linux as he goes? Slackware actually taught me to use linux instead of its interface. you may aswell be a Mac user.

  6. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by adamjaskie · · Score: 1

    xf86cfg? LUXURY! I remember using xf86config. Make a typo entering your monitor's scan rate? Too bad. Try again from the beginning, or edit the file with vi.

    --
    /usr/games/fortune
  7. Don't forget me! by Gazzonyx · · Score: 4, Funny

    You make me feel like a third wheel!

    --

    If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.

  8. Will it still run on '386 machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the plusses of this distro was that it was able to run on ANYTHING from the 80386 on up... with the move to the 2.6 kernel, is that still possible or do I need a Pentium as a minimum machine?
    (yes, I have 25 80386 machines out in the wilderness (solar powered) of Canada doing remote sensing work all running Slackware)

    1. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Out of curiousity, how do you protect those 25 PCs against bad weather/animals/people ?

    2. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Bandman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Stuff like this is the textbook example of the ideal use of Slackware, imo.

      Not in giant server farms, but in places where you need something solid that can run for 3 years and not hiccup.

      Just remember to rotate your logs ;-)

    3. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slackware is compiled for the 486 architecture, so some of it may be compatible with the 386, but a 486 would be the minimum guaranteed system it would run on.

    4. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I once booted Linux on a 33MHz 486 and that took a very long time. I never actually booted any 386 generation board with it. On the other hand, I still have some 200MHz Pentium Pro boards operating in some roles.

      As far as your question, you'd probably have to compile your own kernel at the very least. I see that the default kernel uses a config for i686 (i.e. Pentium Pro, and later). So, Pentium itself may be outdated, too.

      # CONFIG_M386 is not set
      # CONFIG_M486 is not set
      # CONFIG_M586 is not set
      # CONFIG_M586TSC is not set
      # CONFIG_M586MMX is not set
      CONFIG_M686=y
      # CONFIG_MPENTIUMII is not set
      # CONFIG_MPENTIUMIII is not set
      # CONFIG_MPENTIUMM is not set
      # CONFIG_MPENTIUM4 is not set

      One other thing you'd likely run into, is a memory limitation. Those old 386 motherboards often had a 16MB upper limit; some had a much lower capacity. Common memory in the 386 generation was very expensive and required 9 physical chips per meg. Comare that with 2G for $50 (DDR2) in the slightly out-of-date current generation.

      I wouldn't fool around with Slackware with anything less than 128M RAM and a Pentium Pro 200MHz CPU (and dual CPUs are better). YMMV.

    5. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Use a strong root password, DUH.

      The Bears and Elk up in canada cant hold down shift, so using any punctuation in the password will protect the computers from the majority of the animals.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    6. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D · · Score: 4, Informative

      Slackware 9.0 was the first Slackware to officially not support the 386, sorry. You need a 486 now. (I know, technically all you need is a recompile to get it working for a 386, but that's a lot of recompiling. This isn't Gentoo here :P)

    7. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quite sure the GP meant physical harm.

      inb4 WOOOOSH

    8. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why upgrade?
      If they work and are on a private network why change the OS?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    9. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by thomasdz · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't fool around with Slackware with anything less than 128M RAM and a Pentium Pro 200MHz CPU (and dual CPUs are better). YMMV.

      hahaha you young whippersnapper. 128M RAM???! Geesh, I'm running a relatively fast (1m25s to boot to multiuser login prompt) customized Slackware with X & graphical browser on an old Compaq laptop with only 32MB of memory. I also run a couple of machines with ...wait for it... 8MB of memory... no X, but heck all I need is nethack

      btw: my VAX in the basement runs an unmodified completely modern version of OpenBSD "out of the box" and it only has 8MB

      --
      Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
    10. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Support for 80386 stopped a few versions ago.

    11. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      The Bears and Elk up in canada cant hold down shift, so using any punctuation in the password will protect the computers from the majority of the animals.

      Wait, you're saying that American bears and elk can hold down the shift key?

      Still wouldn't keep out the raccoons or squirrels though, those suckers are clever. :-P

      Cheers

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    12. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by SterlingSylver · · Score: 1

      A million monkeys on a million typewriters will eventually crack your super-encrypted password

    13. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Bandman · · Score: 1

      psst...your sarcasm detector might be on the fritz

    14. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Bandman · · Score: 1

      I know I'm going to regret this, but why do you have a VAX in your basement?

    15. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by H0p313ss · · Score: 1

      Use a strong root password, DUH.

      The Bears and Elk up in canada cant hold down shift, so using any punctuation in the password will protect the computers from the majority of the animals.

      The beavers however can... bloody hacks.

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    16. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, please - there are no monkeys in Canada!

    17. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by really? · · Score: 1

      Probably because it didn't fit in his trousers?

      --

      "Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
    18. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by mrdoogee · · Score: 2, Funny

      BEAR@WILDERNESS:-$ EatSalmon
      permission denied. Are you Root?

      BEAR@WILDERNESS:-$ sudo EatSalmon
      password for BEAR:*******

      Generating Salmon..... [83%]

    19. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by stevey · · Score: 1

      The last time I ran slackware was around the time of the RedHat 4.2 release.

      At that time I had 8Mb of RAM and I remember that starting X and opening Netscape Navigator took many minutes..

    20. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Progman2000 · · Score: 1

      Amazing...I'd love to see more about this. I've got four (oops, an HD died, make that three) 486 laptops with 8-12mb RAM and 400mb HDs monitoring UPSes. Slackware 9.0.0, kernel 2.4.20.

    21. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Bandman · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Because if I wear it anywhere else, it chafes" ;-)

    22. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Poppler · · Score: 1

      Use a strong root password, DUH. The Bears and Elk up in canada cant hold down shift

      Yeah, but that still leaves you vulnerable to brute force attacks. Especially from moose.

      --
      What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
    23. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because if the VAX was upstairs, it would crash through the floorboards?

      Seriously, I'm an old DEC computer guy and I like the old stuff... since we're on Slashdot and can use car analogies.... it's like collecting a 1947 Chevy convertable. It doesn't have ABS, can't go from 0-60 in under twenty seconds, the radio only picks up AM, no seatbelts, no airbags, etc. etc. etc.
      Hmmmm... come to think of it, I have no idea why I'm running a VAX in my basement... :-)

    24. Re:Will it still run on '386 machines by rastoboy29 · · Score: 1

      Dude, do you have a link to your work?  That's a totally cool application of old hardware.

  9. This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by Nicopa · · Score: 4, Informative

    I started with Slackware, from my memories, Slackware is from a time when "distribution" had another meaning. The idea was: "here, I compiled the main stuff for you", and from that point you were alone, compiling almos everything (gcc, libc, making the ELF transition by hand)...

    1. Re:This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by trashbird1240 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, although I do use Slackware for what some could call nostalgia, I have to point out that you're wrong about all that: none of it is true anymore. By nostalgia I mean a system that is generic, doesn't get in my face, and is familiar to a user of older UNIX systems. That's the goal of Slackware, and Pat succeeds at providing that.

      Furthermore, there are package sites like slacky.eu, Slackbuilds.org and others. Also there's slapt-get and swaret that deal with dependencies for packages downloaded from sites like slacky.eu. You can download a whole Gnome distribution using slapt-get, without compiling anything.

      However, if you do want to compile something, Slackware won't get in your way.

    2. Re:This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nonsense. Slackware still has great value to the linux newbie.

      The fact that Slackware is maintained by a single person puts a reasonable upper bound on its complexity. This makes it more suitable for someone interested in learning about the 'guts' of the OS than the distributions with greater engineering effort behind them.

    3. Re:This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You would be surprised how many large workstation, server installations use Slackware. A very big example could be weatherunderground.com

      I am on OS X and I still use my knowledge from Slackware. If I had to use a x86/Linux, it would be either Slackware or Debian.

      Some of us still want to use Linux in Linux way.

    4. Re:This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you bothered to read the ChangeLogs and/or look through some of the source directory, you'd see that Slackware is not maintained by just one person. There are several people involved in its development, although "several" 15, so yeah, perhaps there is an upper limit on its complexity. Now your task is figuring out a way to explain how that's a *bad* thing.

    5. Re:This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are tons of precompiled build packages .tgz (which is actually the same as .tar.gz but with files and binaries in an appropriate directory path).

      Build scripts are a great boon as well. Any package you want generally means someone has written a build script for a particular version of that package, which does make with allowances for config files and such, and then turns your newly built package into a .tgz. Handy when you want to build a package for several of the same kind of machine. It's still not as conveninent as typing in sudo apt-get hot-babe, but it is still a no-brainer.

      Posting AC, because I still have mod points to waste.

    6. Re:This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You compiled everything by hand? Why didn't you get your computer to compile it for you?

    7. Re:This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why did you bother posting? Really?

      I came here excited to read an informative discussion about slackware, but 9 out of 10 comments are along the lines of yours (or worse, jokes).

      Slackware is the way it is for very good reasons, NOT because it's outdated.

      Please, if you don't have anything good to say, then just don't say it. Really, you got modded +5 for nothing but a cute tagline about "nostalgia" and implying that slackware requires you to compile stuff yourself, which is precisely NOT the case.

      Slashdot is getting less useful every year, for those who actually come here to learn something. Really, please, just don't post. To be fair, you're certainly not the only one.

    8. Re:This article should be tagged "nostalgia" by Nicopa · · Score: 1

      For a great many of us, Slackware is in the past, a nice and good past. Don't close your eyes to reality. And... Slashdot is a coffe table for chatting friendly among tech types... You came here to learn? You must be new here... =)

  10. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by tsalmark · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not that there is anything wrong with that. I find OSX makes a far better SSH client than Windows.

  11. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Trigun · · Score: 1

    I remember the 30 floppy disk set - Just for the base installation. If you wanted to install the entire system, you needed about a hundred floppies.

  12. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Bandman · · Score: 1

    Me too. Of course at the time, it was hard to learn since I've never been good at sanskrit...

  13. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by baldass_newbie · · Score: 5, Funny

    Make a typo entering your monitor's scan rate? Too bad. Try again from the beginning, or edit the file with vi.

    After procuring a new monitor, natch.

    --
    The opposite of progress is congress
  14. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Bandman · · Score: 1

    +1 LOL

    I remember those days, and the warnings involved

    "You *can* physically break your monitor if you set the values wrong"

  15. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by mikael_j · · Score: 1

    Ah yes, the horrible memories of downloading, copying to floppies and installing from said floppies because the machine in question didn't have a CD-ROM drive (and no spare drives around). And on dial-up....

    /Mikael

    --
    Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
  16. Slackware vs Ubuntu. by RandomInteger() · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/27/1212214&from=rss and so on. It's nice to see that some distro maintainers have the "right" values about what to focus on. In a world of wussies, Slackware still stands tall and proud!

  17. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by mikael_j · · Score: 3, Insightful

    xf86config is old-school now? I guess I'm getting old, when I started using *nix the standard practice was to run through xff86config as accurately as possible and then manually editing your config to make everything work properly (trying to run X immediately after running xf86config generally resulted in some pretty odd behaviour or if you weren't so lucky, broken hardware).

    /Mikael

    --
    Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
  18. Truth in advertising: by Slartibartfast · · Score: 1

    Okay, the truth of the matter is that I've forgotten some of the XFree86 nomenclature; I, too, hand-edited the /etc/X/XF86Config (?) file with emacs the first time I used it, to set it up to run on my 16 MHz 386SX, 8 MB of RAM (I fully populated that MO(B|F)O) with my Hercules mono card (I had an amber monitor: neener. No greenscreen here, baby.), and my two 20 MB drives -- 40 MB of storage!

    Man, did that machine rock.

  19. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kind of how you assume that every OS X user doesn't have the mental facilities to learn the UNIX core of OS X? You may as well be a Windows user.

  20. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by FictionPimp · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not everyone from a windows background...just everyone left after all of us smart guys moved on.

  21. I'm a recent slack user by rsayers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Used it many years ago and recently installed 12.1 on my eeePc. Surprised to see nearly nothing had changed, but I think that's a good thing. I like the fact that I essentially get a base system that I can just take over and manage myself. It doesn't install a bunch of stuff I don't want, and installing new software from source is pretty simple. Maybe it's just me, but package managers always end up giving me issues with certain software (ruby comes to mind) and I end up having to build certain things from source anyhow.

    1. Re:I'm a recent slack user by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      I also have an Eee PC and wanted to install Slackware, but opted for SLAX instead. It is much more space-efficient, due to the fact that every installed package is actually a compressed blob. Quite brilliant, actually.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  22. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by multisync · · Score: 2, Informative

    I find OSX makes a far better SSH client than Windows.

    PenguiNet FTW!

    --
    I don't care why you're posting AC
  23. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Bandman · · Score: 2, Funny

    Thank god there was a floppy option. Can you imagine downloading a 640MB CD image at 14.4?

  24. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by tsalmark · · Score: 1

    As much as I love Putty, both the client and the silly stuff, I think I'll give PenguiNet a try. Thanks

  25. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Random+Walk · · Score: 1

    Actually, on my first notebook I used brain and pocket calculator to set up X. There was just a tiny bit of memory lacking to run it at a better depth with the standard resolution - so I tweaked /etc/X11/XF86Config to get better depth with a rather odd resolution. Basically sacrificed a few lines at the bottom of the screen.

  26. It Is Still Relevant Today by mrpacmanjel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Slackware was my first experience with Linux many years ago...(1997/98ish?). Especially installing from floppy disks.

    However, I now use Ubuntu & Mint linux on my pcs at the moment.

    The way to look at the Slackware "distribution" is to see it as a bare bones, vanilla-type system.

    Not having a "package" system is a *feature* of Slackware and it still uses tarball-type packages to this day.
    Slackware is based on a different philosophy from today's distributions and I think it's refreshing to see this.

    As far as I know there are no "corporate sponsors" funding Slackware's development - Patrick does it in his spare time.

    One thing that most people on Slashdot seem to miss is that this is the original spirit of Linux and any software associated with it.

    In fact I may install it on an old 450mhz PIII laptop I've got kicking about.

    Good Luck Patrick you have my utmost respect and I hope Slackware continues for a very long time.

    1. Re:It Is Still Relevant Today by ThatComputerGuy · · Score: 1

      As far as I know there are no "corporate sponsors" funding Slackware's development - Patrick does it in his spare time.

      It's not done in his spare time, it's actually his full time job. :)

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  27. The power of the simpleton by DiegoBravo · · Score: 1

    Right... despite PAM is a powerful system and concept for a lot of things, for people that 1) is just learning the OS and 2) really wants to have full control of a handy and simple OS, PAM is overkill, as a lot of other subsystems on most distros.

    The last Slackware distro I used was 3.4 (in 1997/98) and the tgz packages, few boot scripts, etc. were a nice (and attainable) challenge for anybody interested in understanding the main user level OS components.

    Now I use Ubuntu, and I will continue using it (specially since I no longer do sysadmin) but the last time I tried to change some static IP route, it was a real mess with all those DHCP daemons and network applets trying to be too wise and resetting my manual changes... I missed a "plain" Linux like Slackware.

    1. Re:The power of the simpleton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I missed a "plain" Linux like Slackware.

      And it's still here.

  28. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by SaDan · · Score: 1

    Oh, I don't have to imagine it... Thanks for bringing back the memories.

    *shivers*

  29. pffft! by cab15625 · · Score: 1

    If my Dad can use Slackware, anybody can. The real fun is when my step-mom can't get XP to recognize her camera so my dad had to DL the pictures and copy them to a USB stick.

    Folks who haven't tried Slackware since the mid '90s really have no busness commenting about the distro. It's come just as far as all the rest, but somehow managed to stay true to the idea of being stable and reliable that has been there from day one.

    If you want to be a point-and-click drone and only need to do email, then Slack will work just fine. On the other hand, I rarely have any problems compiling stuff either (haven't had to google for strange libs since I left redhat in the dust).

  30. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by msuarezalvarez · · Score: 1

    Yeah. And figuring out the correct frequences by trying to minimize the noise made by the monitor! When kids these days talk about how hard installing Ubuntu or Fedora or whatever is, I want to hit them with a big bat...

  31. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by digitig · · Score: 1

    If I could get even Ubuntu to work satisfactorily I'd make the switch today, but I can't. Linug geeks just don't grok how hard it is for somebody coming to it cold. (FWIW, Ubuntu 8.04 installs ok and works fine -- except for WiFi -- until I restart the system, at which point X insists there are no screens and drops me back to the command line).

    --
    Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  32. Queue the n00bs by kwabbles · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Slackware sucks, it has no package manager."
    "Slackware sucks, it takes so much time to get an uber elite desktop with avant and spinning cubes."
    "Slackware sucks, it's so much harder to install than Ubuntu."
    "Slackware sucks, you spend way more time on the CLI than other distros."

    There are still some of us left that don't think the primary goal of every linux distro is to become a clone of the Windows desktop. There are less and less of us left that want to kick the hell out of anyone that thinks the command line should go away or be used as little as possible. Slackware is what it is - a robust linux system that tries to be as unix-like as possible.

    If you want your hand held for you, and you don't understand what *nix truly is and can do and don't really care - if all you want is a simple drop-in replacement for Windows - go download Ubuntu. Each distribution achieves a different goal. THAT's the real beauty of linux, not its potential to become "grandma's operating system".

    --
    Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    1. Re:Queue the n00bs by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      I find most Slackware users to be the most knowledgeable Linux users I come across usually.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    2. Re:Queue the n00bs by H0p313ss · · Score: 1

      I find most Slackware users to be the most knowledgeable Linux users I come across usually.

      Because you have to be to get it running and be productive... Slackware is for those who know what their sins are.

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    3. Re:Queue the n00bs by someone300 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Slackware sucks, it has no package manager."
      [...]
      There are still some of us left that don't think the primary goal of every linux distro is to become a clone of the Windows desktop.

      I always felt that a decent package manager was one of the things that really seperated Linux from Windows. :)

      I agree with the rest though.

    4. Re:Queue the n00bs by kwabbles · · Score: 1

      Slackware is for those who know what their sins are.

      My sins are all approved.

      From the "Bob" Apocryphon:

      1. Puma Suckling
      2. Dancing whilst fondling one's crotch
      3. Unrepentant Urination
      4. Wog Dalking
      5. Guilt Toting
      6. Penis Painting
      7. Nixon Nonvoting
      10. Bunsen Burning
      24. Douche Gargling
      25. Rabbit Rooting
      28. Piss Walloping
      40. Premarital Saxaphoning
      53. Fangle Twangling
      62. Flexohallucinating
      68. Boner Honing

      Yup, I'm good.

      http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/answers/revxouts5.html

      --
      Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    5. Re:Queue the n00bs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, I knew your kind would show up. You're a fucking elitist nerd who probably hasn't seen a real pussy since his last visit to thehun. "Waaah Linux is getting too easy to use! Soon all of my intellectual inferiors will be using it, woe is me!" Suck it up and buy yourself an antique PDP-11 then you fucking loser, no one gives a shit about how manually building your own packages gets your tiny raisin balls off. Better yet just post on Slashdot in binary, then you'd really be getting your e-penis on.

      I doubt anyone who wants to incite violence over the removal of a command line prompt from an OS is really capable of kicking "the hell" out of anything more substantial than a deflated soccer ball, but hey, you keep dreaming that dream. Fucktard.

    6. Re:Queue the n00bs by H0p313ss · · Score: 1

      40. Premarital Saxaphoning

      I'm shocked! SHOCKED!

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    7. Re:Queue the n00bs by FlyingBishop · · Score: 1

      I detest the Ubuntu GUI, but I still use Ubuntu. I just run Fluxbox and a Gnome-terminal. Why? Because I don't have time to compile my OS from scratch, and I don't want to have to recompile it if something goes awry. I'd rather grab the same binaries everyone else is using. That's the value of open source - many users makes fewer bugs.

      The suggestion that having your hand held is a bad thing is just stupid. If you follow that logic, we'd all be using magnetic needles for input. Making configuration options disappear is a good thing. The problem is when you make options disappear. Ubuntu does do this occasionally, but they're always hovering just beneath the surface. And really, as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather spend a my time working out how to enable advanced functionality than basic functionality.

    8. Re:Queue the n00bs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about "Slackware sucks because fucking arrogant asshats like you use it?"

      Fag.

    9. Re:Queue the n00bs by Ant+P. · · Score: 1

      s/Slackware sucks/Windows XP sucks/g

      After I realised that, the only thing stopping me from dumping Windows completely was a winmodem... which didn't last long after that.

    10. Re:Queue the n00bs by kwabbles · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The suggestion that having your hand held is a bad thing is just stupid.

      I wasn't trying to imply that having your hand held was a bad thing. What I meant was that if you want your hand held, then you shouldn't be looking towards Slackware. There are other distributions that achieve that goal. People that get on and start pissing and whining about how Slackware has a steeper learning curve as a desktop OS just don't understand the spirit of the distribution.

      Because I don't have time to compile my OS from scratch, and I don't want to have to recompile it if something goes awry....I'd rather grab the same binaries everyone else is using.

      Some people do have the time to compile their OS from scratch. Some people like compiling their OS from scratch. Others see the value in natively-compiled binaries. However, Slackware really isn't like that (as you probably already know). The kernel, basic userland, gcc, libs, etc are already compiled and ready to go. What has to be compiled from there depends on the user's preference.

      You mention that you'd rather grab the same binaries everyone else is using, because "that's the value of open source". Well, if you're really and truly wanting to use the same thing "everyone else is using", then you'd be staying away from pre-compiled binaries and use something like Slackware, which stays close to the original source. DEBs are compiled for Debian/Ubuntu systems. RPMs are compiled for RedHat/Suse/etc systems. Those binaries are being used only by those using those distributions. If you download the nmap source from sourceforge - you really ARE using what's being used by everyone else. You're using the nmap source code used to compile binaries on Debian systems, RedHat systems, *BSD systems, Solaris, you name it. You're staying true to the original author's source - and using what everyone else had to use to get theirs running on their platform.

      To each their own. That's what my original point all boiled down to. People that complain about the vast variety of distributions and go off like all distributions should be some sort of dumbed-down easy to use desktop OS just don't get it.

      --
      Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    11. Re:Queue the n00bs by Bandman · · Score: 1

      Oh yea? Well your momma dresses you funny, and you need a mouse to copy files!

    12. Re:Queue the n00bs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I started with Slackware something like 15 years ago. I used it exclusively for at least 10 years. But I simply got tired of the problems associated with building packages and trying to integrate them with Slackware's "package" system. I wrote a Perl script to track 'make install' and create a Slackware package, but that was hacky and the package management was really still just file tracking.

      So I figured I had no choice but to write my own package manager that tracked dependencies, and essentially replace Slackware over time. Now I have my own package manager and init scripts, with Slackware all but gone from my system (though /etc/slackware-version from 9 Oct 1999 still exists for old time's sake). Slackware was fantastic as a way for me to learn Linux. It's because of Slackware that I had the ability to, essentially, write my own distribution. But the conveniences of modern package management and a BSD-style init system were simply too enticing for me. Sure, I spent hours writing the software for my new system, but now it's a joy to use and I can easily manage multiple systems.

      And no, Slackware does not have a BSD-style init system--or it didn't when Slack 7 was current. It's only marginally BSD-like. My system is modeled on the modern BSDs with /etc/rc.conf and rcorder. It's very flexible and, I find, much nicer than SysV init setups.

    13. Re:Queue the n00bs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Easy Linux? Bah. You darn-tootin' kids with your "apt-gets" and your "out of the boxes." Back in my day we had to compile every dependency by hand, through the snow, uphill both ways.

    14. Re:Queue the n00bs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Faggot.

    15. Re:Queue the n00bs by catmistake · · Score: 1

      There are still some of us left that don't think the primary goal of every linux distro is to become a clone of the Windows desktop.

      Well, you're almost wrong. Had you left off that last word, you'd be completely wrong. That's what Linux is, the savior of casualties of Windows. If Windows breaks it, Linux fixes it. If Windows actually innovates (a lotta good stuff really does come out of R&D South), then Linux matches the innovation, usually within weeks. Linux and Windows are kind of like in that eternal grip with each other the way Lazerus and his paranoid twin were (are?) from that one episode of TOS.

    16. Re:Queue the n00bs by kwabbles · · Score: 1

      Better yet just post on Slashdot in binary, then you'd really be getting your e-penis on.

      01010011 01010101 01000011 01001011 00100000 01001001 01010100

      --
      Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
    17. Re:Queue the n00bs by sowth · · Score: 1

      Well, when you find a decent package manager, please tell me. Debian's seems to have constant massive problems with breaking dependencies to the point where installing some packages requires manually adding each dependency, if I can get them to install at all. Someone (maybe me) needs to write a decent package manager. And RedHat...well, that is made by redhat. Don't even get me started on them.

      What is really crappy about the package manager situation: are they really needed that badly? If some project decides to use an obscure library, why don't they just include it with the package in the first place? Most of the time only the one (or two) project uses it. It made it so I could not install some of the Debian projects I wanted anyway, because even though the projects were on disc, they required huge deps from the internet. I am stuck on dialup, installing them would have taken forever.

      In fact, MSwin doesn't have this problem because every program I've seen, they package all the required libraries with the program (except for the "standard" MS ones). I've seen a few projects written for Linux or Posix which do this, but not many. Most of them expect you to hunt down deps or have your package manager do this for you...assuming it works. Another problem with this way of packaging, what happens when one of your dep's web page disappears? (happens with older projects sometimes) Your project is useless to people unless they can find a copy of that dep.

      All the package managing systems have huge problems. Slackware works best for me because I usually just install nearly everything from the first disk (don't use KDE / Gnome), and programs I download are usually source only anyway.

    18. Re:Queue the n00bs by someone300 · · Score: 1

      Fair enough. If you want to use Linux without the package manager, that's entirely up to you. I was just saying it's a big difference between Windows and Linux (usually).

      For me, dpkg/apt is a great package manager. I almost never get any dependency resolution problems that can't be solved by apt-get update. For packages that don't exist in the repository, they usually exist in a 3rd party repos, or are easy to make yourself with checkinstall or any number of other tools.

      Also, as far as many Linux packages only using a dependency once, that is rarely true. Try ldd-ing any of your binaries and comparing what's common between them. Another reason is that I can apt-get the library dev version, develop against it, all without having to depend on a potentially large UI frontend for it. Bear in mind, Linux is made to be very developer friendly.

      You'll also find that the average download produced by apt-get for a program will be smaller than the application on Windows. I've used Linux on dial-up before... And if you have any access to broadband, you can generate download lists for when you get access to it.

      Also, as a developer, it's best practice to keep the dependencies for your projects in your source control repository, just in-case they disappear for whatever reason. If it disappears, release the source on your page since it's GPL.

    19. Re:Queue the n00bs by evilviper · · Score: 1

      There are less and less of us left that want to kick the hell out of anyone that thinks the command line should go away or be used as little as possible. Slackware is what it is - a robust linux system that tries to be as unix-like as possible.

      I don't mind the motivation, but I am infuriated by the mindset of most Linux distros that decide to include some really crappy GUI for system configuration, that can just BARELY do the basics... A GUI which then mucks up the system so badly that it's a nightmare to go back and try to configure the system the "normal" way, because of config files being overwritten by some automatically generated files, by some deeply embedded startup command, which gets it's parameters from some DB file hidden in some stupidly titled random location on the system.

      THAT is the real nightmare. If some Linux distro actually wrote full-fledged configuration utilities which could tweak every possible parameter, and which had both GUI and scriptable equivalents, I would be reasonably happy. But as it is, the half-assed attempt just makes things worse. Even if you don't like the command-line, you can't deny that system configuration is (currently) much easier without the available GUI tools that only half do the job, and really screw up the system in a fundamental way.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    20. Re:Queue the n00bs by evilviper · · Score: 1

      If some project decides to use an obscure library, why don't they just include it with the package in the first place? Most of the time only the one (or two) project uses it.

      I'll agree with you when it comes to any GUI program made/funded by the FSF or GNU projects. They have a morbid fascination with making every trivial part of a program, with next to no chance of ever being used separately from the application, into it's own separate project.

      See GPG, GNASH, et al.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    21. Re:Queue the n00bs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To those who use slackware, the lack of dependency-checking is considered a feature of slackware package management. You may disagree with this, but there are plenty who recognize and prefer it. The simplicity (basically dealing with gzipped tar archives) is also considered a feature. It's hard to understand why until you start compiling your own slackbuilds for software which isn't in the main distribution.

      The philosophy of "vanilla-ism" is the foundation of slackware. This means keeping things simple and unix-like whenever possible, avoiding unnecessary (and possibly troublesome) patches to third-party code. There is a very good reason why slackware is the longest surviving linux distribution.

  33. Is there 64-bit support? by Skapare · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What about 64-bit Slackware?

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    1. Re:Is there 64-bit support? by ppz003 · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://www.slamd64.com/

      Just give the maintainers a little while to catch up, but SlamD64 does include 32-bit support so you can install most normal 32-bit slackware packages if you need to.

    2. Re:Is there 64-bit support? by gun26 · · Score: 2, Informative

      AFAIK Slackware itself is still only 32-bit, but there is a project called BluewWhite 64 (http://www.bluewhite64.com) which is an unofficial port to 64 bit. They should have a 12.2 of their own within a few weeks.

    3. Re:Is there 64-bit support? by doti · · Score: 1

      We should by Patrick a 64-bit machine.

      --
      factor 966971: 966971
    4. Re:Is there 64-bit support? by mishehu · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think Fred (the Slamd64 maintainer) is usually lagged a little behind the official Slackware released do to his life outside of maintaining Slamd64. All of my x86_64 systems run Slamd64. We use it on a number of servers as well.

    5. Re:Is there 64-bit support? by Pete+Slash+Work · · Score: 1

      It's called Arch Linux ;)

    6. Re:Is there 64-bit support? by JK_the_Slacker · · Score: 1

      A small number of us are pitching in to help him with that, as well. Remember, part of the reason Slamd64 "lags" is due to Fred's attempting to remain as close to a pure port of Slackware as possible... so he has to wait on Pat to update before he can, most of the time.

      --
      I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
    7. Re:Is there 64-bit support? by Wainamoinen · · Score: 1

      There is another non-official 64 bits port of Slackware called "Bluewhite64". This is a pure 64 distribution (support for 32 bits is availabe as an extra package if needed).

      Bluewhite64 guys try to keep this distro as similar as possible to Slackware (packages, scripts, organization, etc).

      I have been using this distro for months now, and I it does the work nicely.

      There is another non-official 64 bits port of Slackware called "Bluewhite64". This is a pure 64 distribution (support for 32 bits is availabe as an extra package if needed).

      Bluewhite64 guys try to keep this distro as similar as possible to Slackware (packages, scripts, organization, etc).

      I have been using this distro for months now, and I it does the work nicely.

      http://www.bluewhite64.com/

    8. Re:Is there 64-bit support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is also Bluewhite64 Linux another unofficial port to 64-bit. It is up to date and Monday will be released the 12.2 version ;).

  34. The reason Pat doesn't like PAM by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    She left him and took the child processes with her.

  35. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Fri13 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And thanks for the Ubuntu Fanboys, we have wikipedia saturated with Ubuntu, on articles where it does not belong etc. And Ubuntu has gone over "Linux" on them. Even the normal user ask "Where I can get Linux" and stupid Ubuntu fans yells back for that "I is just a kernel you idiot!".

    In few years you dont have device drivers for Linux, but for Ubuntu. You dont have commercial software available than few commercial distributions and Ubuntu. And all the n00bs keeps talking that "You can have Ubuntu or Linux, those are two different Operating Systems, Ubuntu altought is much better because the browser and office applications are integrated to operating system itself".

    So thanks a lot Ubuntu users what you have done to promote the Linux, but no thanks for negative attitude against Linux community, just being so annoing and blind Ubuntu fans...

  36. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 1

    And despite those warnings, I never did manage to explode a monitor or cause it to cease functioning ( short of dropping it off a three story building). I did manage to set Lp0 on fire though ( with the help of some accelerants).

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  37. Re:Dictionary Check by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, is that pseudo-hip casual user's dictionary?

  38. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by lz2pt · · Score: 1

    Ah, the joys of floppy install sets..
    Clearing out an old box of disks I came across a couple of my second Slackware distro set floppies (SLS/T1, the other is Illegible[Blackcurrent&Pernod stained label, v.looong story]) , marked Feb '94, which was the second time I'd ever installed linux on a box.

    The floppy images were lovingly downloaded to a Sparc 2 ( the only networked box in the lab back then) then written out via the hit-and-miss Sun floppy drive to said floppies, then transferred to the PC at the other end of the lab (ISTR, 'twas a 386 dx 33, 170 Meg HD 16 Meg RAM). Great fun, started at around 5:00pm, finished around 6:30am the next morning, still leaving me with 2 1/2 hours of playing before I had to start work again at nine.

    My first Slackware distro install was sometime in December '93, done in a similar manner, but using only seven working floppy disks. I started with around 20, but the Sun floppy drive kept fubarring them (a not too uncommon occurrence), had no replacements at hand, and the shops were closed, so ended up having to overwrite the seven working disks with the next wanted floppy images in sequence, another all-nighter starting around 5:30pm, ISTR I actually finished the install at around 11:00am(ish) the next day.

    As far as I can tell, in both cases, this must have been Slackware 1, and that I must have been quite mad back then...

    Still run Slackware (Basically 12 with local hacks and non-packaged software), my desktop, server and firewall are all Slackware boxes. I've tried other distros, but for some reason keep coming back to Slackware.
           

  39. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Bandman · · Score: 1

    I'm of two minds when it comes to learning linux today.

    See, I learned Slackware back in 1996 or 1997. After coming from Windows 3.1. On one hand, things now are a completely different world than they were then. The support available from websites (and tons of other people, because among the techies, it's mainstream) is huge. The software and driver support is SO. MUCH. BETTER.

    But on the other hand, I installed from a 2x CD-ROM, which means I sat there and read the name and description of every package that got installed. Since reinstalling when I was learning happened frequently, I knew what every package was, what it did, how big it was, and so on. And once you were done with the install and you rebooted, you got a shell prompt. The end. Login and make stuff happen.

    You had to work for it then, and definitely acquire a large amount of knowledge before you could do anything interesting. After using Linux for over 10 years, it's literally second nature.

    Had I started out in today's world, I doubt I'd be as proficient, just because I wouldn't have had to work harder in the beginning.

  40. don't forget to seed by uberjoe · · Score: 1
    Here's the torrents

    yes I am a karma whore.

    --

    The days of the digital watch are numbered.

    1. Re:don't forget to seed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And not a very good one, I might add.

    2. Re:don't forget to seed by uberjoe · · Score: 1

      I'm trying to start over, Why do you have to make it so hard! (sob)

      --

      The days of the digital watch are numbered.

  41. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by mrdoogee · · Score: 1

    I had some problems with 8.04 (the usual, wifi) but 8.10 has really seemed to iron out a lot of the kinks. I am new to linux but I got Ibex running on my Macbook Pro on the first try. Another hour in the CLI (apt-get & fine tuning my synaptics touchpad mostly) and it works as well as OS X on the other partition.
      However I have seen some great looking systems running Slack, Redhat, Suse, even DamnSmall. Its all about if the distro works for you. In my case, Ubuntu works like a charm and fits me perfectly.

  42. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Bandman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not convinced that the normalization on a "standard" distro is a bad thing. Choice is freedom for some and confusion for others. I like the fact that Ubuntu provides a standard interface for hardware manufacturers to say "here are the working drivers", and they release a .deb for the hardware. I'd love to get the source code too, but that's not possible all the time, so I'll take binary. And it's possible to create packages for other OSes by using the files contained in the .deb package and recycling them, which allows other more knowledgeable users to take advantage of them.

    Given a choice between "We release drivers for Ubuntu (and/or maybe some RedHat derivative)" or "We don't release drivers for linux", I know which one I'll take.

    And it's not a false dichotomy, because lots of companies don't have the resources to release packages for every distro out there, and many of them don't own all of the IP to release open source drivers, so binary is the only option. In those cases, I welcome the Ubuntu packages.

  43. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really? It seemed the smarts guys stayed and the ,eh, not so smart moved on.

    As a Slackware user, I'm the one who gets pestered at our Linux meeting with 'help me' questions. F'n ubuntu!

  44. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by AntEater · · Score: 1

    Horrible memories? Slackware was my first Linux installation. I used a set of floppies from MS Office 4.3(?) to create the disk sets. It was a thing of beauty. Reading my monitor's manual to find the refresh and sync rates, trying to get cdrom support in the default kernel. I learned more that first weekend with Linux than I did the entire time I spent running windows 3.1. Slackware has come a LONG way since 1995. BTW, I still admin. three servers at work running Slack.

    --
    Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
  45. slackbuilds.org, sbopkg, and patches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For third party software, check out slackbuilds.org. It is run by several members of the Slackware team. There is also a tool called 'sbopkg' (www.sbopkg.org) that provides a nice command line or dialog-based interface to slackbuilds.org and lets you easily build third-party packages.

    Another thing that rarely gets mentioned is just how long Patrick and the Slackware Security Team provide updates. They are /still/ providing patches for Slackware 8.1 released in 2001. That's a damn long time.

  46. Slack rules! by Sp4c3+C4d3t · · Score: 1

    I've been using Slack on various machines for 8 years now, and it's still one of my favourites. I keep it installed on my parents' PC so that I don't have to drive down there every week to fix a Windows virus or a Ubuntu fuckup.

    --
    Happy New Year, it's 1984!
  47. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by the_arrow · · Score: 1

    Heh, I did something like that too once. Had a monitor that had a top resolution of 800x600, but I thought it was a little to low so I tweaked the settings so i could have something like 900x675.

    --
    / The Arrow
    "How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
  48. Probably OT, but... by Bandman · · Score: 1

    I agree that upgrading 99% of the software might not make perfect sense, especially if the machines don't have local accounts, but if you don't regularly upgrade the packages that provide services (ssh, apache, bind, etc), then you're opening yourself to a world of hurt.

    You operate by what I refer to as the "soft juicy center" security model. There's a hard outside and a completely unprotected center that, if reached, is completely and utterly vulnerable.

    Logically, your external network connections might be secure, but you should consider physical security as well. How difficult is it for someone to plug something into a data jack and get access to the network? Or how difficult would it be for a "maintenance man" to put a laptop in the ceiling?

    You're probably saying "no one would even want access to my networks" but that's definitely not assured. Aside from your competitors, you've also got people at your company (or who used to work at your company).

    It's good practice to make sure that you are protected internal and out, and it makes for a lot less excuses later if something does happen.

    1. Re:Probably OT, but... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Your right most of the time but in this case we are talking about a remote sensor net in northern Canada. This is really more of an embedded device than your typical network.
      I would assume that it is on some kind of private network and is not exposed. For a typical office network I agree with you 100%.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:Probably OT, but... by Bandman · · Score: 1

      As long as you take the aforementioned guards against bears and elk, I think you'll be fine :-)

    3. Re:Probably OT, but... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Actually for a remote sensor machine I would be very tempted to use Contiki. Small and light and odds are your using all custom applications anyway. Should run very well on a 386.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  49. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by harry666t · · Score: 1

    > Make a typo entering your monitor's scan rate?
    > Too bad. Try again from the beginning

    Then it's not old-school, but shitty UI design. One could always get the UI right, no matter the epoch or hardware.

  50. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Provocateur · · Score: 1

    Try again from the beginning, or edit the file with vi....with your remaining eye?

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  51. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by jayloden · · Score: 1

    If you're using PuTTY, you should check out PuTTY Connection Manager, it's free, it's PuTTY, and it's got tabs, connection profiles, etc. As soon as it supports PuTTYCyg connections I plan on switching to it for all my terminal needs on Windows.

  52. Re:Total. Fucking. Loser. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't mind trolls. Any decent sized community will have them. I especially appreciate a well-crafted troll. Yours was not so much a well-crafted troll as the crude not-quite-literate spasms of a slow second grader, written with a chunky purple crayon on the back of a Denny's napkin. In short, you are a terrible, weak near-beer troll. You are a complete miserable failure as a troll and should stop before you make a further ass of yourself.

    F

  53. Re:Talk.Like.a.fag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    tl:dr

  54. Re:Total. Fucking. Loser. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Holy shit. Why the fuck did you crap out that embarrassing attempt at a flame? It was like listening to some born again christian retard trying to talk shit.

  55. Re:Now if you could just learn English. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their = of or relating to them or themselves especially as possessors, agents, or objects of an action

    There = in or at that place

    Next time, please use the correct one.

    Seig heil!

  56. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    UI design !?

    Back to your basement, kid. And your ooh-shiny gui windows. There was hardly any GUI installers back when slack was growing up. I have magazines that heralded the arrival of them GUI installers.

    You probably grew up with xorg.conf, didn't you? That's ok, I occasionally watch Point Break.

  57. Because it works by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 1

    The way to look at the Slackware "distribution" is to see it as a bare bones, vanilla-type system.

    I view Slackware as a construction set for building Linux boxes. You can build anything you want with it - desktop, server, whatever. This is different from other distros that are a Linux box in a can. Open the can, pour out the contents, go.

    I also like the fact that Slackware doesn't try to hide the fact that it's Unix. Many other distros are trying too hard to look like Windows.

    My very first Linux box was Slackware. I've used Debian on Sun UltraSPARC boxes, and messed around with the embedded stuff on teeny tiny computers. But for general day-to-day use, I always come back to Slackware. Because it works.

    Yes, I'm typing this on a Slackware box. Three cheers for Slackware! Thanks, Patrick!

    ...laura

  58. Why the negativity ? by vic20david · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why the negativity ? Why can't everyone in the Linux/BSD/OpenSource communities raise their glass and say "Congratulations! Good work!" I thought we were on the same side here. Today, you pop in a "modern" linux distro and 97% of the time, it just works. Some kid grabs an install disc for fedora or ubuntu, and he boasts to his friens "yeah, I run linux". Yet they have learned nothing. I am proudly a slackware and debian user and always will be. Run RedHat/Fedora and you learn RedHat/Fedora. Fine. Run Ubuntu and you learn Ubuntu. Run Slackware and you learn Unix/Linux. Slackware is run at many universities as a major portion of the network. It is run in libraies, schools, and even some business. Not to mention many many home users around the world. There were 3,000 visits and downloads to the slackware site in aug 08. Some say there is no package management. Well yes there is. There is no dependency checking but the most needed dependencies are already part of the install. And if you get a message saying you need something, then go get it. [rhetorical] Whats the big deal? Dont blindly follow the script kiddies into ubuntu land. "Yeah dude, I run Linux." No, you clicked "OK" or "Continue" a few times and ripped a DVD. Ooooo you're a linux god. :p Go get Slackware or pure debian. Slackware: Myths and Cliche http://www.osnews.com/story/3329/Slackware_Myths_and_Cliches_--_Another_Newbie_s_Point_of_View

    1. Re:Why the negativity ? by mcneely.mike · · Score: 1

      You are CORRECT Sir!!
      Any time gnu/linux is used (in whatever form), it is time to celebrate.
      Besides, the ? linux is better than +linux is just a hormonal version of penis envy of those still using Windblows.
      nudge, nudge, wink, wink!

      --
      soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
    2. Re:Why the negativity ? by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Run Slackware and you learn Unix/Linux.

      While partially true to some degree, you won't learn too much about Unix even from Slackware. The open source operating system that I would say is by and far the most similar to Solaris/SCO/AIX, etc., would have to be OpenBSD.

      While Linux systems like to pile on feature after feature, and multiple different ways to do... EVERYTHING... OpenBSD instead continues to simplify the base system rather than adding extra new layers.

      eg. The start-up script is one single file: /etc/rc. Instead of a plethora of different shells, none of which are complete, they instead improved pdksh until it had all the capabilities of BASH, at perhaps 1/4th the size. See: mksh. They continually remove GNU utilities (eg. grep), and replace them with versions that have more traditional Unix style. Instead of adopting OSS like FreeBSD and Linux, OpenBSD still uses 'sun' style audio output/drivers. And while even FreeBSD has adopted kernel modules, OpenBSD keeps everything in the (quite small) kernel, and has full plug-and-play capability, without any clunky run-time program needed to detect system changes and load different kernel modules. In fact, getting programs to compile on traditional Unix systems, I often find myself referring to the patches in OpenBSD Ports, as the issues are often identical.

      Of course this story is days old, and my post is just a reply, so next to nobody will ever see it, but there you have it.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    3. Re:Why the negativity ? by AncientPC · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure where you're getting the negativity from.

      Sure Ubuntu is easier to use and that's a large reason why it's gained popularity. It's not a bare bones distro that Slackware is, they are aiming for two different types of end users.

      Also, I'm not sure why linux *needs* to be difficult to use. It's like saying someone isn't justified in driving their car unless they build the engine from scratch.

  59. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slackware is so stable you only need to update when Glib becomes obsolete, so I'm good until at least Slackware 13.1

    1. Re:Why? by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Please tell me you apply security patches?

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  60. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Bandman · · Score: 1

    User interface? You've never done it. There wasn't an interface, other than a keyboard and text. It was a progressive script hacked together and we were grateful, because we didn't have to write the X11R86.conf file from scratch anymore.

  61. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Bandman · · Score: 1

    X11R6.conf I mean. :-)

  62. Re:Now if you could just learn English. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That first word would be "sieg".
    //German spelling nazi!

  63. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by X0563511 · · Score: 1

    Ick. I hate that style interface (multiple subwindows in a master window). I would rather have my PuTTY sessions.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  64. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by X0563511 · · Score: 1

    Call me lazy, but I enjoy "aptitude upgrade" without having to set it all up myself.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  65. Slamd64 is Excellent by turgid · · Score: 1

    Slamd64 is excellent. I've been using it for just over a year now. My SETI@Home CPU benchmark went up by 55% by going from 32-bit to 64-bit.

    With more than 512MB of RAM on an x86 box, a 64-bit Linux is vastly superior due to the way the kernel lays out the memory map and the extra registers.

    It's a real shame that there isn't an official 64-bit Slackware, but Slamd64 is more than good enough. I've been on Slackware since 1995. I've used Debian, CentOS, RedHat, SuSE, KNOPPIX and Ubuntu and I will never leave Slackware unless I am forced to.

    All of my old boxes run Slackware. All of my new ones will be running Slamd64.

    Maybe Pat and Fred should team up semi-officially?

    1. Re:Slamd64 is Excellent by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Might be worth asking, I know they both frequent their respective freenode.net IRC channels (#slackware #slamd64)

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  66. Bloated distros by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hello,

    I am a former Debian user that switched to Slackware this summer. (I prefer Debian to other derived distributions like Ubuntu for a number of reasons).

    What I like from Slackware is it "vanilla" approach. In fact, I think other "distros" (like Debian itself) are getting quite bloated, and this can be hell if trying to find the cause of a bug: you may spend much time comparing to other distros and/or searching if the problem is in the thousand of patches applied or in the original "upstream" package.

    I like the Slackware's initialization scripts too.

    On the other hand, nobody can beat Debian's huge software repository. Nevertheless, if you still want to install a non-standard package I guess it's much easier to do in Slackware (at least if you want to follow your "distro way").

    Also, I could configure my rt73 usb dongle and WPA2 almost immediately in Slackware. I have felt pain with Debian (Lenny) and Ubuntu (using their official packages) and have not been able to do it yet.

    1. Re:Bloated distros by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, nobody can beat Debian's huge software repository.

      I had to switch an older machine from Debian to Slackware a few years ago because of the huge software repository. apt stopped being usable due to requiring too much memory. Now, I could manually download and install the dpkg files I suppose, but once I could no longer simply apt-get update/upgrade, it didn't seem to make much sense to keep using Debian. The way Debian packages things assumes apt -- they break things down more and expect dependency resolution, which is exactly what they should do, but it makes it a pain to try to use if you can't use apt. Moving to Slackware was easier...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  67. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by muckracer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > I'm not convinced that the normalization on a "standard" distro is a bad thing.
    > Choice is freedom for some and confusion for others.

    A 'standard distro' IS a bad thing. Distro's come and go whereas the UNIX aspect of any distro remains in large parts. Hence it makes much more sense to sensibly invest in FHS and similar efforts than to focus on the current fashionable packaged distro. I agree with your comment on freedom for some and confusion for others, but the same way that I don't want to ever see gasoline released just for the 'standard Ford Focus' I don't want to see drivers for a specific distro only (which is not to say, that it can't be pre-packaged for certain distro's since there is a convenience factor involved. But the source should compile on any sane distribution).

  68. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by JK_the_Slacker · · Score: 1

    So give us the binaries and let us package them ourselves. Next?

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    I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
  69. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Hatta · · Score: 1

    I like the fact that Ubuntu provides a standard interface for hardware manufacturers to say "here are the working drivers", and they release a .deb for the hardware.

    What hardware manufacturer distributes debs? Vendors like nVidia distribute closed source drivers as self extracting archives. Other vendors open their source, get included in the kernel, and just work. I've never seen a .deb driver distributed by a vendor. Do you have an example?

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    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  70. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by dow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I had a 14inch monitor I originally used with my Amiga but with X managed 1240x968 (or something like that). It was interlaced, and whined a bit. Every few months it needed a slightly different setting as for some reason it could no longer handle the frequency. I had to adjust vertical stretch to minimum and have the horizontal control all the way over to one side, and iirc a few lines along one edge were funny colored.

    Been using Slackware for over 10 years ;)

  71. Slack? Ubuntu? by heri0n · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems to be two camps in this discussion... The hardcore slack users who hate on the Ubuntu "noobs", and the Ubuntu users who claim Slack should only be viewed as a piece of nostalgia.

    I have used both distributions quite a bit and enjoyed both. I started out with Slackware, and one things for sure, I learned a lot about navigating Linux systems. Eventually, I got sick of manually compiling/installing every package so I made the switch to Ubuntu. I was actually quite impressed with Ubuntu and its ease of use. I would say the best things about Ubuntu would be ease of use and installing packages using Synaptic. However, you don't really learn how the underlying system works. Recently, I've re-installed Slackware to get back to my roots. I think Slackware is much better as a server or as a simple desktop.

    I think both distros have their own place. To the Slackware veterans, you can't deny that Ubuntu has made a huge impact on converting Windows users to Linux. Even if they may be noobs and flood forums with noobie questions, converting users to Linux can be only a good thing, right? Also, personally I have found Ubuntu forums to be some of the most helpful and friendly. Pat and Slackware are keeping it real as usual, enough said.

  72. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by multisync · · Score: 1

    Ick. I hate that style interface (multiple subwindows in a master window)

    You can "detach" the terminal windows and minimize the "master window" if you just want you terminal window on screen. I agree, it's annoying having to have the master window open, but I like PenguiNet for its connection manager and scp interface.

    Different strokes, I guess ...

    --
    I don't care why you're posting AC
  73. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Bandman · · Score: 1

    That's pretty much what I'm saying too. I don't care if you say your gasoline is for the Ford Focus as long as I can run my Mazda on it.

  74. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    XLiveCD.

    This seems to work much like PenguiNet, but it's free (based on Cygwin). You can run it as a livecd or install it on the hard drive.

    http://xlivecd.indiana.edu/

  75. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Fri13 · · Score: 1

    Companies dont need to do packages for every distribution. You follow the Linux Operating System (the kernel) API/ABI and then they offer binaries for distributors who includes them to Linux etc.

    Even better if they open drivers source or specs of hardware so Linux kernel developers can make drivers and update them if needed when API/ABI's on Linux Operating System gets changed. Linus does not like to do such big changes in Linux OS, but those will happend sometimes and then it is very important that everyone follows and are ready for such things. Then it is better that drivers gets updated right away and not when the hardware maker feels good to do so.

    You dont wish to get a "standard distribution". You want standard API's for what everyone can do their software and it works on all distributions.

    Wishing that Ubuntu comes as "only one" is like wishing that Microsoft Windows stays as "the only one" in markets. It is just switching Microsoft to Canonical and it is not good thing at all!

    Distributors does those RPM/DEB/X packages for their distributions, not the original hardware maker, even that some offers such. It would be very stupid idea, that one hardware maker should roll a package for every available distribution out there. Thats why you have community what helps you to distribute the software, help it to spread wider so the one is not needed to do it alone.

    Work together and you are welcommed, work against community and you are K.O.

    The standard interfaces comes from other sources, not from Ubuntu/Canonical. If you want standard OS interface, do not even look Ubuntu/Canonical, look Linux kernel developers who are developing the OS. Canonical is just one distributor among many others.

  76. What a dist means nowdays by pooh666 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Is that someone is making very major decisions about the software you run on your machine. If you are the normal Linux moron who only cares about Desktop BS(why in god's name dont you people just use Macs?) then you get upset about having to understand what is going on. I get upset when I have to fight over figuring out how to compile out the stupid mistakes people put in binary packages. This is why I greatly respect people who use BSDs or Slackware and always wonder a little about someone using Debian or Umbatu, do they know what they are doing? Or are they just playing at it because they think apt-get makes them UNIX gods. RedHat I think is a little different because at least they have a good business support system. Same goes for Solaris for the same reason. It is time for the Linux hobbist to find a new toy and quit trying to make a beautiful system into god damn Windows!

    1. Re:What a dist means nowdays by sir+fer · · Score: 0

      why in god's name dont you people just use Macs?

      Something to do with the price maybe?

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    2. Re:What a dist means nowdays by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The weird thing is, I'm just a normal linux moron and I use Slackware! It really isn't that difficult. Slack 12.2 is the first distro that supports my Atheros wireless card "out of the box" (although that's probably because it uses the latest kernel). You just have to learn a little command line stuff that I could probably teach my 7 year old granddaughter to do. I'm a "moron" in the sense that I'm using it on my laptop for ordinary desktop use. Why use it over MacOS? Because it is blazingly fast, and free, and incredibly stable.

  77. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by multisync · · Score: 1

    Sounds like it's worth checking out. Thanks.

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    I don't care why you're posting AC
  78. Slacker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm too slack to download and install this ware.

  79. OT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's with the mods modding down funny posts lately?

  80. No Selinux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I like that SELINUX is still not compiled in.

    Everybody else is cattering to NSA

  81. Distro that Just Works. by LackThereof · · Score: 2, Informative

    People complain about Slackware's usability all the time. What I always see neglected is the fact that Slackware, as a distro, Just Works far more often than any other distro I've played with.

    Slackware will install and work on a wide variety of exotic hardware, both modern and obsolete. It can be easily installed on machines that don't boot from CD, or even have a CD drive.

    I've never encountered a machine that wouldn't install and boot slackware, with a working command line and network support, just by using the scripts that come on the install discs, and following the instructions.

    --
    Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.
  82. irqpolling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do you still have to include irqpoll=off it should be like that by default.

    Old machine option

  83. Closest to Unix? by camg188 · · Score: 1

    I originally tried Slackware because I read somewhere that it was the distribution most similar to Unix. Other than more manual configuration, it seemed pretty much the same as other distributions.

  84. slackware automatic package tool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    slapt-get. Just as good, if not better than the others.

  85. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by rhomp2002 · · Score: 1

    Have you tried wicd for wifi install? My friends all claim this is far better than network manager.

  86. nobody seeding the torrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    C'mon people! What's up with the torrent? Is no one seeding this yet?

  87. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, when I started using Slackware, I have had a few years of Windows (and Red Hat, but I'm repeating myself) background. Never looked back, of course.

    Long live Slack!
    Long live Pat!
    Have a nice day.

  88. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by Haley's+Comet · · Score: 1

    After years of Compaq DOS 3.31, I skipped over Windows 3/9x and cut my teeth (for Linux) on Slackware. I still only use the CLI if I can. Actually, I am typing this from Gentoox on my xbox. I got this article late because I was still updating...

    --
    The Illuminati would kill me, but I'm not rich enough to take notice of.
  89. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by Haley's+Comet · · Score: 1

    Kudos, Patrick! Long may you release!

    ...And I thought this was a family channel?!?

    --
    The Illuminati would kill me, but I'm not rich enough to take notice of.
  90. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by harry666t · · Score: 1

    I have said "User Interface", not "Graphical User Interface", there is a distinction. Learn to understand what you're reading, it's a useful skill.

  91. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by harry666t · · Score: 1

    I know I haven't done it, just like you've probably never been entering the boot sequence on the front panel using switches and blinking lights :) my point is, is undo THAT difficult to implement? If I've been designing a tool like that, I'd store the questions, answers so far, etc in an array, and in case the user has entered a magic sequence like "!undo" I'd go back to the previous question. Here, UI problem fixed with 30 seconds of thinking.

  92. Re:Wow. Still chugging... by WhiteDragon · · Score: 1

    Ah yes, the horrible memories of downloading, copying to floppies and installing from said floppies because the machine in question didn't have a CD-ROM drive (and no spare drives around). And on dial-up....

    Yes to all of the above (at separate times). This was before CD burners were common, so we just downloaded the floppy images. There was one benefit though, when some friends and I got an assignment to install Linux (Slackware was about it back then, except for Yggdrasil and Red Hat) on all the computers in a lab. We got all 60+ floppies, and just went around the lab, assembly-line style. Using floppies actually allowed pipelining (although I didn't know that term for it back then). Side note: our original idea was to use free AOL floppies, but too many of them failed, so we had to buy some :-)

    --
    Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
  93. Re:The Only Reason This Distro Exists by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

    X11 has a package manager? No wonder it's so bloated...

    --
    I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
  94. Good Slackware 12.2 review by spiki · · Score: 0

    Good Slackware 12.2 review http://www.xstore.co.za/wordpress/?p=307

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    I sell frozen yogurt which i call frogurt
  95. README by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Keep on working your ass off trying to compile everything and you could be spending quality time with your family. Configuring operating systems is similar to a religion to some of these people.

    6-10-16-28 40 hrs and what do you end up doing formating and installing windows again.

    People give Mark S shit about Ubuntu but you can just slap it in the drive and spin. You can work on your shit and finish all the while not sweating wondering how compiz is configured.

    Slackware is so freaking stupid.
    Debian fixed all the problems 6 years ago assholes move on and get over it.

  96. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slackware should be King! Right now I'm logged in to one slackware setup using WPA-PSK wireless, chrooted to another one and running a guarddog firewall that was set up when I logged in to the first one. Try that with your Ubuntu's...

    I can say yes to all the cookies in the world and they still get dropped by the wayside plus I get a running summary of all the scanners trying to find an open port. Ciao

  97. People still compile these days? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow! I didnt think there still existed people who still have so much idle time on their hands. Compiling is like so 80ish. I left that world back around Redhat 5 and have never looked back. Never again will I waste time out of my life debugging other folks codes trying to get things to work. Bah!