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Slackware 13.0 Released
willy everlearn and several other readers let us know that Slackware 13.0 is out. "Wed Aug 26 10:00:38 CDT 2009: Slackware 13.0 x86_64 is released as stable! Thanks to everyone who helped make this release possible — see the RELEASE_NOTES for the credits. The ISOs are off to the replicator. This time it will be a 6 CD-ROM 32-bit set and a dual-sided 32-bit/64-bit x86/x86_64 DVD. We're taking pre-orders now at store.slackware.com. Please consider picking up a copy to help support the project. Once again, thanks to the entire Slackware community for all the help testing and fixing things and offering suggestions during this development cycle. As always, have fun and enjoy!"
It seems that deb/rpm people don't like/understand Slackware.
No hour on a horse is ever wasted. Winston Churchill
Yes, there is purpose and other advantages. May I introduce you to "Bob"? He will tell you all you need to know about the purpose and advantages of having "Slack".
Or you could just use the torrent page.
But, if you want to download your operating system from a completely unknown and untrusted source, go right ahead.
Granted, TPB would probably link you to the same torrent, but why would you take the risk? Because you find searching, poring over a search list, and deciding on one that looks safe is a more efficient use of your time than just going to the source's torrents?
Slackware is for people who don't understand packages? I think you have that one backwards mate.
Anyone who uses Slackware regularly understands much more about Linux than your average debian / ubuntu user, and is certainly not going to be burned by the "complexity" of a package management system. This is because much of the configuration is manual.
It's often quoted... if you use Ubuntu, you'll learn Ubuntu. If you use Slackware, you'll learn Linux.
I've been using Slackware since '96, and I continue to use it in various capacities today. Installing Slackware and playing with it, writing programs for it, was seriously the best thing I ever did for my knowledge of computers and for Unix environments. I have skills that far surpass any of my co-workers or friends, and have often been the only one that could sort out issues with any sort of Unix environment.
Thanks Pat for the hard work.
http://www.slackware.com/getslack/torrents.php
Since when did you need TPB for this kind of sharing. Ain't best place for torrent of sotware on its offical pages? Thou, http://www.legaltorrents.com/ really could use linux / opensource section.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
I would argue that Slackware is for people who have a better understanding of how the system fits together than many (but certainly not all!) of the rpm/deb package users. I use Slackware in an Enterprise setting on 70+ servers that cover everything from email to web-hosting to firewalls to custom built "sales presentation" devices. For us, slackware gives us complete control over the systems, without having to guess at what other services or programs may muddle with different parts of the configuration. It's easy for us to disable and remove any services that are not necessary on a particular computer, and we have our own custom installation, testing, and deployment scripts that allow us to keep machines with similar purposes up to date and in sync. While we could accomplish the same things with virtually any distro, Slackware is (for us) the easiest to do these things with, and "Just Works".
The main purpose of Slackware is to provide a Linux distribution that is very BSD-like. People familiar with FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD that need to use Linux will find Slackware very pleasant to work with.
Linux users that have no experience with UNIX and the CLI will find themselves stumbling around and complaining and asking stupid questions like: "Does Slackware have a real purpose?"
I look forward to upgrading.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
Yes, Eris knows you don't even need to be a SubGenius to appreciate the benefits, one can never have too much Slack. Please excuse me, I just got run over by a Fnord.
Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
Well, I've been using Debian based distros for the last year (read: Ubuntu), what are the advantages of using Slackware? What can I expect?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Yes, one can never have too much Slack.
I can think of a few bungee jumpers who would beg to differ.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
This time it will be a 6 CD-ROM 32-bit set and a dual-sided 32-bit/64-bit x86/x86_64 DVD.
Slack is great but overweight. I'd rather have a more minimal distribution, preferably something that fits on a a single CD. That said, it lives up to expectations -- everything plus the kitchen sink.
In other words: Too large; didn't download. ;)
Slack is great but overweight. I'd rather have a more minimal distribution, preferably something that fits on a a single CD. That said, it lives up to expectations -- everything plus the kitchen sink.
The cause of distro bloat these days is upstream laziness, particularly on the part of X and the DE (Gnome/KDE) developers. It's a running joke about how you can forget any hope of getting a clean X install without having to hack various bits into shape yourself.
So distro makers have to ship everything themselves, if they want to be sure that everything is going to work with their distro. With something like Debian that changes everything possible purely because they can, upstream shouldn't necessarily be blamed so much, but I suspect Patrick probably tries hard to be as standard as he can, and still has problems.
Slackware Slim wanted. I have to agree, trim it down to CD or even better, downsize it down a few megabytes so one can run it off the flash drive.
You can expect to get yourself into distro wars, but arguing from the Slackware side rather than Ubuntu side.
There are some other, more minor, technical differences but that is the main thing.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Slack is great but overweight.
Slackware, overweight? You obviously don't know what you are talking about.
Usually, you only need the 1st CD to install a minimal Slackware system, including fluxbox if memory serves well. CD2 is usually KDE and XFCE. CD3 are optional packages. CD4 through CD6 is source code.
Since I have installed Slackware on countless servers, I hope Slackware 13.0 still follows this simple rule.
And "Everything plus the kitchen sink" is precisely the opposite of the Slackware philosophy (= KISS).
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Hey awesome, I've been trying to get into Slackware lately but I just can't seem to get use to it. Are there any realb benifits to tranfering to it.
Right now I run Arch and I just came from Gentoo, and I like the speed aspects of both and the optimization ability. Would there be such option in Slackware, I haven't seen one but I could of missed it.
Well either way if I can figure out some reasons to switch then I just might.
Thanks
Docmur
This release is, IMHO, a real milestone for Slackware. A major version jump in the desktop, a new package format, a 64-bit version, ext4, 2.6.29/30 kernels with all their goodies...wow, it's come a long way. Thanks to Pat and all other Slack'ers for putting it all together. Waiting eagerly for my subscription to arrive (yes, I put my money where my mouth is and Slackware is well worth the support). :-)
For one, audio to work out of the box.
*snicker*
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
TPB really helps me find my torrents. This kind of file sharing is exactly what BT is great for.
I've used DistroWatch since the first time someone told me to try out Debian in college and it turned out I needed a different distribution because Debian was for me to start out on. Very memorable learning experience.
Even today, the site does a really good job of keeping up to date. An example is Slackware 13.0 that was released today and there in one paragraph with all the links you could want and direct links to mirrors for torrents and the MD5s.
A lot of times when I want to know what a distro is up to, I click that pull down bar -- like say Fedora -- and get a convenient history of recent releases with a paragraph about the release. Hats off to the people who maintain that site.
My work here is dung.
It comes with lots of cool games.
When I first gave Linux a try back 1998, I tried slackware. It came with a game called "X Server". If you won, you got to see pretty colors and stuff. If you lost, that's to say, if you set the refresh rate above what you monitor could take, you got a smoking monitor.
It was almost as scary as FEAR.
> I've been trying to get into Slackware lately but I just can't seem to get
> use to it. Are there any realb benifits to tranfering to it.
It may or may not be for you. That's the beauty of Linux. Use what you feel
comfortable with.
> Right now I run Arch and I just came from Gentoo, and I like the speed
> aspects of both and the optimization ability. Would there be such option in
> Slackware
You can recompile every package to your specifications. See the Slackbuilds.
Whether there's any actual benefit to doing so remains to be seen.
Ditto for actual source you download. Optimizations are a CFLAGS away.
Okay, I'll bite, Mr. Troll.
I was actually just thinking about this. Slackware is *just like* LFS in its simplicity. This is a good thing for those who desire it. Slackware is an LFS system that has been tested for stability and provides a simple, easy for an admin to takeover package management system. Slapt-get provides higher level package management for those who desire it--including support for dependency resolution.
Believe it or not, not everyone wants to be met with GUI greeters, setup wizards, beginner-oriented defaults, and enabled-by-default automatic updates.
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
Its purpose is to be an absolute garbage, unpolished Linux distribution. You may as well LFS.
And this "absolute garbage, unpolished" distribution also happen to be the oldest still-existing distribution in the Linux world. Surprising, that.
Hmmmm... Maybe they are doing something right, after all? Like, perhaps, being stable, complete and a joy to work with?
As opposed to, say, the RPM-Hell, bugged-to-the-bone, over-bloated and absolutely nonsensical but politically correct other distribution(s)?
Just a thought for you...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Actually it's the step between Ubuntu and LinuxFromScratch. I've run Slackware for quite a while and learned a lot from it. But you won't run into the problems that LFS gives you. However, for a normal desktop or server something with apt is way easier to administrate. I wouldn't run Slackware in a server/desktop production environment. Maybe in a embedded system when you need a tighter system.
It's been a while since I used it, but I liked Slack when I did. It didn't use the SysV init system used on almost all other Linux distros, but instead opted for BSD-style startup scripts. At the time I liked that - after getting very used to SysV these days though I think I'd be more or less indifferent on the issue.
Also, Slack was a bit more "raw" of a distro - it's package management included no real dependency handling, making it for the most part just an easy way to install binaries. Usually rather than relying on the package manager (as I often do in other distros now) it was just easier in Slack to download the source tarball and manually compile and install it. That was nice in that I pretty much always had the latest version of any program that I cared about, but the downside was that sometimes as older versions of libraries and such lagged, it would eventually hit a point when upgrading something like Gnome manually became a very, very long task of tracking down all the packages that needed to be upgraded, and sometimes fixing them (as sometimes they'd have libraries in non-standard places and such - not a common occurence, but it did happen).
Slack also didn't ship with any of it's own GUI tools. What you got was basically whatever Gnome or KDE shipped for you to use.
All in all, it was a fast and lean system that lended itself well to a person who wants to tweak things to keep them working exactly how they want. These days though, I've just found that Ubuntu on servers and Mint on the desktop is 90% as good of a system to use while being 20% of the effort to maintain, so I just use them instead.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
It's very true that the beauty of Linux is you can use what you feel comfortable with. Personally I love Gentoo but it's become a mess of a project, every one pulls it in a new direction and it ends up broken alot.
Well maybe I'll give it another try Slackware I mean.
Thanks
Docmur
I loved Slackware for many years, from 1995 to 2008, when I had 4 Slack machines in the house. However, it was the upgrading itself that finally turned me. I found it nigh impossible to actually "upgrade" a pre-existing configured system in use without critically damaging libraries and needing to reinstall from scratch, and worse, reconfigure and fiddle for about 10 hours to get everything working again the way I liked it. In my 20s I had that kind of energy and enthusiasm. Not any longer.
Yes, I have switched to Ubuntu/Mythbuntu, but have brought all my Slackware knowledge with me. Debian package management is divine. The switch has turned out to be the best of both worlds, Ubuntu's polish with my Slackware config skills, with the result of a brilliantly tuned machine that's nigh hassle free.
I tend to use this source/tracker.
http://linuxtracker.org/
That said, it lives up to expectations -- everything plus the kitchen sink.
Not only that, the sink comes in 5 or 17 different variations, so you get your choice on which one to use.
(As long as you don't want the gnome sink)
KDE 4.2 still isn't really ready for primetime rollout - you just need to fiddle with it too much to get some things to work and with slackware you'll be spending enough time fiddling with the core OS as it is. Why didn't patrick stick with 3.5 and leave 4.2 as an option?
Did Patrick ever get over his irrational hatred of PAM and HAL? Or are these still left as an exercise for the student?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
as a long time Slackware user (since 8.0) I have to agree, I watched Slackware go from a single CD distro to the bloated mess it is now, xorg is a damn mess (blame that on xorg developers), kde-4.x is a really buggy mess (blame that on kde developers), I think 12.2 will be my last Slackware, I am going to switch to Crux Linux, I would rather start with a minimal installation and build up from there, i am sure if i installed Slackware without X & kde it would run fine, then there is the job of sorting out all the crap in /l that are no longer required since there will be no X, Crux makes that easier...
/l dir in to several dirs so you dont have libraries only needed for kde in there too (put them in /kde), same with gtk only libraries (make a new /gtk directory), it is like a huge tub of fish and not everyone likes or wants all the fish in there.
Pat V. is a great assembler of packages in to a distro but I think more work should go in to the install CD/DVD directories separating the
I will say in the ten years of using Linux Slackware is most definitely one of the better distros out there.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I read the headline and thought it said slashcode 13 released. For a split second there was much rejoicing. Then I wondered if it would include images of Jason. Then I realized it said Slackware and I went back to staring at the wall.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
"To use a generic kernel you'll need to build an initrd to load your filesystem module and possibly your drive controller or other drivers needed at boot time"
Sorry guys , this is 2009. If the only options to get my devices running is some huge BLOB of a kernel or having to manually hack together an initrd I think I'll stick with other distributions. Installing a distribution is enough work as it is these days without having to worry about fundamentals such as getting the kernel to boot in the first place. This might have been fine in the days when all you wanted out of a setup was a working command prompt and maybe fvwm but these days its just too much work.
(And yes , I used to run slackware up to 11.0)
Agreed. I used to use slackware but the novelty of manually setting everything up wore off a while back. Plus theres so much more to set up in a modern distribution that you really don't want to have to worry about getting low level plumbing up and running - it should just work out of the box.
Check out SLAX
Sounds to me what you really want is something like a busybox based system.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Anyone who uses Slackware regularly understands much more about Linux than your average debian / ubuntu user, and is certainly not going to be burned by the "complexity" of a package management system. This is because much of the configuration is manual.
It's often quoted... if you use Ubuntu, you'll learn Ubuntu. If you use Slackware, you'll learn Linux.
I've been using Slackware since '96, and I continue to use it in various capacities today. Installing Slackware and playing with it, writing programs for it, was seriously the best thing I ever did for my knowledge of computers and for Unix environments. I have skills that far surpass any of my co-workers or friends, and have often been the only one that could sort out issues with any sort of Unix environment.
The true purpose of Slackware? Smugness.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I use Slackware and what you describe is one of my biggest complaints. Patrick will occasionally split packages into several parts, which is good for the long term, but it's pretty annoying when you discover it the hard way because some library you need wasn't installed when you did "upgradepkg".
However, once I get the Slackware systems set up, they just run and run, practically zero maintenance or fiddling required. That part I love.
what are the advantages of using Slackware? What can I expect?
More hands on experience with the guts of a running Linux system instead of hands on experience with a package manager? That may or may not be an advantage for your particular application but it's a nice option to have.
Slackware was the first Linux distro I ever tried and I've remained partial to it ever since. My introduction to Linux came in the form of a $1.99 CD (hard to download the distro in the dialup era) that had Slackware, Debian and Red Hat on it. I picked Slackware because it had the coolest sounding name. I think it was to my long term benefit because I got a lot of experience with the nuts and bolts of Linux through sheer necessity. I don't know as if that would have happened if I had picked one of the other two.
I run Slackware for my servers at work and my firewall/nat/misc server at home. I spend more time setting it up but the knowledge of what's going on and the level of customization that I can achieve makes it worthwhile, at least IMHO.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Aside from Gentoo, I've found that to be common with every Linux distro I've tried.
My Babylon
Same here. I have a feeling like alot of the linux users I also got my start on slack back in the 90's, but there seems to be a point when the majority of people realize its just far easier to use an apt/yum/etc solution and just not deal with the headaches anymore of package management and what not and just want their system to work and to be able to use it without having to deal with the headaches of just getting it running.
Quite frankly, if you don't know what it is, then you're not ready for it, so it doesn't matter.
That's why I'm waiting for Slackware version 17 myself.
I am officially gone from
I've run Slackware in production plenty of times for years at a time with no issues, maybe you just don't how to configure it for your purposes? You don't HAVE to pick every package you want, but it does give you that option. It sounds more like you're not familiar enough with the installer to manage a successful installation to end up having only the tools needed for the function said production machine is going to require.
That said, I've not had much of a problem with package management for Slackware, maybe you should check out /var/log/packages, learn to use grep, put together a few simple scripts, and check out slackbuilds.org.
I'll admit this does require more working than just slamming a distro because it doesn't take 3days+ to install or doesn't have a nice pretty GUI that's point'n'click easy. But what I do know? I just want stable/secure servers that aren't that difficult to patch, to me Slackware covers all that once you get through the learning curve.
Slackware is a rock. It is highly configurable, extremely stable, very complete. Especially for a server install. My only concern is it's headed up by only one person. I know Pat has some help but...well what do I care..He is probably 25 years younger than me.
On the other hand I've had minimal problems upgrading any of my machines from 1999 till 2009, from Slackware 7.x up to 13.0 today (the present machine started at 9.0). From the way my coworkers curse every six months when they try to update to the latest Ubuntu release, I think I know what distribution I'll be using for the next ten years.
I've been Slacking since version 10.0, it is my distro of choice. The only other distro I like is FreeBSD, but, I'm exclusively running Slackware now. I downloaded Slackware 13.0 last night and will install today. I'll be heading to the Slackware store later today to buy a DVD. Congratulations to Pat, Robby, Eric, and the entire Slackware team! hitest
As elitist as that sounds, its pretty accurate. Its not for casual linux users. If you want to know about it, there are plenty of other resources online. But you really shouldn't expect Ubuntu/fedora level ease of installation/configuration/upgrading, which has its pluses and minuses. Basically, the way I've always explained it to others is that slackware is for slackers. People who want to understand what and how they are doing before they actually do it. The kind of people that almost perversely enjoy getting errors, because it presents them with a problem to figure out.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
But now, we get a new release with potential new things to work through YAY!!!!
I say this with the best of meaning I've been following, loving, and/or using slack since 4.x releases
Doing something right? Why? Have they had massive second quarter profits this year?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
> Explain what slackware is
It's a Linux distribution. There are many other Linux distributions, but this one is Slackware! :-)
The reason people use package managers and such is because not everyone has time to resolve every dependency problem by hand.
I've used Slackware, and yes, it's stable, and yes it's reasonably bug-free, and it gets these things by pruning down the default install. If you want to run a bare-bones install of Fedora, it's also extremely stable. It's also of limited utility.
I'm not fond of Slackware in a production environment because upgrading and package maintenance is a pain in the ass. Instead of typing (for example) rpm -q *program*, you have to teach people how to determine which binary version is present, where it is, and coach them in installing new ones, and making sure the dependencies are okay, and if all your machines aren't doing the same thing, this can be a huge time sink.
I'm not terribly fond of "off the shelf" rpms, but it's easy to make my own, and then put them in my own repository, and push them out to every machine that needs one. It's a simple and effective infrastructure, and one that can be grasped by minions who are not capable of scratch building binaries with weird dependencies.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
stable/secure/not difficult to patch/no GUI == Debian, Ubuntu Server, etc. RHEL and SuSE are convinced you absolutely must have a GUI, same with Windows Server.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
> I used to use slackware but the novelty of manually setting everything up
> wore off a while back. Plus theres so much more to set up in a modern
> distribution that you really don't want to have to worry about getting low
> level plumbing up and running - it should just work out of the box.
Am with you on that. But funnily enough a new Slackware install doesn't :-)
exactly take me a whole lot longer than, say, an Ubuntu install anymore.
Either I got really good at it or Slackware did
Example: With my M-Audio Revolution 7.1 a few years ago I putzed around for
days with Alsa and whatnot. Now it just works OOTB. They even fixed that
stupid bug, where initially sound would only come out of one side/speaker
until you changed the volume...
I was mostly being facicious. But!...what does the timing off a video card have to do with me setting the refresh rate too high and potentially damaging my monitor?
When I was setting up the X Server, it presented a warning telling me that if I set the refresh rate too high (for a given resolution) that I could permanently damage my monitor.
To someone who had just gotten into computers (and Windows at that), that was some scary stuff.
I did end up setting the refresh too high, but my monitor had a safety device that simply shut it off when I did that.
Quite frankly, if you don't know what it is, then you're not ready for it, so it doesn't matter.
I've got mod points again, but they never get spent, because I consider it to be a sign of greater integrity, to refute posts I disagree with, rather than simply down modding them.
Slackware was my first Linux distribution, during the mid 1990s. At the time, I'd only previously had exposure to UNIX at all via an ISP's FreeBSD shell account, and so I barely knew what it was at all.
A newcomer who is willing to learn is actually going to be far better off with Slack than with Ubuntu or Debian.
There is a much greater degree of simplicity within Slackware's overall design. Less complexity means less potential opportunities for things to break due to random, uncontrolled interactions of the various parts, and even more importantly, it also means that when something does break, it's a lot easier to find the source of the problem and fix it.
Using a system like Slackware is also going to give a user good mental habits as well, and teach them how to recognise a genuinely sound distribution design when they see one. Debian's greatest problem isn't so much that it's a terrible design, but more that the people who design and use it actually think that it's great.
Slackware is actually a privately-held company, so it does not have to disclose profits or losses.
However, ever since it has been created, it has provided the mains source of income for Patrick Volkerding, so I guess profits must have been steady, if not spectacular.
I'll note that Slackware has been forked countless times -- probably because it provides a stable, simple and highly-customizable platform for experimentation. Just like Linux (the kernel) itself, by the way.
Besides, this is open-source. Profits, IMHO, are definitely *not* a proof of software quality (See: Software, Microsoft)... But why waste a good troll arguing rationally, right? Go back under your bridge, little troll, I have wasted enough time with you like that.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
One thing I could really do without in the Linux community is the attitude that, if you're not willing to compile your own binaries, or write your own upgrade scripts, that is your failing, and not the fact that the software is byzantine or difficult to use.
You can strip down any common linux distro to only the bare bones. Many of them have that as a preconfigured install option, and nearly all of them will let you choose only those services you want/need.
But if you use a common distro, that will completely negate your ability to walk around with a supercilious sneer for all those lesser people who care about putting together a system that a normal person will be able to use or support! And by "normal", in this case, I'm talking about the majority of the minority who can use *nix in the first place!
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Really? I don't think I've reinstalled any of the Slackware installs (of which there are plenty) since ~2000, other than for corrupt filesystems.
Before doing a Slackware upgrade, definitely consult UPGRADE.TXT and CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT. Together they provide a very simple set of instructions for doing your upgrade, as well as a list of which packages have been split or merged, and details on any software that's been replaced and may need to be reconfigured.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Well, the overall format is still the same actually, but a new compression
algorithm is being used. This results in smaller package files and a new
extension *.txz, as opposed to the older *.tgz.
When will Linux realize nobody really wants a kitchen sink.
Now a toaster on the other hand...
Finally!
I admit, I started with SLS Linux, out of which Slackware grew (what do you mean you need 93 3.5" Floppies!?!?!)...and although I try lots of different distros, I keep on coming back to Slackware. Thanks to Patrick and his crew for all the work over the years!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I thought OSX was based on BSD?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Right now I run Arch and I just came from Gentoo, and I like the speed aspects of both and the optimization ability. Would there be such option in Slackware, I haven't seen one but I could of missed it.
From what I've seen, Arch is similar to Slack, but simply has a slightly greater degree of automation. Slackware is somewhat Amish. ;)
Hence, Arch is likely to be fine. Gentoo I'm not sure about, as I keep reading reports of its' death or fragmentation every few months, it seems. I think they're both similar to Slack though, but just as I said, not quite so bare metal.
Yes, Eris knows you don't even need to be a SubGenius to appreciate the benefits, one can never have too much Slack. Please excuse me, I just got run over by a Fnord.
ROFL. That pretty much entirely covers it.
You're a sick man.
Some years ago, I found Slackware as an elite lightweight hacker distro. But today Linux desktop has improved so much and Ubuntu just wraps everything together nicely, so I wouldn't bother. But it was great and Patrick seems like a cool guy.
I downloaded the disk sets over 14.4k modem, you insensitive clod!
Is there such a reason? Beyond simple inertia. Slackware was maybe the first Linux distro to be widely adopted. I imagine that most of its users keep using it simply because it's not worth their trouble to switch to a more modern distro.
It's a side project that wasn't meant to be a big deal, but now has lockin and is the main claim to fame of its inventor. Sort of like MS-DOS. (Ducks.)
Slackware is (for us) the easiest to do these things with, and "Just Works".
Hi, Steve Jobs here, please don't use my slogan, everyone knows that only MAC OS X "Just Works". By the way, please get Snow Leopard, it was just released today. You'll love it, I promise.
How about that Windows Distro, it doesn't seem to work like that. Also, is Windows Debian Based? I've heard that Debian is always way behind in updates and usability.
Whooooosh?
Aside from Gentoo? Gentoo is as capable as anything else once you get it set up. That's a consistency of Linux as a whole. Once you get it fully configured it just works, forever. I've had gentoo *desktop* boxes with uptime in the years before I decide to upgrade the kernel (usually motivated by some slashdot article with cool new kernel features, not a necessity). And FWIW, I've tried switching to Ubuntu a few times, and had to quit due to obnoxious memory leaks, much slower binaries, and an extreme difficulty to configure anything non-standard. I'm not saying gentoo is right for everyone, it's not, but I can't imagine picking ubuntu if you're a linux expert. If you were having to constantly do maintenance work on gentoo, you probably didn't know what you were doing...
RHEL and SuSE are convinced you absolutely must have a GUI, same with Windows Server.
Just because its there (by default), doesn't mean that ...
I make no claim to Windows server, having no need for them. Although the install CDs make great coasters, if only I'd get them in the mail ;).
Please explain your comment on Gentoo. I've been running Gentoo for a while and find that once it is setup I don't have to touch it. In fact I just upgraded my home system after not touching it for over 1.5 years. It took about a day to upgrade (please save the "Gentoo sucks" comments) but I went from kde 3.5 to 4.3 with little hassle.
No, it's based on Mach and Nextstep. The latter includes BSD-based code.
Not sure where your getting your info that a GUI is an "absolutely must have" item. It's been years since I used RHEL but it was a CLI interface when I used it and I use CentOS daily with a CLI interface. Debian based distros may be what you find to be the best tool but I can't stand it. If I need a linux distro I use CentOS for its consistency and reliability otherwise I'll use FreeBSD for the same reason. Debian, with its tendency to change things for the sake of changing things has no place in my arsenal unless a client requires it.
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
For one thing, it reminds us how the Linux has grown. From a dozen floppies (back when I first encountered Linux as a Slackware distribution) to now, let's see, 2 DVDs ... well that's about 5000 3-and-half-inch floppies.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Mr. Fluxx, I just can't let that comment go by without challenge. We, lusers in general, mock Microsoft and it's monopoly. We mock the mindset of people who just use Windows because it's all they know, and they are unwilling to learn or to explore. We mock conformity, in general.
I change OS's from time to time, just to see what's happening in Suse-land, Debian-land, Ubuntu-land, Solaris-land - well, you get the idea. Each flavor of Linux has it's good points, and each flavor has something that I don't think highly of.
I could name a favorite, and do everything in my power to sell that favorite, while denigrating the other flavors of Linux. But, not only would that be petty - it may actually impede innovation!
Which of us is to say that one team or the other will NOT stumble over the best thing since sliced bread in the next year or ten? At the moment, Ubuntu seems to be leading the way toward "The year of Linux on the desktop". But, how can you read the future? Anything can happen. Most especially, anything can happen when we don't have all the facts. Computer science is still in it's infancy.
Linus and his associates could conceivably have a flash of inspiration tomorrow, and rewrite the kernel in a manner that turns the computer world on end tomorrow. Or, more likely, a bunch of hackers do the same, to spite Linus and his entrenched hierarchy. Soon after, ALL the flavors of Linux that we love today may be replaced by "The Next Big Thing".
What I'm trying to say is, don't be a dick. If slackware looks like a waste to you, that's cool. Keep it to yourself. The kind of crap you posted just gives ammo to the astroturfers who are pushing the MS agenda.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Talking of Mach, that joke just flew over your head at at least twice the speed of sound.
I write bullshit
A BSD style init script system rather then a SYSV one. It's easier to grok, IMO.
disclaimer: when i graduated college, i switched to ubuntu, which is much easier to break when you muck around with init scripts and packages and such, but requires much less mucking. Slackware still holds a special place in my heart, though.
Speaking of "clearly flamebait"
Linux is hardly usable for the majority of computer users because most (all?) distributions are incapable of attaining licenses to the many proprietary applications that the majority of people want/need to use. Linux is, point blank, one of the biggest jokes in OS and computing history. The sad part is it still has potential.
In addition to the flamebait mod you already recieved; you're -1, Wrong as well.
My servers and desktops are Linux/Solaris -- x86, AMD, and SPARC due to job requirements. My Wife's laptop is Linux, and she interfaces with MS-Office users all day long without issue. My Kids PC is Linux, and that meets the requirements of webkinz.com + Freddy Fish, ABC-123, etc... Right there is 3 diverse demographic categories in which Linux has met and exceeded usability standards*.
[snark]* Added to above; without anti-virus, super-tuesday reboots, and not a single BSOD, not even a screen freeze, or large hardware reinvestment.[/snark]
Heh, maybe I'm being dense (perhaps that's excusable after the last few weeks), but I'm not convinced that you're disagreeing with me. Anyone who is familiar with unix/linux at all, or is looking to switch to unix/linux, will immediately recognize Slackware as a linux-based operating system. Perhaps I wasn't clear about it, but my main point was "If grandma doesn't recognize Slackware as being a unix-like OS, then grandma doesn't need to know."
I won't say this for sure, but my first reaction is "YDIW." If one follows the instructions for upgrading from one release to the next, there won't be an "critically damag[ed] libraries" or "reinstall[ing] from scratch" at all. Granted, the docs are generally better since the 11.0 days (sorry, I have to toot my own horn with that), but even before then, they were good enough.
Gee, who gives a rat's ass. If popularity was worth a tinker's damn, then we'd all just use Windows.
If you want a distribution who enjoys being the Keeper of the Toilet Paper, then fine - use it - but leave the rest of us alone.
Please define "advanced features"
ummm Slackware 4 was released as 3 or 4 cds, I'm pretty sure 8.0 may have been a single DVD distro, but it certaintly was NOT a single CD; unless your talking about install wise, which it still can be if your willing to forget about Xwindows.....
Gentoos last straw on my box was when a portage upgrade broke wget and left me dling source packages without wget.
My Babylon
Because you need to install all the cds
not true regarding sles. i've set up and run several sles servers without x installed, and it's a very enjoyable experience, mostly because of their approach to yast (i remember them wondering whether unified gui/cli yast experience was worth the hassle - is anybody from suse is reading, it's totally worth it). some problems i experienced with sles 10 was base packages depending on some gnome icons set. wtf ?
rhel, i had slightly more interesting experiences. for their configuration, some of the official tools were not available in cli versions in latest rhel releases, gui only. it was possible to figure out changes by running gui tools and then comparing changes to files, but it was annoying.
now what really sucks at the "MUSTHAVEGUI" area on linux... is oracle. at least that's what our dbas told - it required x for installation. er, wtf ? database requires x to set up ? what kind of techies work at oracle ?
Rich
It's neat to know how your car works, but do you want to rebuild the carburetor every time you want to go pick up the groceries?
OSAdministration
I'm not fond of Slackware in a production environment because upgrading and package maintenance is a pain in the ass. Instead of typing (for example) rpm -q *program*, you have to teach people how to determine which binary version is present, where it is
$ ls /var/log/packages/*mysql*
$ whereis mysql
and coach them in installing new ones
# installpkg package.tgz|tbz|txz
and making sure the dependencies are okay
now finally something true ;)
nothing will prevent you from installing a new package to discover that it doesn't run because of some missing library except your experience and trial & error.
I'm not terribly fond of "off the shelf" rpms, but it's easy to make my own
it's also easy to create slackware packages
and then put them in my own repository, and push them out to every machine that needs one. It's a simple and effective infrastructure, and one that can be grasped by minions who are not capable of scratch building binaries with weird dependencies.
first, true - slackware has no official repositry management, although there are several solutions included in latest versions. i personally haven't tried them as i rely on my own simple scripts...
second, if minions can't grasp building binaries on slackware, they won't be able to create those rpm packages as well. on slackware you have one large package, while on other distros you would need those -dev packages, which might be even harder to grasp for them - "hey, i have curl installed !!11!"
Rich
http://www.slax.org/get_slax.php ? although slightly outdated at times, quite minimalistic.
also i have scripts to create hackish single-cd version of slackware install, although since version 11 or 12 it doesn't fit with x and kde on a single cd anymore, only the "server version" does :)
Rich
what are the advantages of using Slackware? What can I expect?
More hands on experience with the guts of a running Linux system instead of hands on experience with a package manager? That may or may not be an advantage for your particular application but it's a nice option to have.
A better question (for my purposes anyway), is what are the advantages of using this version of Slackware? I think the last version I bought and used was 8, and since then I've used Gentoo and various Debian/*buntu distros. Gentoo by far was the best for furthering my knowledge of Linux (through brutal necessity), and Ubuntu the most convenient in getting everything up, configured, and running quickly. When I think CentOS and Fedora, I think gaining experience with a slightly different style of a common enterprise distro.
What does the Slackware experience bring to the table that distinguishes it from other distros, beyond a certain level of nostalgia?
(I'm not meaning to troll or be flamebait, I'm genuinely curious as to whether it's worth playing around with again.)
Speaking as someone who started with SLS (the predecessor to Slackware), and had been using Unix for several years before that, and who now mainly uses Debian, Ubuntu and Red Hat, I have to say, no, I don't like Slackware. Don't hate it either, but life's too short to mess around with that crap.
On the other hand, I understand it just fine. I can build my own debs and rpms as well as tarballs, and, in fact, I frequently do. It's more work up front (and requires a much deeper understanding of the system than even just a simple Slack system), but I find it more-than pays off in the long run.
That said, I'm all in favor of people using what they want, and I think it's cool that Slackware is still going after all these years. I just wish that so many of its fans didn't display such a pathetic combination of ignorance and misplaced arrogance.
Please explain your comment on Gentoo. I've been running Gentoo for a while and find that once it is setup I don't have to touch it. In fact I just upgraded my home system after not touching it for over 1.5 years. It took about a day to upgrade (please save the "Gentoo sucks" comments) but I went from kde 3.5 to 4.3 with little hassle.
Gentoo is easier to break through user error than many distros, at least in my experience. I seem to recall doing just that a couple of times, but all I remember is that I was wondering well off the stable release arena in a specific area. Gentoo is easy enough to set up (and entertains with hours of compiler output), and I agree it will run fine without touching it. However, Gentoo begs to be touched, refining build flags, optimizing the system, and trying out experimental projects simple to enjoy the innovation. These things can mess the system up though, and screwing something up can easily turn into biting off more than one can chew.
I don't count this as a downside to Gentoo, however, as it's part of the draw of the system. When I want a quick and easy stable set up that I won't have to (or want to) mess around with, I'll just install Debian or Ubuntu. Returning to the original point, however, I am not saying Gentoo isn't stable or a good choice. Aside from those one or two times I messed things up (when I was new to Gentoo), it did everything I could ask from a Linux distro, including the more complicated / unstable aspects. In fact, I think it did MORE as a desktop for me, because I was interested and willing to put the time in to fine tune things I haven't bothered doing in Ubuntu installs.
Okay, I'll bite, Mr. Troll.
I was actually just thinking about this. Slackware is *just like* LFS in its simplicity. This is a good thing for those who desire it. Slackware is an LFS system that has been tested for stability and provides a simple, easy for an admin to takeover package management system. Slapt-get provides higher level package management for those who desire it--including support for dependency resolution.
Believe it or not, not everyone wants to be met with GUI greeters, setup wizards, beginner-oriented defaults, and enabled-by-default automatic updates.
But what makes Slackware a better choice than other, similar options? How does it compare to Linux and BSD distros that you think are similar to Slackware, rather than the ones that are obviously different?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Slackware was my first distro, back when Win98 was current and XP hadn't been born.. I HAD to learn some of the nuts and bolts of how Linux was put together and although they were some tough and frustrating times, it was also satisfying when I got some personal challenge to work (usually caused by reading that some other person was able to accomplish 'whatever it was').. over the years following I tried many different distros, multiple times.. and then I just found I started leaning towards the deb based distros.. but my experiences with Slackware have helped me many times.. The thing is, hard drives are meant to be partitioned, and Linux is dual (multiple) boot friendly.. no one has to be any distro or package manager or KDE or Gnome snob.. just try, and use what you like.., so although I am "deb leaning".. I absolutely am fond of. and understand Slackware.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Despite the flamebait mod, I was hoping to get someone to give me some advantages. Disappoingly the only real 'advantage' that anyone has given so far is that it's more bare-bones and thus forces you to learn learn.
Apple took some of the open source Slackware smugness and fused it with their marketing. If you ask the Apple Store clerk for the source they have some in the back.
Arch and Gentoo also compiled and added smugness to their distro as well.
Distros doesn't have to be successful in the Linux realm to stick around. While Slackware is fine, your argument is a bit off.
Absolute Linux.
Are there any realb benifits to tranfering to it.
Nostalgia. That was my first distro, back around in 94 or so.
I'm not fond of Slackware in a production environment because upgrading and package maintenance is a pain in the ass.
What's wrong with
slackpkg update
slackpkg upgrade-all
I can only speak for myself, but when I first started using Linux I chose Slackware (this was version 7) because it worked the best for me. Of the half dozen distros I tried it was the one that just worked on my hardware. I never thought of it as a bare bones system. I had access to everything I wanted via a straightforward package manager and I didn't have to install anything I didn't want. I've since moved on to other distros, but much of what I learned in my Slackware days has served me well with other Linux distros and on Unix. In fact, I've yet to find a *nix system that I wasn't comfortable with (once I had access to a terminal that is). All systems force you to learn something; it's more about what you learn. I think there will always be a certain amount of nostalgia associated with Slackware just because it was the first formal distro. Maybe some of its popularity isn't entirely rational, but to its credit it's still a solid and versatile system. It seems to me that the entire Linux culture is based on choice and freedom anyway so if people want to use it more power to them.
Apple took some of the open source Slackware smugness and fused it with their marketing. If you ask the Apple Store clerk for the source they have some in the back. Arch and Gentoo also compiled and added smugness to their distro as well.
no no you have it wrong, they took the smugness of slackware and infused it with the hipster "irony" of buying over priced intel hardware that you can't upgrade
The main purpose of Slackware is to provide a Linux distribution that is very BSD-like. People familiar with FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD that need to use Linux will find Slackware very pleasant to work with.
Linux users that have no experience with UNIX and the CLI will find themselves stumbling around and complaining and asking stupid questions like: "Does Slackware have a real purpose?"
I look forward to upgrading.
well its been a while since i've used slackware, but i remember one thing, slackware was hardly like BSD. at least not Freebsd, gentoo is closer to freebsd than slack. i liked slack, but after a few years of having to fiddle with things that shouldn't be necessary to get to work, i just stopped caring. freebsd is a better OS, has a saner upgrading system than linux, but if i had to use linux i'd use debian or gentoo, maybe :)
Now everyone knows you only have to rebuild the carburetor when you change the oil.
DAMN! The mods are pissy today
Nah, they just consider it blasphemous when someone impersonates their prophet.
Of course, I'll be modded down as well.
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
If I buy a shitty car and have no money, I learn a lot about cars, if I have to drive somewhere and have to maintain and repair the car myself. I don't have to, though. You can learn all you want with any distro, they are just not forcing you.
Learning is great and all, but in the end, you really want tools to help you manage your system. Most people eventually realize that computers are there to help you get things done, not as something to get done themselves. These people often end up going to OS X, but they can just as easily go to a distribution with comprehensive package management.
Well duh. it's SLACK!
Personally I like the way Slackware does init/rc.d files.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
At one point, I was considering giving a new distro a go, one with more tech knowledge necessary, mainly in the hopes of finishing up with a much lower memory foot print. I was thinking through slackware and gentoo when I saw an article on howtoforge called "Debian from Scratch". I think it was meant to be a parody of LFS, I didn't read it, but it gave me an idea. I fired up the Ubuntu Alternate CD and installed a base system with no extras (think kernel + bash + apt). I just started building it up from there.
Added X11, the fluxbox, alsa and pulseaudio. Added mplayer and audacious, after a couple of days of tinkering I had up and running with everything I actually use and nothing I don't. The memory footprint on this little Dell laptop was under 40mb (compare to my desktop multimedia editing machine running full ubuntu+gnome+compiz with all the usual trimmings which idles at 300Mb of RAM in use, lol).
At the end of this process, I had the lightweight system I wanted and I still had all the benefits of ubuntu's packaging system (because truly, I like not having to think about dependencies at all). And to be perfectly honest, I still learned a lot about the components that actually make up a linux desktop system (albeit at a much less intense level than I might have with slackware). I highly recommend this path to anyone trying to go lightweight and custom but who doesn't want to spend a week in config files to get there.
Censorship is the opposite of education. If neo-darwinism were defensible, people would not need to try and censor ID.
Wikipedia uses Ubuntu now as its server OS. That should lay to rest any notion of Ubuntu being technically inferior to any other distro.
Have you ever used a system that was based on packages other than RPMs? It seems like a lot of Slackware users formed their only opinions of non-Slack distros back in the mid-1990s, when Debian was comatose and Red Hat was the only other option.
How can you use my intestines as a gift? -Actual Hong Kong subtitle.
I've been using Slackware since '96, and I continue to use it in various capacities today. Installing Slackware and playing with it, writing programs for it, was seriously the best thing I ever did for my knowledge of computers and for Unix environments. I have skills that far surpass any of my co-workers or friends, and have often been the only one that could sort out issues with any sort of Unix environment.
I had the same experience, except with the computer science degree I was taking part time.
I ended up getting an A+ in the unix course (my other grades were usually in the B+/A-) range almost strictly from my prior knowledge gained from using Slackware day after day on my desktop.
I even got something like 105% on a midterm after the instructer had to curve it after most of the class bombed.
People say that it's a hard distro to get up and running, but it's not. It's not a quick install like Windows or Ubuntu, I found. But once I got it up and running it is my system of choice. It has not failed me like SUSE did when I couldn't figure out what was causing the system to go sluggish when I left over the weekend. And it didn't feel like Linux lite,like Ubuntu. All in all, I love me some Slack and I plan on running 13 as my main desktop as soon as possible.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Okay well if freeBSD is so great (in response to group.zero) Then why does it never want to run normally on any computer I ever try it on, I always run into the same problem with the hard disk controller not being accepted, which makes me sure DMA off.
But I guess thats just an advancement of it right, more efford = more gain or something, I don't know but I guess I'll use a sh shell to configure a text file with vi at disk a20d0a0a or what ever the broken naming convension is to fix the problem.
When freeBSD wants to run nativily on my system with no problems and no bugs then I'll give it a try but it will be a long time before it gets the act together to be real world ready.
In response to Sun.Jedi, your right Linux is extremely usable on almost any platform, and future more there are alot of professional level software packages that work above expectations on it, so in fact Linux really is the best OS of all time.
Thanks
Docmur
Even then, Slackware was much more user friendly for the administrator than the commercial systems I used. I certainly appreciate modern Linux with easier configuration and packages, especially now that the packages have much more complex interdependencies. I know a BSD developer who used to gripe that Linux automated too much and had too many GUI wrappers around config files. But at some point you get sick of tweaking config and init files and decide that you don't want to administer Unix anymore but would rather just use it.
It's more Unix-like than Ubuntu. I presume this means the directories follow a unix naming convention, shell commands are like the old unix ones, etc. It's great if you're trying to learn Unix, solaris, BSD, etc. If you want to add something to your startup files it would be in in a run control script and you'd need to know all the run levels to find the right one plus you'd need to know shell scripting to add it. One thing you'll notice is lagging support for proprietary hardware(think wifi, bluetooth, SD Card Reader), less packages than Ubuntu, less things work out-of-the-box.
What does the Slackware experience bring to the table that distinguishes it from other distros, beyond a certain level of nostalgia?
1) Most Unix-like of the Linux systems (may or may not be something you care about).
The big reason I like this aspect of Slackware is summed up by the old saying: If you learn Red Hat, you know Red Hat. If you learn Debian, you know Debian. If you learn Slackware, you know Linux.
2) Stability as #1 development priority, Security as #2, everything else isn't even on the radar (so if you want a system that never needs a reboot, Slackware's your distro. If you want a 64bit system....well, it just got there. If you want bleeding edge...compile it yourself.).
3) Total control and heavy involvement in the system internals (though I hear Gentoo offers as much).
This is another major aspect for me. It's isn't one for everyone though, and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. But if you want to know how your system works, and you want to learn Linux sysadmining, Slackware is for you. I like it because I'm the computer equivalent of a gearhead, I get a kick out of it. Again, absolutely not for everyone.
In short, Slackware doesn't try to be a desktop OS that holds your hand and wipes your ass. You get the tools you need and you're off on your own. Some people like that. Some don't. If you don't, then fine. But don't come in here and try to shit on those of us that do. I don't shit on your (rhetorical you, not necessarily referring to parent or any other specific value of "you") hobbies. Slackware never tried to be a mainstream, mass-market system. It's Pat Volkerding's personal operating system. If you like it, he provides it so you can use it too. If you don't, bugger off then.
I'd really beg to differ. Those that use Debian usually know just as much about GNU/Linux as Slackware users do. Neither are particularly user friendly distributions, hence most people gravitating towards Ubuntu, Fedora or Suse/Opensuse. Since most ordinary people DON'T want to learn about the guts of an operating system, but instead, want to USE it productively, they tend to go for the less troublesome distributions. Can't say I blame them.
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
It is not necessarily lack of willingness to learn. In my case it is lack of time.
I did two Linux Mint KDE (Kubuntu derivative) installs in the last week. They were fast. How much time would I have lost installing Slackware instead? What would I have taken time off from? Playing with my children, dinner with my friends, getting actual work donw?
Even worse, once installed, software installation becomes more time consuming as well. Rather than startup Synaptic, tick a box and click "apply" (or apt-get install in a terminal) and get on with something else, I would have to manually install every dependency.
There are third party solutions to this (e.g. slapt-get) but they all seem to have limitations (e.g. do not update packages that are part of the distribution),.
The binaries for slackware 3.0 were just one cd (yes it was released as two discs, but with slackware half the discs are always source).
I am trolling
Actually, much of the earlier releases included the marvellous sunsite archives, long gone now. Sniff :-(
Nice to see you here, Gunnery Sergeant.
It's often quoted... if you use Ubuntu, you'll learn Ubuntu. If you use Slackware, you'll learn Linux.
Quoted by whom exactly? Slackware users or Linux users in general?
As for me; I don't really WANT to learn Linux. The OS is there to help me do what I want to do, not what it wants me to do.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
You mean you've finished compiling it? I thought Gentoo was more of an ongoing process ...
I've had gentoo *desktop* boxes with uptime in the years before I decide to upgrade the kernel...
Makes me wonder about your security policy...
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
I was able to install Slackware 12.2 (i.e. the release before 13.0) by downloading just the first CD image, doing a minimal install, and getting the other packages from the official repository when needed. I never had to download any of the remaining CDs.
My dear Derleth, something you need to know about me: I am a system administrator.
I have administred/used/installed/maintained: SuSE, Mandrake (now Mandriva), Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD machines. And I have probably forgotten a couple in the list above (Caldera comes to mind - waaaay before it became SCO).
So, yeah, I have used RPM and .deb based Linux distributions, thank you very much. And, yes, as you guessed, I started way back in 1995, when Slackware was pretty much the only game in town. Debian did not really exist yet and Red Hat was just crappy in those days. Slackware was - and still is - stable and coherent compared to pretty much all other distributions.
And that's just the free UN*X. I have also administered/installed and maintained HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, and Tru64 machines.
Except for the *BSDs and Slackware, frankly, most of them suck. Big time. Which is why I am typing this past 1:00am on a (very early) Sunday morning after spending an entire day installing AIX 5.3 TL8 SP6 servers in a production environment.
Give me Slackware anytime, please. Red Hat is a mess after two upgrades, Debian packages are maintained by a bunch of clueless hippies and n00bies, SuSE just plain sucks (yast meets smit, smit meets yast), Ubuntu is for point-and-click losers. And don't get me started on so-called "professional" UN*X such as AIX, please.
For instance, here is one reason Slackware is superior to all of these lame pieces of fluff: except maybe for Debian, it is the ONLY Linux distribution that won't install an X11 server by default. Here is a hint: you don't need a freaking X11 GUI on a production machine!!
(By the way, never ever mention the name "Gentoo" in front of me unless you really want to get a good ol' whack from my handy clue bat(tm).)
Anyhow, I am sorry if this sounded trollish - don't get me wrong, Red Hat and Debian and Ubuntu and [insert fave distro here] are perfectly acceptable, heck even Solaris or HP-UX are not that bad, but when it comes to simplicity and stability , Slackware is still the best Linux out there.
Slackware sucks. But, as far as I am concerned, it sucks a little bit less than all the others.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
You should try Arch Linux. It's like Slackware in that it's very transparent what is going on, and it's easy to modify. It's unlike Slackware, since it has a very good package manager (pacman). Pacman also makes it pretty easy to update your entire system.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
Perhaps I wasn't clear about it, but my main point was "If grandma doesn't recognize Slackware as being a unix-like OS, then grandma doesn't need to know."
No, I do understand that that is what you were saying.
My perspective is that what I'd say to Grandma is, "Slackware is a Linux distribution, which more closely resembles the older UNIX (from which it is descended) than other Linux distributions do. You probably didn't need to know that, but I'm telling you that on the off-chance that if you do need or want to know about it, you have the option to learn."
For those who would protest that Grandma's eyes would most likely glaze over after the third word of that explanation, that's fine. You're possibly right, and if that's true, then no harm, no foul. She can still have the user friendly option, and never need know that the dreaded command line exists at all. ;)
I like giving people the choice, is all. Isn't that supposed to be one of the things which Linux is all about?
Wine. Virtualization. Separate computers. Dual-booting. There are a legion of definitions of success. With any of the above four options, you can have your library of business apps AND enjoy what Linux has to offer. Why make a holy war out of computer operating systems?
Speaking of "clearly flamebait"
Linux is hardly usable for the majority of computer users because most (all?) distributions are incapable of attaining licenses to the many proprietary applications that the majority of people want/need to use. Linux is, point blank, one of the biggest jokes in OS and computing history. The sad part is it still has potential.
In addition to the flamebait mod you already recieved; you're -1, Wrong as well.
My servers and desktops are Linux/Solaris -- x86, AMD, and SPARC due to job requirements. My Wife's laptop is Linux, and she interfaces with MS-Office users all day long without issue. My Kids PC is Linux, and that meets the requirements of webkinz.com + Freddy Fish, ABC-123, etc... Right there is 3 diverse demographic categories in which Linux has met and exceeded usability standards*.
[snark]* Added to above; without anti-virus, super-tuesday reboots, and not a single BSOD, not even a screen freeze, or large hardware reinvestment.[/snark]
I like how your three examples completely neglect to identify any of the licensing my previous post was referring to, as well as identify how that statement was wrong. Very typical of you zealots to completely ignore the main point and direct the argument toward something completely arbitrary.
[snark?] How is this for "snark" I run windows without anti-virus, I patch whenever there are patches regardless if it's tuesday or not, I never get BSODs, not even a screen freeze, and I purchased my desktop 7 years ago. I detect epic failure from Zealot Sun.Jedi. [/snark]
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
except maybe for Debian, it is the ONLY Linux distribution that won't install an X11 server by default.
Tried Arch Linux? It only installs the kernel and base packages (bash, init scripts, glibc) at it's bare minimum. Default is to also install some compilers (gcc, g++ etc.). X11 is not installed by default. You'd like it. I, as a former Slackware user, did.
And Arch Linux used to be Slackware derivative.
I rest my case, your honor.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)