Why i keep coming back to Slackware 10.2

Hi guys ive been using Ubuntu for around a month now (5.10) ,
got to say shes a sweet distro does everything i want plays dvds and burns dvds plays games has great update feature ,everthing nothing i can fault except one big thing . ITS NOT SLACKWARE 10.2 dont know why but ive all ways gone back to my slackware box everytime ,ive tried all the latest distros the suse and mandrivas there really nice and easy to use everything works out of the box except for few configerations here and there but i allways find my self going back to slack .
Now ive had a good think about why i love slack.

1.ITs slackware enough said love it will allways love it dont know why but your opinion would be nice to hear on why u guys love slackware .

Is it the speed and secure aspect that grabs u or is it the challenge of having a distro that just works and works great all the time everytime or is it the lack of bells and whisles and all the fuzzy stuff that other distros have that make u feel all warm and fluffy on the inside or is it Just a distro that has it all and is simple but hard at the same time and forces u to use your head to make it work the way u want it to ,


so yeah let me see your thoughts on this matter







Allways a slacker and allways will be

It is a level of minimalism that gives me freedom to do what I will while still providing a basic set of packages. Mandrake got me comfortable with Linux, but was overwhelming. The RPM system was too complex for me, I like the idea of compiling from source. I may not know exactly what is happening, but at least I have some idea. It makes me feel accomplished as I watch the lines whizzing past during make. Mandrake for me was just too cluttered. It also was too automated and "too user friendly". I can't stand it when software thinks it knows better than I do what I want to do. Still better than Windows though. Using Slackware has inspired me to try LFS, partly just so I can better understand why and how Slackware does what it does.

Slackware also provides a game for me. Can I tell it to do what I want it to do? It works when I need it to work, but it is free for wandering and tinkering.

Here are the main reasons why I use Slackware Linux:

• Softwares are provided as its author publish it without intrusive patches or heavy customizations ;
• Slackware Linux provides a good base Linux distribution on which to built my system by packaging my favorite softwares ;
• The package management is clean, (too?) simple and non-intrusive : it allows me to customize my system the way I want it without breaking any fictive dependencies. As I package softwares from source, I know which dependencies I need, and I don't need a powerful package manager which handles them for me. Believe it or not, but ./configure is my favorite dependencies resolver :)

However, I have installed Ubuntu on my laptop some times ago and honestly, it is really a great Linux distribution for people who want a working system as soon as it gets installed. All devices were detected and properly configured : it was a real pleasure to see how things can be easy with Linux when it is developed towards that goal.

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LiNuCe

ummm... all the points that LiNuCe guy made.

It is not customized (like mandriva/fedora/whatever), everything is where you'd "expect it to be", not in some distro-specific place..

It's easy to compile stuff on
Compiling stuff with Mandrake kept on producing all sorts of errors

It's very stable (can't remember the last time the thing crashed/froze on me)
(firefox crashes regularly when doing complex stuff like opening three tabs while you have two pages loading, but yeah thats a different topic)

its fast

easy to configure (no, not the newbie sort of way like mandriva, but it's easier for 'geeks' to configure, everything is 'where you'd expect it to be', like all the config files)

umm, what else..
Simple and easy to install.
Just works on most systems, and it works well on older PCs to.

Cheers
Forrest

Also, not only is everything where it is expected to be, you know that it will be in the same place for every revision until the end of time, just as it has since the begining. Slack is very consistent between versions - if you sat down in front of a Slack 3.0 box it would still be rather comfortable.

Also, not only is everything where it is expected to be, you know that it will be in the same place for every revision until the end of time, just as it has since the begining. Slack is very consistent between versions - if you sat down in front of a Slack 3.0 box it would still be rather comfortable.

Look at Redhat/Fedora - there is a marked change between each and every version - new options, but also the need to learn new ways of doing things. New wizards, rewritten .conf files to adapt to the new wizards, the inability to edit a .conf file manually for fear that it might break a wizard or a future RPM. Ick. I'll stick with Slackware ;P

When was the last time that everyone was *really* excited by a new release of Slackware? A new version? So what? It's just more of the same...I guess I'll upgrade...sometime...when I get the chance...nothing broke right now, nothing significant in need of upgrading....yay...

haha Gort32

I guess that's why I'm still running 10.0 on my main machine ;-)

Originally posted by Gort32 When was the last time that everyone was *really* excited by a new release of Slackware? A new version? So what? It's just more of the same...I guess I'll upgrade...sometime...when I get the chance...nothing broke right now, nothing significant in need of upgrading....yay...

Well, I am still excited with each new release (having started with - guessing now - 2.1)... because I know that Slackware grows on me with every release. And when I compare the software available on my 10.0 server with what I can use on my 10.2 laptop, there's so much positive change from the user perspective! Many users seem to consider the changes between 10.0 and 10.2 too minimal to upgrade... well you are all mistaken :-)

Eric

Several things draw me to Slackware instead of other distros.

1. Simplicity through minimalism. I admit that minimalism is a two-edged sword. I'm grateful to know that nobody has patched or "improved" an original package. I recall cutting my teeth on Mandrake 9.2. Kernel patches and other customizations confused the dickens out of me, especially the developers' effort to create a compatible dual GNOME-KDE environment. On the other hand, minimalism means a lot more work on my end to learn the system. But in the long run, that benefits me too because I understand the system better.

2. Minimalism allows me to grow and build my box as I choose, and not as some vendor or developer chooses.

3. Simplistic package maintenance. I have yet to run into the infamous dependency problems so well-known with other distros. Package installation is simple with Slack, although a nice KDE front-end to installpkg would be more "eye-appealing" than ncurses. But that is a cosmetic wish, not purely functional.

4. Fast and efficient because there is no additional overhead. I run an "old" Socket 7 box. I replaced the original 233 MHz Pentium-MMX with a slick 400 MHz K6-III+, but the FSB is still 66 MHz and by design I can install no more than the 256 MB of RAM I have. Slow by today's rice-burner standards to be sure, but a dependable box otherwise and not worthy of any junk-yard. My original Windows NT4 Workstation is very snappy on this box. Although not quite as fast, Slackware/KDE runs very well on this "old" box and that is important to me. (I've tried other WMs and dislike them.)

5. Slack is more stable than other distros I have tried. I still experience occasional problems, mostly within KDE or X and not the underlying OS, but I do not exclude the underlying system from those occasional problems. Nonetheless, Slackware is quite stable.

6. The rc.d init scripts are more simpler than System-V. I always found System-V more confusing than necessary.

7. Adherence to recommended file system structures and hierarchies. I know exactly where something should be located. I still have Mandrake 9.2 installed on my multi-boot box, and things are stored all over the place. Confusing.

Caveats/Wish List:

1. In Slackware configuring X with my new LCD flat screen was plain nuts. An abortion. Other distro vendors provide much better X configuration tools, and despite my preference to Slackware, I used another distro to help me configure my new LCD flat screen.

2. The inability to recognize a common two-button scroll wheel mouse. IMO, this is silly. I've lost count how many times I've read threads asking how to hand-tweak xorg.conf to provide this. I have no idea why the two-button scroll wheel mouse is not an option in mouseconfig.

3. The minimalist approach creates a huge void for newbies. Yes, I learned a lot and I have no regrets about my learning curve. But that was my choice. Still, there are some simple usability tweaks that could come prepackaged with Slackware that would remove much of the myth still surrounding Slackware with respect to newbies. I see potential here for a niche add-on or tweak package after-market.

Alien Bob: Many users seem to consider the changes between 10.0 and 10.2 too minimal to upgrade... well you are all mistaken :-)

I stay with Slackware Linux 10.1 for now and I see no reason to upgrade to Slackware Linux 10.2. Even worse : my Slackware Linux 10.1 system is more up to date than Slackware Linux 10.2. For me, I guess the real big switch will be Slackware Linux 11.0 with a 2.6.x Linux kernel as the default kernel. I really hope Patrick Volkerding won't drop X.Org : the future, modularized X.Org needs more than 280 softwares to package, more than twice the amount of GNOME softwares which he has found too long and difficult to package :)

The bad thing with the removal of GNOME in Slackware Linux 10.2 is that I know many people who switch to ArchLinux because they were disapointed. Sure, they could also install the intrusive Dropline GNOME, or the non-intrusive GWare or Freerock GNOME but they feel this is no more Slackware. And there are significantly enough people in that case to worry ...

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LiNuCe

Originally posted by LiNuCe The bad thing with the removal of GNOME in Slackware Linux 10.2 is that I know many people who switch to ArchLinux because they were disapointed. Sure, they could also install the intrusive Dropline GNOME, or the non-intrusive GWare or Freerock GNOME but they feel this is no more Slackware. And there are significantly enough people in that case to worry ... -- LiNuCe [/B]

You break my heart, LiNuCe.

I've stuck with Slackware so far because it's a microcosm of the whole Free Software movement: it's a nice bundle of software which is completely open for each user to stamp his or her own identity on it. You can do what you want, how you want, rather than being stuck with someone else's methods if they don't completely suit you.

zborgerd: You break my heart, LiNuCe.

Why ?!?

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LiNuCe

I currently trying to repair a friend's Windows XP Home box.
That reminds me why I stay with Slackware

I switched to Linux after experincing WindowsXP and it's horrific activation, DRM, and clutter. I wanted to use a distro that would be most like the UNIX environment that Linux is based on. My search led me to Slackware 9.1 and I haven't looked back once. With the exception of a couple of live-cd distros as troubleshooting tools, I haven't even thought about trying another distro. I continue to upgrade each time a new version is released, but I still use 9.1 on an old box, a P233 with 64MB RAM, that's only a dial-up modem server.

The thing about Slack that I fell in love with is it's simplicity. Ater an initial install the fs is clean and well-organized. The installer allows you to choose what you want, right down to each individual package. There's no bulk or clutter, only what you want. The package management system couldn't be easier. If the package needs something additional it tells you when you run the program. And there's always the option to compile from source.

Because it's so minimal, a lot of hardware doesn't work "out of the box". Additional drivers and configuration is needed. I think this allows the user to really learn what hardware they have and get to know the computer. After getting used to Slackware and how to control it you'll recognize your computer as a tool instead of a toy. KDE has it's tooltips and graphic utilities for system management, but it still eliminates the "hold your hand" feel that Windows created with it's wizards.

I've only experienced two things that have caused crashes and both are actually software related. Some versions of NDISwrapper cause kernel panics when I use it with my wireless PCMCIA card. And a certain game running in Wine freezes with any Wine version after 20030115. Other than that it's everything I wanted - A fast stable environment that can run for weeks without rebooting, doesn't slow down with age and unleashes the full potential of my computer.