SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
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The single biggest problem with the BSDs (in my experience) is their lack of hardware support. They simply do not match Linux when it comes to things like support for wifi cards out of the box.
If not for that, I'd probably have switched a long time ago. The BSDs are very well designed from the ground up. They're engineered as opposed to "cobbled together." Their documentation always fits. Sometimes in Linux, things can change before the documentation is updated and so you have to take information from a variety of sources to make it "fit" what you're trying to achieve, and other times there can be a bit of trial and error to get the result that what you want. This isn't the case with the BSDs. If you follow the documentation there is a 100% chance that it'll do what you expect.
While Slackware is counted among the Linux distributions which are closest to the "BSD way," it is still quite different. Try one of the BSDs in a VM and you'll quickly notice major differences.
In terms of outright flexibility, my opinion is that Slackware is unparalleled by any OS available today. It is truly multi/general purpose and comes with a powerful and practical suite of software out of the box.
I played around with OpenBSD in a VM back in 2016 and came to a similar conclusion. I loved how the system was designed and worked, but reading about its hardware support shortcomings was enough for me to skip trying to install it to bare metal. After all, it doesn't matter how well the system as a whole is engineered if it has a fatal flaw that keeps it from working well. The Linux kernel is quite the trump card. If not for that, I probably would have switched to BSD at that time.
Instead, I started looking around for what people said was the most BSD-like Linux distro, and that's how I found Slackware. I agree that it is quite a bit different from BSD (the one I tried, anyway), but it obviously has its own different strengths. While BSD may be "engineered," I wouldn't quite call Slackware "cobbled together," I would use the term "curated." Besides the Slackware philosophy and Pat's design choices, I also appreciate Slackware's "small-town" feel that comes from its relatively small but accessible development team and relatively close-knit and friendly community. I haven't seen that to the same extent in any other distro.
I know, I know, we have here several French friends who will need soon new keyboards, because of spilling coffee - I apologize in advance for their loss.
Thanks to waterproof phones no drama here but a big laugh. Made my day !
Just looking into the make_world.sh I came across this post from Gentoo. One of the replies the guy says
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I wonder why that guy has this impression about Slackware, when I think I speak for the vast majority here when I say Slackware scripts are of the highest quality.
That statement is true. We have a lot of low quality scripts. Not in slackware, but everywhere. And including slackware. Unfortunately.
In terms of outright flexibility, my opinion is that Slackware is unparalleled by any OS available today. It is truly multi/general purpose and comes with a powerful and practical suite of software out of the box.
Amen to that. After all, it did lead us to that discussion in another thread about init systems. I just lament that it's so hard to convince others in the corporate world to use it. I'd love it if all our telephony infrastructure, minus perhaps the zfs & pfsense stuff (which I'd have to pry the BSD out of my boss's cold, dead hands, and I'm fine leaving those ones alone), could be switched over to Slackware 15.0. In the strictest sense, there is absolutely nothing preventing that other than fear of having to spend a few minutes building a package here and there from source and not having automatic dependency tracking without 3rd party tools...
And they tell me I'm a relic from the past at work. By people who are the same age as me.
It meets my needs and has not failed me since 2004(version 10.0). The Internet is odd I don't know if you're mocking me...
I can assure you, that if that was what I wanted to do, you wouldn't be in doubt!
No, my point was that if anything in Slackware is "sloppy and insecure", it surely would have been noticed and dealt with during the past 30 years... okay, 29 years and some months.
After seeing how careful and meticulous Slackware has been progressing during the past two years I've been stalking you lot, I'm quite certain that if the critics and "haters" would only raise their issues here on LQ, all of these "issues" would get the proper feedback.
But that's not really what the critics are interested in... so I stand by my comment that it doesn't really matter, what anyone thinks of Slackware.
No, my point was that if anything in Slackware is "sloppy and insecure", it surely would have been noticed and dealt with during the past 30 years... okay, 29 years and some months.
The topic of security is interesting in general for GNU and Linux, and I've come to understand some common misconceptions. Anyways, in regards to Slackware I would think it is actually safer than the average distro. The main reason I think that is because security attacks and compromises are mostly directed at "common surfaces".
By that I mean that most attacks are directed at Windows, because most people use Windows. In terms of GNU/Linux and Slackware, a common surface is SystemD, and I don't say that to attack systemd or again express my opinion about it. But if you have malicious intents, the main surfaces to attack in the GNU/Linux world would be Linux, GNU and SystemD. And considering Slackware doesn't have SystemD, it is one less "common surface", which is why I'm arguing Slackware is most likely more secure than average GNU/Linux distroes.
Honestly, I would love Slackware to follow the "BSD way" by having also a powerful Ports system, with build and runtime dependencies resolution, supporting multiple remote binary packages repositories and plenty of shinny things which could be usually found in a BSD Ports system.
Yes, The BSD Way means also the dependencies resolution, with all its bells at neck.
You could explore pkgsrc.
I tried it for a little bit but dug myself a hole because I wanted as much to be used from slackware itself as possible vs. building and installing separate 2nd copies of slackware provided packages in pkgsrc. They have this feature of builtins.mk for this purpose but it seems like a hard thing to get right across multiple platforms and distros:
I tried to maximize its use but encountered a build error I couldn't figure out. The makefiles and script comprising pkgsrc is not simple. Eventually, I decided using slackbuilds makes more sense since it really knows about base slackware and will use what's there. But pkgsrc is interesting.
People writing slackbuilds might find the patches directories in its tree of value as a reference. Often the patches are commented and seem to me to be of high quality.
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A little clarification
