SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
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So, it's a quote from a 3 year old article (thanks for the full link h_tex). Damgar just quoted the most negative paragraph. Read the one directly before it (or better yet the full review) and you'll get a very different view.
It's age also explains why slackpkg isn't mentioned.
The only issue I'd take with it is that I don't think the upgrade process is all that 'complex'.
Sorry about that, I wasn't trying to deceive anyone. The link is taken from http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major which you get to from the main page by choosing "major distributions" I wasn't trying to fan any flames. I was simply asking for opinions based on the quoted text from the standpoint of a relatively new user of slackware since there was no sort of copy line. No trolling intended.
Distribution: x86_64 Slack 13.37 current : +others
Posts: 459
Rep:
The lord Satan ...
I agree with Ladislav on just this one count... he has the right to do whatever he feels like... I allow myself no less,in fact if I really don,t like something I can get all hot and bothered... but thats where being a Slacker helps...
Satan is a theif,liar and murderer hardly a Slacker,it is also a coward,changeling and a stupid bastard... whether you believe it ot not.LOL
I agree with Ladislav on just this one count... he has the right to do whatever he feels like... I allow myself no less,in fact if I really don,t like something I can get all hot and bothered... but thats where being a Slacker helps...
Satan is a theif,liar and murderer hardly a Slacker,it is also a coward,changeling and a stupid bastard... whether you believe it ot not.LOL
LaVeyan Satanists (the most common) don't believe in the mythological Satan either... they're atheists.
I'm just glad that he doesn't have Ubuntu Furry Remix on distrowatch either.
Sometimes I wonder if these writers are rehashing old reviews/articles, maybe from when they checked out Slackware 8.1, rather than actually testing a new release.
Interesting point, because this is one thing that comes to mind when I read tripe like this "opinion piece."
I mean, maybe my experience is not common, but reviewers who say, "Slackware requires a lot of work after the installation to make it a modern desktop" don't make any sense to me. Slackware 13, at least, and 12 as well from what I remember, is working right out of the box . . . X, mouse, sound, touchpad, webcam, video acceleration . . . what exactly are these people having to do?
Sure, a working WINE implementation would be convenient, but those are better built from source anyway, and, in my opinion, that kind of thing is really outside the scope of a Linux distribution.
I mean, maybe my experience is not common, but reviewers who say, "Slackware requires a lot of work after the installation to make it a modern desktop" don't make any sense to me. Slackware 13, at least, and 12 as well from what I remember, is working right out of the box . . . X, mouse, sound, touchpad, webcam, video acceleration . . . what exactly are these people having to do?
To answer Damgar's question, no, I don't really think the quote in his original post is entirely fair to Slackware. My initial impression is that the reviewer is implying that Slackware is unusable as a vanilla distro, and that it must be converted into some derivative distro like Vector or Zenwalk before it's a complete system.
I will give them the benefit of the doubt when comparing repositories of offical packages, though. Do a full install of Slackware and you still have a fairly basic Unix workstation setup. Its installed packages are weighed more toward software development and network administration than typical consumer multimedia applications, like ripping CDs to MP3, playing or ripping DVDs, connecting to digital cameras, etc.
Say you want a video editing workstation. Starting with Slackware will require a significantly larger amount of work to get something like KDEnlive working than a distro like Debian or Kubuntu. I agree with you, foodown, but the features you describe as the basis of a modern desktop may be a lot smaller list than some reviewers have in mind.
If someone wants a long list of multimedia capabilities, Slackware can create dependency Hell pretty quickly. That's where a dependency-checking packaging system becomes a nice feature of a distro. Even with slackbuilds.org you're going to be doing more work tracking down dependencies than you would using synaptic. See Woodsman's essay here for an overview of the additional packages needed to activate all of the back end capabilities of K3B, for example.
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