I honestly don't remember when I started with Slackware or what the version was. It was in the mid 90's, it was on multiple CD-ROMs and it got installed on a Win98 box and dual booted. At work I used a Sun SPARC 4 (later a SPARC 5 and still later other SPARC boxes) with Solaris doing data base design and development and shell and C programming for a large health care information company. I needed as much compatibility with Solaris as I could get and one of the network guys recommended trying Slackware because it was the most like Unix.

I did, it was, never looked back.

The one thing I value more than any other is stability. I don't give a hoot about eye candy, couldn't care less about bleeding edge gee whiz, I want the dang things to work and keep working without me having to fiddle around with them all the time: I have found that Slackware is precisely that, it works, it keeps working and it doesn't bother me.

I have two 64-bit boxes, both Dell, one an Optiplex 780, the other a Inspiron 1750 laptop. I have two Dell Dimension 8400s (32-bit) that live in a closet mumbling to themselves that are data base servers, one MariaDB/MySQL the other PostgreSQL.

All of them are identical: Slackware 14.1 stable, fully patched. The servers haven't been booted for months, the laptop is usually turned off, the Optiplex got rebooted 8 days ago for some reason I can't remember.

I'm old-fashioned. When I get notices from the Slackware Security mailing list, I download and install them on all platforms (plus a couple of friends' boxes). I do that manually with wget and upgradepkg. I know there are automagic tools for that, don't care, I want hands-on. Obviously, there are two downloads, 32- and 64-bit and there are two scp operations in there but I want to see what happens and it only takes a couple of minutes to do so what the heck.

Slackware has never been bleeding-edge. I hope it never is. There is far too much tweaking and fiddling with software, adding features, whatever. When a stable version is available and it's deemed to be worthwhile, it gets into Slackware. Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy to chug along with stable, predictable software that I can count on to do what it's supposed to do and not bother me.

I value stability, I get that with Slackware, I'm a happy camper. Hope you will be too.

Hope this helps some.

5 members found this post helpful.

No, criticism is fine. The problem is that your comment was not constructive. It's a Slackware forum. Give some constructive advice to the OP or shut up and let other people do it. You destroyed a perfectly good thread. You would have the distinction of being the second person in 9 years to make my "ignore" list, but I can't do that because you're a moderator.

Is this no longer a Slackware forum? Something is seriously wrong when a moderator is allowed to troll the forum.

4 members found this post helpful.

Indeed! Slackware is rock-solid, durable, and reliable. Slackware has never let me down in the 11 years that I've used it.

So on the Slackware forum it is not allowed to tell the truth and mention something that is noteworthy to a user that is used to rely on the distribution for providing security fixes? And that is destroying the thread and trolling?
What a strange mindset.

Anyways, as I have said before, if you want to discuss this any further, feel free to do contact me via PM oe email, I will unsubscribe from this thread now.

1 members found this post helpful.

I already responded to that in an attempt to show you a constructive way to say the same thing. My response was within the context of the thread, but then you proceeded down your path to negativity. If you know a post is going to be disruptive and you post it anyway, I'd call that trolling.

For the record, I don't appreciate TobiSGD saying publicly that I have "a strange mindset" and then proposing that we talk privately. As I've said, he would already be on my "ignore" list if that were possible.

This is not a matter of suppressing the truth. You could be 100% right, so I asked you what it is that is the problem. You've been asked several times since then, to provide evidence that "security updates can cease any time without further updates". Maybe that is just poor, sensationalist wording? OK, then what is the problem in better terms, if there is any specific security concern? You know, at one time, you were spreading the mantra that if a person were complain about anything, said person has to be also trying to fix that problem, otherwise you can't complain. Well, OK. Speaking about what your exact concern is can actually help address fixing it. After all, there are people here that can be your channel to fixing security issues. Go ahead and voice it-- just open it in another thread. If you do not wish to address it, but keep bringing it up and posting frequently in generalities (slackware has security problems, and their users consider me blasphemous), that is what I would consider trolling.

Gazl is right. You are sensationalizing.

Yes, he'd be my first and only years ago. I'm not the only one who tried this that was then surprised he was moderator. Hence it was my complaint too that a moderator has been acting this way.

Not that long ago Tobi already stated his feelings in this post. Maybe we could spare ourselves a new discussion on the same topic, that won't change anyone's mind?

1 members found this post helpful.

Slackware reminds me of a nice little restaurant we have up here in the mountains, known only to the locals. There are only a few items on the menu, the chef is alone in his kitchen, doesn't talk very much and only uses local products. The food is surprisingly cheap and just divine, better than many three-star-restaurants who would charge ten times more. Occasionally you have to wait a bit to get served, and sometimes they close down for a week or two without any warning. But then, this is not a Burger King or a McDonald's.

6 members found this post helpful.

Hi mralk3 and tronayne,

I also updated my Slackware work stations for years using the method you describe, tronayne. That method is tried and true and works well indeed. Over the last few years I have updated my Slackware boxes using the slackpkg utility which ships with Slackware. The slackpkg utility has an advantage in that it makes it less tedious to update your Slackware station particularly if there are several updates for your box. There are a lot of updates available for Slackware 14.1. The slackpkg utility gives you complete control over which security updates you install and it also checks the integrity of the updates using md5. If you would like to use the slackpkg utility follow the next few steps, mralk3.

1. Edit /etc/slackpkg/mirrors and uncomment one and only one mirror (remove the # in front of the mirror). Save and exit. Next issue the following commands in order.

2. 3. 4. 5. I think that you will really enjoy Slackware, mralk3. For the fun of it I ran Debian 8 yesterday to take the OS for a test drive and I did find it to be very impressive. I am back with Slackware 100 and could not be happier.
Slackware is my home.

-Current and version release Tobi both receive equal treatment towards security fixes. Most security fixes for older packages stop coming because upstream stop making them. Either update your package, or suffer consequences. The only patches -Current gets are for stuff in the immediate releases of packages.

This also returns to the aspect of learning to do for yourself Tobi. Even if Slackware doesn't have a patch doesn't mean you can patch it yourself with your local rebuild. What you're saying about EOL releases is nothing but an excuse to point blame at the distribution, rather than the system admin where the fault lies.

Niki, I think you hit the nail on the head.

We have the same sort of place around here (no mountains, though). Local place, bar and grill, families welcome, come as you are, great food (well, best pizza north of the Detroit area anyway -- that's about 200 miles south). Comfortable, friendly, everybody knows everybody (until the summer people arrive anyway).

Yeah, it's kind of like Slackware. I just never thought of it that way, but, yeah.

Nice post.

1 members found this post helpful.

Good advise, hitest.

I don't use slackpkg simply because I update quite a few machines spread far and wide (like miles). I download all the patches, put 'em on a flash drive and plug that in on the 32- and 64-bit boxes I maintain (except my own that are on a LAN). I might just be tempted to switch over to slackpkg sometime down the road, though, because my own machines are usually, not always but usually, on 24/7 and the updates can happen in the middle of the night.

What the heck, I might even be tempted to upgrade to slackpkg on all the remote machines! Hey, might save me a drive. But, then, wouldn't be quite as nice as the fresh-baked cookies and muffins, coffee and talk.

Hmm.

Gotta think about that one.

2 members found this post helpful.

The main reason I suggested it to the OP is if he/she is going to do a clean install of 14.1 there will be heck of a lot of updates and it would take a lot of effort to manually download and install each security patch.
I've found slackpkg to be very robust and reliable. It is also a smart utility and it will tell you if the patch is bad before you install it (a md5 mismatch). I think you will like it, man.

Hello all, I appreciate all the helpful feedback over the last few days. I haven't been responding to the thread because I have been busy playing with my Slackware64 14.1 laptop.

It took me a few days to figure out why my video card was not working, as that is something that has always worked out of the box in Debian. The reason it was not working is because Slackware leaves the configuring up to the user. Slackware lets the user make the decision on what an installation does and does not need. I had to configure my Xorg.conf manually and boot using radeon.modeset=1. Prior to that I was booting with nomodeset until I figured out what was going on. No biggie, I have had worse in Debian. =)

I do not think that is a negative mark against Slackware and I find it refreshing to know that the Slackware developers are not making all sorts of decisions for me prior to me even installing an ISO, patch or update.

The reasons I moved from Debian to Slackware are:

* I want more control over my installation
* I want less bloat
* I like simplicity

The Debian development team seems to be making an awful lot of decisions for their users. I ran Debian Jessie (while it was the testing branch) for the last year and a half and saw immense changes from Debian Wheezy (now old stable) to Debian Jessie (current stable) that left me unsatisfied with Debian as a distribution. Every time there is a new release coming out I do the same thing and track exactly what Debian is about to do by running Debian Testing.

I find that Debian installs too much bloat these days. With Slackware, even if I install every package in the distribution, I find I am using less disk space than Debian. I can only find a few things I am missing that are rather inconsequential- all which are found on slackbuilds.org.

As far as security updates go, I do not feel that even a month of a lack updates is too long. It seems pretty straight forward to create a few Slackbuilds to update portions of the system. I did that and more in Debian testing by building .deb packages from source to fix security holes that were patched in Debian Unstable and Debian Stable, but yet to be patched in Debian testing due to how Debian develops its testing branch.

Also, if security updates are such a paramount concern that every little threat needs to be addresses, you are likely running a production server yourself, for a client or at work. In this case I think that it is a better idea to mirror all of Slackware on a private mirror and take a far more in depth care of what goes on your system than to wait for the developers to catch up (if in fact they are behind, which I doubt they are behind in the first place). I am not running a production server. In the passed when I was running a production server, I was a system administrator for a fortune 500 company, and there was a development team at that company managed the updates to all systems for the company (and issued their own software packages updates for that production server).

Anyway, enough of my ranting. Glad to be a Slacker!

6 members found this post helpful.

Welcome on board! It seems that you have grasped the spirit of Slackware, and I hope you'll feel at home here, especially with a background like yours.