It's lightweight in terms of memory usage. A default Slackware install loads fewer daemons than, say, a default Ubuntu install does.

You could make the same argument with using Arch, and Gentoo.

My kernel has the BFS patch & is about 3mb, and I have very few init3 services on boot. Runs very quickly and my memory footprint is minimal.

I'm going to try this with a Slack build running Openbox, and compare benchmarks.

Thanks guys. Some interesting responses.


I understand the dependencies with debian, but not the config files with Mandrake. Surely it would not overwrite changes by hand unless you used one of it's gui tools, in which case that would be expected?

If you only ever edited it by hand, it should have kept it like that? Just curious...


Wow. How interesting. To me, of course, without a doubt, slack is lightweight. This is a very good thing. It had absolutely nothing to do with the software that ships as part of the distribution. I consider Arch lightweight(moreso than Slack), however, the fact that I could install everything from the Arch repository does not negate the fact that it is lightweight.

Slack is lightweight because it is clean and simple, and only what is necessary is installed. There is no additional fluff, unneccesary dependencies etc. One of the reasons slack is minimal and lightweight, is because I can know where everything is on my system, what it does and how it is configured. It is not so easy to do that on a heavyweight distribution.

Can you give examples of how? I think this is maybe a common misconception. Ubuntu and the like offer wrappers and GUI tools to make things easier, but you are not bound to use them, and can still fix everything with a text editor if you so desire. They hide system functionality for ease of use, however they don't prevent you or make it hard for you to access it. Right?

I don't really understand this sentiment. How is Slackware any more or less of an Operating system than Ubuntu or Debian? They are all distros, and all complete operating systems.

That is the thing though. The other distros don't seem to automatically try to administer your system, they just do stuff automatically ifyou want them to.

So, it seems to be a common misconception that you don't have compelte control on those systems. Of course it is easier with a distro like slack, which is why we like it, but it is no less possible(or even that hard) with the friendlier distros.

How do other distros make anything inaccessible or forbidden? It really seems to be a misconception. Can anyone provide some examples?

I will response to my part that you quoted. What I was referring to is the fact that slackware provides you a working system out of the box. You don't need to worry about java or media players or codecs even. Sure a little tweaking is necessary and you do have to download and install extra stuffs according to your requirements. However, slack provides you with far more packages than ubuntu does. Debian just provides repositories along with 5 DVDs. Slack package selections are well-thought of keeping in mind the user's daily needs.It's the proper management and decision that makes the difference. Besides a distro which can't handle the traditional approach of compiling the kernel doesn't have my respect!
However this can be again argued that Fedora and suse also provides a whole stack of software collection in their DVD releases. It's again my personal opinion and preference. I just like the slackware's approach to keeping it simple and the vanilla packages just the way developer's intended them to be and I trust Pat's judgment. ;)

Maybe the difference is in mentalities... When I use Slackware and something goes wrong, I assume I'm at fault for not knowing what to do. When I use another OS I assume the os or the software did something wrong and now I have to fix it.

Just to add my little experience here. I was using fedora for a while. I liked it. I installed nvidia driver [the proprietary one] and was told in the forums and irc that I made a huge blunder and it is not officially supported. I was seriously shocked that they are claiming the nvidia driver to defunct a fedora system! On a kernel upgrade you must wait until a new version of kmod driver [their alternative to nvidia driver] comes out and akmod is not really that great either and has often not worked for many. All I did was recompile the nvidia driver with the newer kernel and it worked perfectly. I was really pissed off with their lies [since I hope that fedora developers/the one who replied to me in the irc was a kmod dev, knew as well that nvidia driver won't harm my system] and it seemed like self-promotion of their own drivers. I understand that they don't prefer proprietary drivers but they shouldn't lie and misguide users! The choice should be left to the users instead of blanketing the truth.
Again it can't forbid you from doing anything you want to with fedora, it's just not worth it to mess with a system which wasn't intended to mess with. For messing things up there's always arch and gentoo. ;)

I think you may be underestimating the other distros. Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora etc, all comes with everything you need for a working system, including java and media codecs. In fact, most other distros come with a lot more software than slack.

The reason I lack slack, is that the software shipped is sane and vanilla. I don't think it is fair to say it is more complete than the other distros. The numerous advantages of slack are not in the amount of software it ships with, to me.

I can give you some examples of how Slack teaches you the "Linux" way vs. Debian. I'm not trying to slam Debian here as it is a good distro as well.

1) In Debian you edit /etc/network/interfaces and provide all of your wireless network settings; in Slack you use /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf and wpa_supplicant.conf. Some distros are using the same configuration files as Debian but not all of them. Not a huge difference but there it is.
2) In Debian you can try to compile the kernel the standard way, but if you have problems and ask for help the first thing you'll see in the forum posts is: "Did you try it the Debian way"?
3) There's a "Debian" way for installing AMD drivers. Instead of just running the ATI installer, you run 3 commands and build the module the Debian way. I have to mention that this was far easier than trying to get the ATI drivers working in Slackware 12.2, although I had no problems with ATI drivers in Slackware 13. Of course you can do it the standard way, but they try to steer you in their direction.
4) Building lirc or mythtv. The wiki tells you how to do it the Debian way. You're on your own if you want to do it the standard way (I know this isn't a big deal). The annoyance is if you want to install mythvideo from the package repository later: the package manager will automatically install mythtv (a dependency) even though you've already built it. Also it's tricky to build your own packages in Debian.
5) Slackware teaches you how to compile and build programs. If you've only ever run 1 slackbuild and taken a look at what the script did, you've learned more than a year's worth of pulling packages from the Debian repository.
6) If you've edited any config files, you better keep track and mark them in the package manager or else they will be overwritten if you do updates.
7) 64-bit. Most distros make that seamless for you: they just install nspluginwrapper and flash for you and you don't really notice. In Slackware I've had to do it myself for the first time.

My point is you feel like you're going against the grain when you try to customize Debian; Slackware tries to stay out of your way.

Heh! I knew you would compare it with suse and fedora [didn't expect a ubntu comparison though!] but I did reply to whatever you said in my last post itself. It is not about the number of package [we both agree on that], it is the slackware way of handpicking them and not ridiculously branding/modifying them!

Oh btw, please do re-check ubuntu doesn't provide you with codecs or java, fedora is well known for not supporting mp3 and it doesn't provide you codecs either, suse doesn't either iirc.

I'm sold on Funtoo's - OpenRc 5.0, Baselayout 2.1.6, Portage's profiles & make.conf (emerge, eix, rc tools) - This gives the user complete control of all run levels and configs. There's not a config file I can't adjust to serve my needs. Oh, and the Overlays are great for testing new releases.

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood you. I just disagree, and don't understand why you were saying slackware is more of a compelte distro than the rest. The other distros are probably going to come with a lot more desktop and user programs to try and be more complete.

Slackware gives you the essentials, in a clean and unpatched way. I prefer this, but don't consider it to be 'more complete'. I'm not 100% sure if most of the other distros don't provide propietary stuff because of philosophy or legal reasons, but if they don't, they generally make it trivial to get them.

From your posts I've noticed you like lean and mean with no frills. I think Slackware will help you achieve this admirably, although you could do this with any distro if you wanted.

You could make a lightning-fast Ubuntu if you wanted, but it would probably be harder to do (kind of funny thinking about it, since the main goal is to make things "user-friendly"). You could achieve this more easily with Debian than Ubuntu, but I think Slackware reigns in this department.

Probably the worst distro for you would be SUSE, where they don't want you editing any files: in most config files at the top they say "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE" (they have a GUI for everything and don't want you messing it up). I haven't tried SUSE since 10.2, so it might have changed a bit since then.

I considered Arch but didn't like how bleeding edge everything was, and Gentoo but heard that there's a lot of strife among the developers. From your extensive knowledge it seems you'd be happier with any of the "power user" distros, but use whatever you like.

Of course for a more experienced user having a lot of GUIs will not hinder him/her if they encounter a problem. For example, if a repository in a Debian-based distro stops working (ie, the site no longer exists) then the user will get an apt-get error. The easiest thing for a more experienced user to do would be to break out a text editor and modify their sources.list.
My point is that GUIs are fine as long as they work. When something breaks it is important that an end user understands what the underlying processes are.
GUIs give a new Linux user a false sense of security, so when something breaks a new user will often re-install, rather than fix the problem. It is the new user who is most vulnerable if they are dependent on point-and-click.

Oh, indeed. I've been with Slackware for about the last 10 years, and used RH and SUSE a lot more back in the day.

This post is not about finding a distro for me, I have enoug experience and I am happy with my choice.

It was about the fact that many users of Arch, Slack, Gentoo etc will "look down" on distributions like Fedora, Ubuntu, SUSE etc. And, there are certainly a few opinionated reasons to do so.

However, it is a common thing that it is said that such distributions make it hard for you to edit files and administer your own system. I think this is untrue.

Debian-esque systems can make it hard to build packages manually without using repositories, but you can do it. No distros directly prevent you from editing config files, but may overwriteyour changes if you use the provided gui programs. Which should be expected.

I don't think anyone is arguing some distros make it harder to manually administer a system than others, but people are saying some distros try to prevent you from doing this...which I think is false.

What about SUSE with it's "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE" stuff? They're explicitly discouraging you from editing files manually. You can still do it of course, since it is Linux, just it might screw up the GUI or the GUI might screw it up if you ever ran it. And with Debian it seems like there's the "Debian way" or your way, but it's always harder to do things your own way.

I agree that the "power user" distros have some elitists. I'd also say that anyone that can install Arch has a lot more knowledge than the average Ubuntu user, and the Gentoo forum users seem to have more understanding of how things work than the Ubuntu forums (although both are useful). That's no excuse for looking down on the other distro users, but it does happen. With every distro you have posts with "look at the stupid noob" crap. Everyone starts as a noob. I remember seeing one post where the idiot was telling a noob to run dd and basically trash their hard drive: fortunately there was another user to set them straight.