Slack and other minimal/lightweight distros, compared to 'bigger' distros.
 

Hey guys, a serious question here. Please do not turn this into a flamewar, and keep it on topic.

I started using slackware from version 7, and it was a great experience, and I genuinely learned most of my knowledge through doing so. Now, because I have been closer to the slackware community, and to a lesser extent the gentoo and arch(And similar) communities, I have noticed a common opinion.

Namely, that other distributions, such as RH, SUSE, Ubuntu etc, all prevent you from learning linux directly, and teach you distro specific stuff, make it harder to edit config files directly, all of this sort of stuff.

Indeed, it is a somewhat popular saying that if you learn ubuntu, you will learn ubuntu, but if you learn slack, you will learn linux.

I honestly wonder how justified this is. This is my question.

I want to know how justified the opinion is that the other distros, generally considered more bloated or having a lot of wrappers and stuff actually make it hard to admin stuff directly and simply.

The reason I ask, is that I was talking to an ubuntu fan recently, who basically said that it was quite a myth. You can still edit all files directly, you are not discouraged from doing so etc

So, is it in fact true, that with ubuntu or RH, you have the same control as you have with slack, but with the option to use (intended to be easier) to use wrappers for stuff? I am aware there will not be the same level of package control as there is with slack or the others, but that is not what I am asking about.

What would be the different between a bare minimum ubuntu install and a slack install, aside from vendor patches?

Really? just goto ubuntu forums and create a topic "how to enable root account" and see their reaction. Oh also let me tell you, according to forum rule if someone helps you out detailing the procedure to enable your root account, he/she might get banned and/or warned.Obviously you can modify ubuntu or any Linux distro for that matter, but you won't get official support for a distro like ubuntu or fedora, if you mess with the defaults.

You can hack ubuntu around, for example I created an ubuntu system with read-only / and /usr file systems trimmed down to less than 1 GB on /.

The real restrictions are package dependencies, for example even on that minimal system and with the ubuntu-desktop "meta package" removed I still couldn't remove the cups package without also removing some essential packages.

ubuntu does give the user more GUI tools to configure Linux with than Slackware does but -- like all GUI tools (including Windows') -- they offer a limited subset of options. If you really want to make the OS sing and dance, you end up on the command line, scripting and editing.

So ubuntu's Linux itself is not too hard to work with; a bigger problem is Gnome -- dumbed down, buggy, slow, poorly documented, really hard to reverse-engineer. Most of that is no problem for the designer's intended users who aren't interested in tweaking the GUI or pushing it to the limits and accept what they get rather than asking "why not?" and saying "it would be nice if ...". It's a case of "horses for courses" rather than a criticism of Gnome.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately!) I haven't experienced KDE but suspect that it is not so different from Gnome -- thus bringing Slackware and ubuntu into the same place as regards editing configuration files directly.

The differnce....Updates.....My thoughts on Debian distros.....having to run extensive updates daily with tens of packages is no fun. I have run everything on my PC and truly love slackware. Once set up, it just goes. Now that your xorg is set up automatically there is very little to manually edit.

For a minimal install I think that Ubuntu is not the way to go due to the dependencies indicated above.

I stopped using Mandrake (now Mandriva) and then Debian and moved to Slackware for the following reasons. Mandrake thought it knew better than me and kept overwriting changes that I made to configuration files. Debian thought that it knew better than me and installed dependencies that broke other programs and then could not be removed because they broke the system.

I moved just over 5 years ago and since then I generally only break my system when I break it, and because I broke it I know how to fix it. When I moved the saying that you mentioned was true, I learned more about linux in a few months using Slackware than I had in the previous 5 years that I had been using linux Redhat 5.2, Mandrake 6.1, Caldera, Debian and various others.

It may not be true now but, my guess is that it probably is.

samac

Not a flame, only a comment, first: I wouldn't consider Slack a minimal/lightweight distro. True, it doesn't have the massive amounts of software a Debian, Red Hat, or Gentoo distro (or their derivatives like Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) might have, but it's very far from the minimal/lightweight category. There's very little that those other distros have been able to do that I haven't been able to do on Slackware, better package management being the biggest one of course (at the cost--oh, the irony never escapes--of less stability! :).

When I think of minimal/lightweight, I think of Tom's rtbt, DSL, etc. If I can run a decent GUI (with a browser) on a machine from over a decade ago and the distro is current (as opposed to loading up, say, Slack 3.x on it), it's lightweight. If the GUI isn't present or is bare-bones (fv/twm w/o X, anyone?) or it'll work in an embedded environment, I'd call it minimal. Using the examples above, Tom's is minimal (still fits on floppies and runs live!) and DSL is lightweight (can probably--but haven't tried it yet--install on an old 1996 P-100 16MB RAM 100MB HDD I have laying around that came with win95 1st edition).

Now to answer your question about learning, the ultimate learning tool IMHO has got to be LFS (Linux From Scratch); that said, before LFS, there was Slackware. LFS even acknowledges this in that they give specific directions to make Slackware/BSD-style init scripts instead of the usual System-V style if that's what you want. Since I don't understand the Sys-V-style (so damn convoluted!!) and all I've ever used is Slackware (since the mid-90's), that would make things a lot simpler for me; YMMV, of course.

Mike

I learn the most about computing when I use Slackware and the BSDs. These distros are designed logically and they make the most sense to me. I appreciate the fact that when I set-up Slackware and/or FreeBSD my computer will run without crashing...indefinitely.
I don't like Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, etc...because they conceal system functionality from the end-user. Shiny GUIS and package managers are nice things *if they work*. An Ubuntu user will still need to be able to use a text editor if apt-get fails. Slackpkg in Slackware and ports in FreeBSD are elegant, well thought out package management systems.
If I f**k something up on my box it is because I've done it myself and I can fix it with a text editor, command prompt, or by booting from the DVD.
I'll always be a Slacker. :)

Samac +100. Nice explanation: "I generally only break my system when I break it, and because I broke it I know how to fix it"

I went through the same! And destination point is Slackware.

I agree that Slackware isn't a "lightweight" distribution. After all, it comes with 2 DE's and 3 WM's by default! It can be customized to be less bloated but so can most other distributions. Even Ubuntu. Fedora, Debian etc. In fact i don't see how the default Slackware installation is any different from a default Ubuntu one. They both aim to give you a complete working desktop (of course Slackware is also suitable as a server, but server installations will be probably customized by definition).

Hi,

'Slack and other minimal/lightweight distros, compared to 'bigger' distros.' is not really a fair statement in my opinion. I believe in the use of the right tool for a job. Slackware can be trimmed down to fit the description as being light weight for a install. Slax is a good example of a fork that can be used to aid a user.

Larger size (quantity) instead of quality doesn't make something better. But to state that 'bigger' is because of number of users doesn't mean it's better. Some users of the so called 'bigger' distros have to wait or hope the maintainer aligns with their needs/requirements. If not then hopefully their needs can be addressed via other methods.

A Slackware user doesn't need to sit and wait to get something. They can either install what is necessary via a package or create the necessary app via source. Sure we have 'Slackbuilds' but sometimes a user must get down an perform tasks to get something for themselves. Hopefully that same user will share.

BTW, I do use other forms of GNU/Linux whenever the need arises.

Slackware is more of an Operating System than another Linux distro. It provides you with a complete set of applications that you would need for a desktop/server daily use. For a minimal system install, there are always gentoo,arch,lfs or even debian! Again it's a matter of choice and preference.

With xfce installed slack is, on my system, ~3.5gb, minus my home directories. I wouldn't call that lightweight. If you mean that slack doesn't have a lot of handholding applications to help the user configure stuff, then yeah, okay, it's lightweight.

Plenty of posters in this thread have spoken about how other distros try to automatically administrate their system. The other distros do this with higher level abstractions, normally with a GUI face.

These are basically abstractions on the core unix system, most of the time. But these abstractions only grant a limited number of possible administrative options, for abstractions hide away functionality, not increase it.

This is all well and fine while you want to play within the bounds of the abstractions. But most slackers don't. And when they're forced to they become frustrated. And reinstall slack.

:)

You can't blame Slackware if you damage your system... How true, and how significant: I take this as completely opposed to the very idea of 'rock solid distro' that Slackware puts forward... Does anyone sees the gap in logic?

I believe this is why 'mainstream' Linux distros make it harder, concealed - if not downright inaccessible, forbidden & all that. Then, there'll always be other people to think they know better than you, it's a feature of Systems Design, not a bug.


The issue here is that we have been crying after 'Linux for the Masses' for years - hence, that's what we have, Linux distros hacked for the dumb user in mind. Mind you, if you don't fool around, they are _quite_ useable.


I work with Ardour2, an ICE1724 soundboard, homebrew realtime kernel, on a slack12.2 with the Enlightenment DR16 WM - Even with E DR16 providing no threat at all on the graphic system, and with 3G of ram, I can tell you I crash my system alot, while relying on 'Stable' releases only. :) Slack isn't more this or less that: the good point of the entire Linux landscape lies within its breadth, the manyful choices we have at hand.

These choices, like any, make us compromise between this, and that: SLack is good for me, 'cause I can compile 99% of my needs fuss-free - then, I may run a dependency hell. Yet, my wife runs Fedora and my daughter UNR and they love their laptops to the point of advocating Linux 24/7.

It is then true you learn alot - see how many answers the u-forums have to offer! Beyond the matter of taste, it's more like a big school where one has the opportunity to choose which class he/she will attend, and without the necessity to pass an exam at the end of the year.


Just stick to what's good for you.
And don't complain if it isn't, just switch over.

Jean-Philippe
http://pics.zenerves.net/index.php?g...mbodge/Pirates

1. I agree with some other posters, that Slackware is by no means light weight or non-mainstream. It's a top-ten fully-fledged distribution of Linux.

2. I have used SuSE Linux for many years. I don't subscribe to the point of view of some posters here, that distributions with GUI admin tools prevent you from configuring your system by hand. At least, SuSE does not prevent you from anything you can do in Slackware. You can edit all configuration files directly, and in most cases the admin tool will leave the files you edited alone from the moment you touched them first.
But this means, that some parts of the automatisation break. Once you start editing configuration files by hand in SuSE, there's no safe way back, other than deleting the edited files and re-installing the package to which it belongs.

To give you an example, for what I really liked a lot in SuSE: I ran an Apache 1.3 web server. I had not touched the original configuration files, because my requirements could all be met by using YaST for setting it up. Then a new version of SuSE Linux was released, including Apache 2.0 as standard. My configuration was transparently converted, and my computer ran Apache 2.0. I did not have to touch a single file, it just worked, because the configuration settings I had done in YaST were simply mapped to Apache 1.3 in the older release and to version 2.0 in the new one.

I could have modified the Apache configuration files directly, just as well. But then I would have had to the migration myself, also. This would have been possible, but I would have lost the comfort offered by SuSE forever, as far as Apache HTTPD is regarded.

For various reasons I don't run SuSE on any of my machines, currently, and in my opinion Slackware is the best Linux distribution (and the best operating system) I have seen, but I still have every respect for the efforts of the SuSE development team. Despite the fact that I don't understand why Novell has let go so many highly skilled people, they still produce my other favourite distro (#2 in my current ranking).

For some specific things, YaST by default ignores that configuration files have been modified manually by the user or system administrator. But it's always possible to configure YaST to not overwrite any modified files.

3. Learning Linux is possible with just about every distribution. The question is: What is Linux?
If Linux is what the LSB defines, then OpenSuSE is Linux, and Slackware is not. Because it doesn't include PAM, and does not use a System V boot scheme. Also, it doesn't use RPM for package management.
There are very good reasons for Slackware not to include this stuff, but it also means that it is not standards compliant. In fact this is one reason, why other distros, such as Red Hat and SuSE had more acceptance in large enterprises than Slackware: They were "certified" for their LSB conformance.
But then, what's the benefit of the LSB? Mainly, that RPM packages for Red Hat will work unmodified on SuSE, too. As a Slackware user I couldn't care less. Meanwhile I think the package management of Slackware is the superior approach compared to RPM, PAM has a reputation of introducing security problems and complexity into a system, and System V boot schemes are more flexibel, but also more difficult to maintain than the BSD style mechanism used in Slackware.
But none of the major distros prevents you from learning shell scripting, learning about inodes and file modes and so on, if you really are interested. (Well, the *buntus may be an exception, here, for the reasons mentioned by others in this thread, already...)

gargamel

First I respect the Slackware community for its contribution to the Linux desktop, and its a true original.

My opinon is to stick with a distro that suits your needs, I think these Canonical based distros, and all there spinoffs are catered to the new Linux converts. I started with Redhat 6-7 (before Fedora), and hated it. It felt restricted, so I went to Debian, then noticed that the binary standards didnt suit me. I chose Gentoo because I liked the portage, and the USE flag features. And I have a speedy enough computer to compile code quickly. I have enjoyed using Arch and pacman & yaourt, and making and adjusting PKGBUILDS, and using there AUR, and ABS system. It's hard to switch from making my custom ebuilds, and using portage, to start using Slacks, and Arch fulltime. So as a side project I'm going to install a minimal Slackware, and chroot in, and mess with it a bit.

I have learned more from building LFS & Gentoo then any other variant. I started to write my own scripts, started programming pygtk, and other things that I would'nt have really thought of, unless I started installing minimal, and creating my own software tools.

As a side note SUSE ... is just right around the corner from my place, and I have to say I used to work for Novell, it was plagued with constant strife, and back stabbing management. I swore that I would boycott there software for the way they treated me, and others. I saw that they would washout good people out of favoritism for others, very cliche'. I jumped ship from Novell sometime ago, and haven't looked back

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.

Is like if you have a very good server, giving you root privileges, skinned like a smooth and cool desktop... And build a lot of things =]

I have not used SUSE recently enough to know...is it only on certain files? Would it be on every file? If it is on files that their tools look after, I can understand and accept that.

You should not expect to be able to hand edit and rely on tools. It's one or the other. I think if you were to only edit by hand, it would be fine, but then why use SUSE in the first place?

As for the Debian way.....yeah. They definitely have a lot of strong guidelines. But, Ubuntu or Debian, won't stop you from installing your own packages and editing your own files. I can kind of see it being reasonable to follow a methodology that works best with the system you are using. It makes sense to urge this for new users, and sense it is not enforced, it does not prevent advanced users.

My experience with SUSE is very outdated, but I believe it was only for files their GUIs touched. I also remember the updater was always nagging you: kind of like Windows these days.

Agree with your Debian comments.

Sorry to hear that. SuSE was voted the "best employer" in Germany, before the Novell deal. Really a sad story, what has happened in the meantime with this formerly proud company, despite being small, was able to impact on the whole industry. :mad:

gargamel

Exactly.

Just want to note, that usually you break the automatism for the context to which the file belongs, that you modify. In the example of the web server I described, it would mean that after editing httpd.conf or something, for upgrades there would be no automatic conversion, anymore. But other things, like Email configuration, would, of course, continue to work.

However, sometimes there are dependencies. Modifying one file in such a chain would break the whole chain. From that point on you'd have to edit all the config files in the chain, not just one, by hand.
[/QUOTE]

I cannot accept that, it is my computer, they are my programs, it is my data, why should their tools look after that in their way. You seem to forget that a computer is just a tool and it should do as it is told. You should not have to accept something because it is the "Distribution's Way". How many times have you contacted a companies customer service desk and been told "Sorry, I can't do that!", by some poor soul who's life is controlled by their computer and every ounce of their ability to think for themselves is leached daily from their body.

Perhaps it is just a symptom of society that all people are taught to accept, that they have to conform, be part of a team, not rock the boat etc. etc. but I for one am glad that some Linux distributions don't try to be smarter than you and allow you to do you want.

It may be that their are misconceptions that other distributions don't allow you to edit system files, but as you have, yourself, said, you may have to jump through hoops to do it.

I ask one simple question, if a computer is a tool why should the operating system not serve you in the way that you want?

I think that is the reason that people say, "if you know Slackware, you know Linux" is, because you don't just know what the distribution allows you to know, you are allowed to think freely and allowed to break your system if you want to. You are allowed to have a stripped down speed machine, a boated desktop, a multimedia machine, a server, a toy, whatever you want and all the bits will just work. If some guru hasn't compiled a specific piece of software into a package, you can do it and it will work more often, in my experience, with Slackware.

Linux is all about choice and if you, or others, choose to be told how their computer should do stuff, then that is your/their choice, not one I would make but then again that's just me.

Oh and I am always right. IMHO.

Rant over.

samac

What?

I think your rant is missing the point entirely.

You are not forfeiting control or choice by choosing to use software that automates some tasks.

If you make a choice to use redhat, than that choice is probably made in part because it has helper gui tools and wrappers.

Now, you don't have to use those tools or wrappers, and you can still edit config files and such without a problem. Unless you want to use those tools.

If you want to be able to use those tools, then you can't edit things manually anymore. This is just common sense. The tools will overwrite the file with the settings you choose through the tools, only after you have made the choice to use the tools.

If distributions forced you to use their gui tools for managment and prevented you from editing things by hand, then you may have a point. As they don't, you don't.

I'm sick of the lack of people ability to think critically as well, but this is not the case for that. Not everyone wants to control every aspect of their computer manually, or for some situations it may be a far too cumbersome.

It is not that distributions are trying to be smarter than you, it is that they want to make it easier for people. Obviously, a lot of people prefer the work they have done. This is not for us, and that is fine...

Well, no. Not for editing config files. It seems it would be harder to install your own packages sometimes, for example on debian, but this is acceptable.

The reason this is acceptable, is because it is well known that this is how debian works, that all software is in repositories. If you don't like that you should not install debian. It makes no sense to complain after the fact.

No distribution will prevent you from editing config files, although many may discourage it if gui tools are the preferred method for a distribution.

For many people, having the computer do as much as it can automatically and be transparent is exactly what they want.

This is true for many distros.

The thing that sets slackware apart for me, is that everything is vanilla, it is just a system, no extra wrappers or gui stuff, package management is close to ideal, and yes, you gain an excellent understanding of your system by using it.

Slackware can be sided with those popcorporate commercial distros and still don't throw even a simple logo on your face. Wait when all those standards compliant start breaking the desktop...

Sorry, but I agree with Josh000: You are entirely missing the point here. If you want really full control, then DON'T use a computer, at all. Because it always will do things without having explicitly told to do by you.
What you say sounds to me like you want to move the cylinders of an engine by hand, when you drive a car, and rather not having an electronic motor management. Because this is automatic and not under your control. It works the way the car maker has designed it to work. Does this mean, you prefer walking?

Because this is the logical consequence of what you say.
Sorry for being a bit ironic, don't take this as an offense, but really: You missed the point, here.

BUT: There ARE reasons, why I prefer Slackware over all other distros I know. That just doesn't mean, that the others are completely dull and stubborn. In fact, their success allowed the continued development of Linux. Slackware is, in fact, a parasite. It uses and packages components developed and sponsored by others. The result is brilliant, and the crew is doing the best job in the industry, but there's no reason for bashing others who have sponsored Linux to the benefit of all of us.

gargamel

Josh000 and gargamel

Fortunately you are allowed to not get the point, often people are under the impression that there is no other way because the computer program doesn't allow them the opportunity to have the choice. After all just because there is a gui component doesn't mean that the command line backend should be hidden, or just because you shouldn't run as root, root should be hidden.

Your analogy with the car falls down as I choose to use to use either my legs or a bicycle or some other mode of transport, I don't have to use the car just because the car manufacturers make cars.

I don't need full control and I could not control fully as I never got round to programming in machine code, however my point was simply that programs should not determine how you use your computer, you should.

samac

Hi,

I believe in looking at treating the OS as a 'tool'. That tool should get the task at hand done without trouble or harm. If you are wanting to tighten a bolt and nut you have choices. If the hardware is SAE then you would not use a Metric tool. Sure some may fit but you won't be able to safely complete the task.

Distributions are just that a 'tool'. A user should use the tool that will safely complete or enable that same user to work with the desired hardware. Hopefully, the chosen tool will enable the user to work efficiently and proficiently to complete tasks. Some people should use hold your hand distributions while others are comfortable with a system that allows you too tweak or manage the system in a manner that suits their need(s).

I like the way 'PV' has the mindset to setup a distribution that allow you to have a OS that will not get in the way.

But, that is the point. It isn't hidden. It is just suggested that if you are using a distro that is known for having gui tools, and wish to use them, you cannot expect to still have manual control.

This is completely reasonable, as otherwise, using both the gui tools and manual editing config files, those choices contradict each other.

You are in no way prevented from manually editing and configuring everything and never using the distro specific tools.

Yes, and some people choose to use gui software to handle config files rather than edit those files directly. This is their choice, and choice is not being infringed on or being taken away from.

If you use xorgsetup in slack to generate an X file automatically, do you feel that control is being taken away from you, and that the computer is doing thing automatically? xorgsetup is quite similar to tools from other distributions, in the level of control it removes.

JoshOOO I'm sorry if you don't get this, but your implication that I am saying that you should just use gui tools or cli tools, is just frankly wrong. All I have said is that I should be able to determine what happens on my computer. I use both gui and cli to do that. I just do not want the computer program/OS writers to make that determination for me, and that the specific case was where I made a modification to a configuration file and the OS wrote it back on the next boot.

I can and do expect to be able to use both gui and cli and not have them contradict each other as more often than not the gui is just using the command line as the backend, therefore they should in no way contradict each other as they are to all intents the same program acting upon the same configuration file.

In Slackware you can do this, that is why I use Slackware, in some other Linux distributions it is more problematic that is why I do not use them. In Slackware the designer (Pat Volkerding) has designed it so that everyone has the choice and control over their computer, some other distributions try to impose "their way".

I hope this clarifies my thoughts in response to your actual question I would guess rather a lot, system V init, deb package management, etc. but more importantly the fact that right at the core Mr Shuttleworth is telling you that you shouldn't know about the root user and sudo is how things are done, but we know different don't we, after all we learned Slackware so we know linux.

samac

Again, it would help if you would read more carefully, and it becomes clear to me that you referring to only one other family of distros, but make your statements general. Which is not fair.
Only the *buntus try to "hide" the CLI, but the philosophy behind it is anything but stupid. Exploit the capabilities of Linux, expose its flexibility to end-users, but don't allow or motivate them to screw up their system all too easily.
Personally the end-product is not to my likings, but there's nothing wrong with it. Users who have "the impression" that there is no CLI should really NOT be confronted with it. Because they would not be able to use it reasonably.

Let me add, that there is a big difference, if you are talking about your own, personal computer, or if you are in professional (or corporate, if you prefer) environment. There are reasons, why the *buntus are so much more popular on corporate desktops than other distros: They cause less effort in the support department (at least, that's one of Canonical's selling points).


As I said: It depends on the environment.

But as you develop it, I get to think that my analogy works better than I expected myself (usually I don't like car analogies) ... ;)

Then you just should have said that. But again: Computer programs *always* restrict your options, even the CLI tools. As you say, to have really full control, you would have to be able to write machine code. The question then is, where to draw the line.
And as I said above: Sometimes, depending on the users and the environment, such restrictions can even be helpful and desired.

gargamel

However, this is how your original posts reads.

Again, if you would read more carefully, you would have noticed, that this mechanism may be the default, but that the behaviour can be changed, at least, in SuSE. However, at a price, because once you start bypassing the added abstraction layer, you will loose the benefits that come with it. As has been said several times in this thread.


You accept only rather basic GUI tools then, one per service or application. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with smarter solution. Over the years I found only two distros that I liked, because their philosophies are both consistent. One is SuSE, and the other one is Slackware. Probably the differences couldn't be bigger, and the overall quality assurance of Slackware was better (and sets the industry quality benchmark, in my opinion!), but both approaches are helpful in trying to make the complexity of an operating system manageable.
Obviously you are referring to the Canonical way of answering to this challenge, but please note, that there are other ways to provide smart GUI configuration tools without hiding the CLI or the existence of a privileged user account. Personally I have no strong opinion against the *buntus, but they also never really convinced me enough to keep them installed (Xubuntu was not bad, though).


Here I FULLY agree with you!

Ok, then: Peace!

gargamel

That is something we can all agree on.

samac

Well, that's sort of what you buy into when you use a computer/car/ham radio/cable box, etc. I could also say, "Why does Apache handle all that web serving for me, I want to write scripts to do it myself." Or even, "Why should I use TCP/IP, that's pretty inefficient?"

A computer is a tool, but tools make your life simpler, not harder. I don't want to write in assembler, so I use C, Java, Python, etc to automate some of the heavy lifting. I don't want to write my own MP3 decoder so I use Xine, and so on.

I don't like all the hand holding either, but it's a matter of what you're comfortable with. And some people are comfortable with SuSE/Fedora/Ubuntu's level of hand holding.

EDIT: I should add that I follow your logic of "GUI tools and command line tools should coexist peacefully" but I'm not sure that's possible. If I squeeze a jet engine in my Honda Civic then it's reasonable to expect I'll need to replace the drive train as well and that Honda will no longer offer me warranty service. I think that as developers add configuration tools that "play nice" (i.e. Wicd) then Slackware should be adding them, but I agree that Slackware shouldn't add any jet engines that also replace the drive train.

I tried about 10 distros, until I realized that when something did not work it was usually the fluffy gui that the distro/remixer had added to the base system to make it easier?
Some Distros are like local language dialects. People can live in the same country and not understand one another. Slackware sticks to a formula that you can learn.

Everyone else has said this, but I'll summarize my reasons:

1. Slackware is generic. I can use the developer's documentation and support system (forums, etc) because I know Patrick hasn't patched the thing up the wazoo. If you've got an Ubuntu package you can't be sure the documentation has been updated to reflect its Ubuntuization and your reliant on help from the Ubuntu community.

2. I like to know what's going on. Slackware doesn't do a bunch of stuff without telling you. Sure it does some stuff (xwmconfig, installer, other various scripts) but I'm comfortable with that and I can go change it later by hand if I want.

3. The system is not automated. There is an automated updater, but that does the same thing as if I were to update the required packages by hand. It doesn't install and uninstall a bunch of stuff and change configurations without telling me.

4. It follows a predictable pattern. This is a slightly different definition of "user friendly" than most people have, which is "decide most stuff for the user so they don't have to". Slackware is pretty easy to figure out. If you do a bit of reading, almost anything can be adjusted, etc, to meet your needs without breaking the system. Things can be as default or customized as you want and it's not difficult to move back and forth between the two. I can customize the hell out of one package and leave others generic, etc.

To sum it up, Slackware is basically what I would get if I made a system from scratch. I don't always agree with some of the decisions (I don't like KDE, for example) but I have the choice to change those without wrestling with an automated system.

You're still missing the point.

All I am saying, and what you are disagreeing with, is that using gui tools on other distributions, is not sacrificing control, it is not the computer making decisions for you.

It is the users choice to use such tools, because they find it easier. The computer is doing exactly as they have asked. The key point here, is that if you ask the computer to handle something automatically, you can't complain when it does.

The problem, is that it is not as simple as you suggest. GUI programs on other distributions do not simply use the CLI as the backend. They have rather detailed interfaces and wrappers, and quite often their own databases to handle a lot of stuff.

No one is forcing you to use these tools(as much as it may be heavily suggested sometimes), but if you do, you cannot logically have any expectation that you should have 100% manual control over all config files.

You can have one or the other. It is not about gui vs cli tools, it is about automatic/helper tools vs manual control. As an analogy, if you setup a cron script to always back your home directory to ~/back.tgz, you can't complain if you decide to store a different file as ~/backup.tgz and it gets overwritten.

I agree with that whole heartedly. My point was that another distributions 'way', while to us will be sacrificing control, is exactly what other users want, and is not a bad thing.

Well, yes, my question has been clarified in that what I posted originally, is definitely a misconception.