Hello everyone. I am planning on installing slackware distribution in a very near future. I was wondering what is a source code download. On their website I was trying to figure out what to download to get started. There are a few options and a couple of them say 'source code'. Some offer a full download without a source code. So what exactly is it? I have been using linux for a while but never really got under the hood of it so I just want to go all out and install something like slackware to gain knowledge about it. So anyway.. what is a source code?
Thank you everyone

Hello, Welcome to Slackware.

"On their website" ? Are you talking about slackware.com ?

Slackware is distributed already compiled, source code is available but it's often removed from DVD isos in order to save some space.

Does it answer your question ?

Bests.

Garry.

Source code packages are basically the original developer released source code provided to build the package from scratch.

Slackware and many distributions offer what are called pre-built Binary packages to simply download and install.

well i was just wondering what the 'source code' is in the first plays. I couldn't find the definition of the source code for the distros only for the packages. I understand that the source code is where you download a package and compile it yourself. But what is a distro source code? Is that where you have to compile every singe question? Hopefully this clarifies. I'm having a hard time even putting this question to work because I am clueless

hmmm... i think Reaper's answear pretty much answeared. But if there is anyone else that could add then please do so. Thank

Haha no... Source code means the "human readable code" that is written by developers before being processed (compiled) into binary machine code. So source code is some text file written in some "syntax" (like C/C++...). But machine doesn't understand "raw text", it means nothing for it. So we need to translate this human readable text file for the machine to be able to "understand" it (execute machine commands).

That's all. So you always have "source code" somewhere at the beginning of ANY program on ANY computer (is it you watch, your smartphone, Windows, Linux, MacOS, Photoshop, a Game,...)

For mainstream usage, and ease of use (and commercial/industrial purposes, like "closed source"), you often get already compiled (pre-build) binaries of programs.

Although on UNIX there is a tradition to have "open source" (it's not reduced to UNIX but it's a philosophy here), and you can recompile the program tweaking it to your need, or even "fix it" if you have the skills to do that.

Is it more clear ?

Cheers.

NoStressHQ pretty well summed it up, source code is the actual code written by the programmer. I might add, that some programs, particularly larger ones might have optional features that can be enabled/disabled at compile time, and different 'distributions' of Linux sometimes package the software with different features enabled/disabled in their releases, so sometimes to enable a certain feature that wasn't enabled by your distribution you can install the program from source.

the beauty of source code is, unless it's in a low level language like assembler which is machine spescific, a source code distribution can be installed on ANY platform/architecture that has the proper libraries by simply compiling the software and installing it.

Three more things:

1. Most distributions, including Slackware, are "turnkey" ones, i.e. software is shipped already compiled or "built", so you just have to type a program's name to run it. In a few other ones (Gentoo comes to mind) software is shipped as source files, that you first compile or build yourself (but they provide tools to help you doing that). The latter are called "source" distributions.
2. In Slackware's case, in addition to already built packages, all their source files are provided in a specific directory of te ftp site (and mirrors) whose name is /source. This allows you to re-build a package (that contains one or several programs), as in its subdirectory you will find not only source code but also the tools (or SlackBuilds) needed to re-build the package with, say, a newer version of the source files or different settings.
3. But the /source directory is pretty heavy, so if you don't intend to compile any program and lack space on a distribution media or hard disk to host it, you can just not include or download it.

There's several types of source code that are out there. This isn't all of them.

Vanilla - Original unmodified and unpatched source code released by the developer.

Distribution Specific - Patched and/or modified sources specifically used by a distribution of GNU/Linux. Usually is released as a Vanilla package with various patch files (.patch, .diff, etc).

Branched/Forked - Source code that was taken by a different developer and branched into a separate project usually containing various patches and reworking of the code to work on different platforms, operating systems, and environments.

Let's say you want an apple cake. The source code is basically flour, sugar, milk, eggs, apples and whatever you put in the cake. The *.SlackBuild file in every source directory is the receipt. And the resulting binary *.txz package, well, it's your cake. Some folks (like me) use the source code because they like to modify the receipt (add cinnamon, use less sugar). But this also means you have to get your hands dirty.

Cheers,

Niki

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In addition to what the others have said, each distro does have some of its own source code. In addition to bundling the source for applications it includes, distro specific source code controls things like making the installable packages and creating the distro's installer.

For example, if you look at the Slackware source directory for a program like gzip, you would find the source package 'gzip-1.5.tar.xz' (needed by any distro that wants to include this version of gzip). Alongside this file you will also find 'gzip.SlackBuild'. The .SlackBuild file is distro specific source code (only Slackware and Slackware derivative distress will have it). This file controls the build and packaging process of gzip, such that you end up with an installable Slackware package, e.g. 'gzip-1.5-x86_64-1.txz'.

No matter what type of source code we are talking about, it is provided so that you as a user can make changes. These changes could be big, like fixing bugs or adding new features (often requiring programming knowledge) or relatively small. A small change might be tweaking the SlackBuild to package a newer version of an application so that you can upgrade this application even if the distro maintainer does not yet provide a newer package him/herself. This is usually a small change, as typically you can do this by changing a single variable and saving a newer version of the application's own source package alongside the SlackBuild script.

I think you meant "recipe".

Additionally, I would also argue that all source code (*.SlackBuild files included) are recipes, rather than ingredients. I don't think you can call source code ingredients because most people do not modify raw ingredients prior to starting the cooking process†. This happens with source code.

The ingredients that the recipe (source code) uses to produce an application are a little harder to define (at least for me, right now). Perhaps the ingredients are libraries that you link to, or maybe the analogy just falls down.

P.S. Other applications involved in the build process (e.g. patch, make, gcc etc.) are tools like knives, mixing bowls, ovens etc.

†You do not redesign a raw egg (genetic modification notwithstanding) prior to using it in the baking process but you may alter or rewrite source code prior to building it.

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If you go into this kind of comparisons, I think the best choice is music...
- source code is the "music score"
- the compiler is the musician's "solfège" knowledge, transcription ability
- the execution is the musician's instrument playing, is it while reading the score (interpreter) or in his memory (brain cache ) as compiled/byte code.
- the application, processing is the music/sound emit by the musician and his instrument(s).

Well it's always a shortcut so it's hard to do an exact comparison.

BTW, you also misspelled "are receipes" .

Cheers.

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I think you meant "recipe". Some languages use the same word for what in English becomes both receipt and recipe. German and Spanish are examples.

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Yep, I like this better!

Always a problem for me when I try and correct spelling. I am bound to make a mistake myself as I am a terrible speller!

Interesting, thanks for the insight!

Hi,

I will add from Gnu perspective;I suggest you also look at these links from Slackware®-Links;Hope this helps.

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