Hello, guys. My first post here for a long-long time. Unfortunately lost my old acc.

Short version.
Why do you use Slackware and not any mainstream distro like debian, ubuntu, opensuse? Please, don't post something like "I've used it for 10 years now so that' why". Personally, I don't thing this is a real benefit and a reason to use Slackware. I'd like to see real benefits for real users.

Long version.
I've used Slackware-current for about a year and a half. I dive into it, I've started to use it on all my devices (2 servers, 1 desktop, 2 laptops).
I have no experience with releases, because my hardware is pretty new and I usually do upgrades once per 2-3 years. During this year and a half I got 4 breakages of system (3 minor, that i fixed my self, 1 major after some upgrade when I couldn't even load elilo). I've found that default init system is just awful. Some init scripts that comes from SBo seems like was written by people who started to learn bash a couple of days ago. Multilib and most of really necessary stuff are not in official repo and I had to compile it myself most of the time.

TBH most of day-to-day soft that comes with default installation is crap. Mplayer that hangs every time I open file more than 20 Gb and that can't properly render custom fonts in subs. XPDF that can search only in english and has no button to rotate/move through pages. No office. No office, Carl. In 2020. No office suit.

Do you know that Slackware can't proper umount partitions with luks+lvm? Yeah, it cant. I have to do it manually every time not to lose my data.

Network manager, that comes by default has no advanced settings that allows to set auto vpn connection after certain interface.

I don't want to slam Slackware. Its just my own experience. The only benefit i found so far is a bit (really, a bit) more control over dependencies. The other thing for me... just awful.

I'm not trying to hurt anybody or something of that kind. I just really want to understand, why people use Slackware.

I hope you find the answers to your questions in the following links.
https://docs.slackware.com/slackwarehilosophy
&
A shorter version:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slackw...ign_philosophy

Simply put, Slackware users like it because of the values described in the links above.

If you're looking for more automation and comfort, there are plenty of other Linux distros that focus on these two.
Microsoft Windows could be also an alternative, it's very automated and always knows better than its user/admin.

2 members found this post helpful.

I installed Slackware in 2015 but wasn't using it daily. I was triple booting Windows 98 SE, WinXP SP3 and Slackware 14.1. I have never done a full install and never needed it. It was 2017 when I started to use it daily, learning how to build packages with src2pkg (great tool btw). When I had to take leave from my railroad job due to medical issues is when I got really interested. Now Slackware and Windows will be on all my systems from this point. Its still a lot Linux doesn't offer that requires me to use Windows, whether it be Slackware or some other distro. I can get 90% of my tasks done on Slackware though.

2 members found this post helpful.

Each to his/her own. I prefer the init system that ships with Slackware; it works well for me compared to the init_system_that_shall_not_be_named.
I like and use a variety of operating systems: Slackware, OpenBSD, and Windows. Slackware for me works out of the box on all of my systems. I appreciate that Slackware ships vanilla packages and includes the software I use every day. I appreciate that Slackware is stable, robust, and secure. I like that system configuration is accomplished by editing human readable text files(Vi!). I like the package management system; it's simple to use and understand.
I really appreciate the good people at SBo for maintaining the scripts for a wide variety of applications.

3 members found this post helpful.

Multilib, LibreOffice, VLC, Veracrypt, Wine, KDE5 and various other "ready to install and use" packages are availabe from AlienBob,
http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/

Calligra, a small office suite, is a KDE application. KDE4, presently, is included in the standard Slackware installation.

NetworkManager-openvpn was added to Slackware-current on 5 May 2020. Previously it was available via SlackBuilds.org.
It will allow you to set up an automatic connection to a VPN.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi,

I would suggest that you contact LQ admin for account issues.

I use Slackware because of it's UNIX like philosophy and have been in use since PV's first release.

Slackware does provide benefits to users that wish to control their systems. One must commit to how they wish to expand or control their system. Not a hold your hand distribution. If you need additional packages then I would suggest that you look at https://slackbuilds.org/ or AlienBob's packages

It is not advised to use Slackware -current' on production equipment. As stated before you can get more from AlienBob's packages as related to multilib so why would you attempt to work on multilib.

As to 'init' issues, did you even present the problem(s) to the maintainer or Slackware community? The LQ Slackware forum does have Requests for -current (14.2-->15.0)

Office packages are not provided for Slackware distribution because of package size and available from other sources like SBO or AlienBob's packages
That is PV's choice/reason not to provide a 'Office' package.

Again, left to admin!
Again, not a hold your hand distribution. Advanced setting and control are left to the admin. Slackware is not going to be a turn key as you want!

So what other things? No solid evidence but a flat out slam without information. If you do not like Slackware then maybe a *buntu would be better suited to your needs since you obviously do need someone to hold your hand.

Stability! Choice to setup my hardware as I wish and not by someone behind the curtain! Not meaning to slam you but it does seem you have issues and just providing slanted opinions without information
Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy something else!

6 members found this post helpful.

I use it because the deb and rpm distributions are too byzantine. Having cut my teeth on BSD I can't for the life of me understand why Debian, SUSE, Red Hat and all their zillions of half-baked offshoots pile one layer of abstraction on top of another just to get a boot manager, or a display manager. I used Debian once and was in total shock when I saw that apt install gdm required hundreds of extra packages, not to mention the hundreds it recommended and suggested.

Slackware is simple. It's comprehensible and doesn't hide what's going on.

You say you've been using Slackware for over a year and have had nothing but problems? My advice is to go back to Ubuntu. I would never use an operating system for even a week that gave me nothing but trouble, never mind a year.

2 members found this post helpful.

Don't feed the trolls.

15 members found this post helpful.

Perhaps I've been lucky, but I've never bothered to manually unmount the last partition for years on my LUKS+LVM laptops and haven't managed to lose any data.

Probably due to......in /etc/rc.d/rc.0

Try Okular instead.

You're obviously trying to make Slackware into a distro that it's not intended to be.
Just from my own perspective I use Slackware because it forces me to learn about how an operating system interacts with the hardware it's installed on. Slackware simply isn't the best choice for a lot of people and I'd never recommend it to anyone who doesn't care to devote the time and effort to configure and maintain their chosen OS on a deeper level. For those who just want to turn on their computers and everything is all set up to go for them, there are other, very viable distros that are by design much more 'consumer-friendly' and serve that purpose. They have busy lives, other interests, and things to do.
But that said, a properly set up Slackware install will be very stable and reliable with a minimal amount of the melodrama a lot of other distros add to the mix. Change your expectations or change distros.

1 members found this post helpful.

Let's feed up some trolls

Because it's rad.

Zero here.

Just works here (although I'm not against the integration of a cool service manager, but whatever).

Maybe so, patch them if they're so bad.

Use VLC.

Use Okular/Zathura.

Use LibreOffice.

No problems here.

Yep VPN was annoying when I played around with it.

Because it's rad, Carl.

7 members found this post helpful.

Slackware is simple under the hood, and fast.

But times have changed. Frameworks change faster, programs change faster, and there are more of them. So when talking about a productive desktop in an environment where you deal with other people/organizations/schools it's not viable to use. If you have to perform task X together or for other people, and in ubuntu you can download the software for it with one apt command, while in slackware you might, in specific cases, spend a few hours figuring out how to get it to work. In all honesty it is not a practical solution, and it will hinder you. The fact that the last stable release is from 2016 does not help.

For a server Slackware is very capable, in those cases where you know what you want to run, and how to make it work. Very fast and simple to maintain, and no funny stuff. If you have to change software a lot, or you need support/compatibility, then CentOS or debian/ubuntu is probably a more practical solution.

So basically in those cases where you can get away with running your own tool-set, you can use Slackware. You will learn a lot, and under the hood you find simplicity, without the complex linked config files you will find in a lot of other bigger distro's. Without the Windows OS alike approach from Ubuntu. You can do things your way, because there is no forced way. And you get a very fast system where you know what runs and how it runs.

I use Slackware stable on my laptop. It's my personal laptop, and I run what I want on that one, which is Slackware. But for my current study I can't use it, because of what I wrote in the first paragraph. I need to be compatible with the rest of the crew, and can't afford to say "can't do atm" because of stubbornness. So for that I use my game PC, which runs windows.

1 members found this post helpful.

My take on this thread is OP lost his account for just this kind of thread, that smiles to your face while stabbing you in the back all the while assuring us "Just kidding" or in this case, "Just curious". Seriously what can possibly be the point of such a post? He may have had Slack installed for a year but I seriously doubt he spent more than a few hours in it. It's possible he is actually puzzled why anyone likes it since it is so alien seeming and unfriendly to him, but that would be simply because he never bothered to try it on it's own terms and ever benefit from Slackware's low maintenance solid stability. However the comment about the init system makes me doubt that. It will be almost another 20 years before systemd or any parallel init is as tested and proven as Slackware's serial init. Unless he ever re-posts with some serious specifics, I won't feed the troll.

6 members found this post helpful.

I'm a real user and I develop software.

I don't develop MS Windows software nor do I develop front-end software (such as an app on an Android or Apple device). I work on Spring Boot microservices on a back-end system.

I'm certainly able to access GitHub, install java, install docker, and run openvpn as needed.

But I actually deal with this stuff at the low level.

Maybe you're a different type of "real user" than I am. There's nothing wrong with that; I'm not aware of a sorting algorithm of user realness. If you don't find that Slackware remotely fits your needs, then use something else. There's plenty of choice out there. Slackware works just fine for all of my use cases; the fact that it doesn't work for your use cases just means you should use something else.

I've worked with Centos and Ubuntu as part of my day jobs (plural due to sequential employment, not parallel employment). (OSX as well, but that's not especially significant here.) They are OK. I am uninterested in using them when I am not at work because I do not find it pleasurable to work with those distributions.

De gustibus non est disputandum.

2 members found this post helpful.