Why use Slackware?
Hi everyone,
I've been lurking/reading for a while now - recently just plucked up the courage to wipe my windows laptop and start using Slackware as my main OS... GULP. I love it but it was big step for me :-) So my question is this, I chose to use Slackware because backtrack, apparently, is very similar to it and I wanted to learn a distro that was similart to backtrack as I am a security consultant with very little linux experience, it's like an oxymoron isn't it :-P But I am getting exhausted with it because there are very little Slackware packages out there. I have managed to get my laptop going - with widescreen nvidia drivers n all.. go me :-) But.. for example, I just went to find Nessus for it and again, no Slackware version. Why does everyone persist with it if there isn't any packages? Is it just the stability of it? I'm not complaining because I do like it, I especially like the fact that it boots to CLI by default as I prefer running tools from that because a) they're quicker and b) well, it's just cooler. lol Could someone possible give me an explaination of how we get round this? Can I just use rpm2targz for everything? Thanks in advance for this and thanks also for all your other posts that have got my system up and running. Ian |
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I like slackware because it's the most "understandable" of the distros I've tried.
Most packages I need can be built using the slackbuild scripts from http://www.slackbuilds.org. When there isn't a slackbuild there I download the source and compile and install it myself, usually by creating a slackbuild script for the purpose. |
Why use Slackware? I've found that Slackware is stable, secure, and easy-to-understand. Nothing is hidden from the user with shiny GUIs. All system functions are controlled by logical easy to configure text files.
Slackware does the job for me. :) |
When you want ready-to-go-Slackware-packages, you can always go to Slacky-eu or LinuxPackages.net.
Nessus for example can be found at Slacky-eu: http://www.slacky.eu/index.php?searc...search&Itemid= Personally, I prefer SlackbuildScript from SlackBuilds.org, or when compiling from source (and there are no SlackBuild scripts available), src2pkg usually does a fine job. :) |
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Looks like I need to learn how to compile the programs and then life will be easier. For now I'll try out the sites adriv and mcnalu suggested to get me up and running - thanks for that, I appreciate it. Ian |
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Thanks, Ian |
look i tried slackware
it is fast , stable and u will find a very powerful team who will help u here |
Another tool you can use is alien. You don't want to install everything with it because you'll end up with "dependency hell" like you would if you were installing software in Ubuntu package by package as opposed to having apt-get or aptitude find it's dependencies for you. If you try and start a program and you're missing a library or something, go find a deb or rpm (rpm.pbone is a good place) that has the library you need. Download it, and run the following command as root.
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IT's true that Slackware doesn't have a lot of official packages. However, you can easily find, install and even make unofficial packages, or install directly from the source tarballs. Slackware's freedom from dependency tracking means no headaches over how packages work together. You install them, use them, and don't worry. Here are your options:
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Stolen from another thread (also by me and mostly relevant. I don't feel like typing it again):
Building from source is highly recommended in Slackware. Since there is no official repository containing tons of apps, and since Slackware does not have automatic dependency resolution from within the package manager, you will probably have to compile something from source at some point. Slackware includes all of the development tools you will need by default, and packages are not split in two packages like most other distros (for example, there is no -devel package for any application -- the development libraries and headers are included with the application itself in Slackware). I would encourage the use of SlackBuilds to build your applications. Slackbuilds.org is a great resource containing SlackBuilds for many applications. To learn how to use SlackBuilds to compile an application, see here. If an application is not available from slackbuilds.org, I would also suggest Alien Bob's and rworkman's repositories, which include both SlackBuilds AND prebuilt Slackware packages (.tgz files). If you still can't find a SlackBuild, I would suggest slacky.eu, which maintains a large repository of packages and SlackBuilds. I would trust this resource less than the others, but it's still a great resource and I've never had any problems with it. I would stay away from linuxpackages.net though -- although there are some reputable packagers there, finding them takes experience. Some of their packages are built on unclean systems with questionable dependencies, and many of the packages don't include a SlackBuild, so you're basically going on blind faith that the application was built properly. You could also try gnashley's src2pkg application, which I admittedly haven't tried but have heard nothing but praise about. It tries to automatically compile the application and build a package for you. You can also pass parameters to it if it doesn't build successfully (or if you want to customize the build). If you want to learn more about src2pkg, the wiki is a good place to start. |
I use Slackware because I want total control over my OS and don't want the OS telling me what to do. Using Slackware you WILL learn Linux, using most other distros, you will learn that distro.
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Oh no... Not again... please. There were tens or maybe even hundreds of such threads. IIRC, I even made link list for them somewhere.
EDIT: and btw sorting by post count does not work, neither reaching threads more than month old. |
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Yes, I like booting to the CLI too. About packages, check out these two articles from Linux.com: Slackware's "magic package maker" and Sbopkg provides seamless package repository integration for Slackware These are reviews I wrote about two utilities that make creating packages easier with Slackware. I prefer them because they work "the Slackware way" -- in that they facilitate building Slackware packages from source and then working with Slackware's native package tools to manage them. Regards, -Drew |
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