Discussion: Why Slackware Will Always Matter
This thread is to discuss the article titled:
WHY SLACKWARE WILL ALWAYS MATTER Quote:
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For deity's sake I'll let go of commenting on the first and last paragraph as it IMNSHO doesn't do nothing but distract from the essence of your article and set a certain tone of voice.
derivative projects So which are the ones Slack contributes to the benefit of the greater GNU/Linux community? Before the Linus Torvald's bombshell expressing his disdain for the Gnome desktop environment, Slack had already jettisoned the desktop favorite. For different reasons perhaps, but it showed the Linux fold that some distros were not afraid to dump what no longer worked well enough, rather than cave into contemporary traditions and competitive habits. "no longer worked well enough": as in who's (objective) criteria in the Slack-verse? The fact that its the same person who began the distro in 1992-3 means that the cerebral archive of Slack wisdom is more unified and holistic than 'thousand developer' systems. Quantify that in an objective way, please? The simplicity of design and structure tends to provide speed to even antique machines, since the idea of cruft and bloat is a non-issue. Idem dito. What makes it such an important distro in the first decade of the 21st century are words like non-competitive, anti-trendy, slightly arrogant and extremely hackerish. With all due respect, these are your own interpretations, not facts. If they are, please quote authoritative sources (yes, in your case that would mean you probably can only quote only one man). Slack doesn't even offer a dependency handler in its own brand of package management. People who are supposed to handle loads of production boxen may call it distracting or even "inefficient", and BTW, since you already stated yourself you spent time in "dependency hell", do you really think you should market that as an advantage for using Slack? |
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Unlike many other commercial Linuxes, Slackware is always available for free download. The whole distribution. 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Other distros don't release a complete free (as in $) version. Some will only release a free version after their paid-for version has been on sale for several months. Quote:
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Have a look around. How many Linux distributions today ship with fewer than 1500 packages? Not many. Most of them (like Suse, Fedora, Mandrake, etc) require 10 to 12 gigs of hard disk space for a complete installation. The complete Slackware takes up less than 4 gigs. Quote:
He said this: Quote:
And I can agree with that. After 7 years of using Linux, I've always found that automatic dependancy resolution causes more problems than it solves. That Slackware doesn't have this "functionality" should be considered a blessing. |
What is that supposed to mean? Do you understand what is meant by the term "derivative project?"
I was hoping for something that could be marked as giving back to the community, something that would benefit anyone outside the Slack-verse. Prolly should have phrased that qualitatively "better". I got the impression by reading the changelogs that Pat dropped GNOME because it was becoming too large and ungainly for one man to package. Looks like a qualitatively "good" reason to me. Of course it could also be used as an argument to point out bottlenecks, but OK. I think he means that the Slackware of today is exactly the same as the Slackware of yesterday. The software may have been upgraded, but the underlying philosophy of the way it is assembled remains the same. I can't see how other distro's differ at that. You want quantification? OK. A COMPLETE installation of Slackware is 517 packages. That figure includes almost 100 packages worth of KDE "language bloat". If those are solid figures then that's an excellent argument. Quote:
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My company runs basically only Slackware. Our revenue last year was over $12 million. We will never let go of Slackware. It just WORKS and it stable and I wouldn't recommend another distro to anybody.
We have over 100 servers with slackware and on most of the older machinbes, the uptime is over 1200 days. We use it for firewalls, routers, web servers, dns servers, mail servers, dhcp servers, domain controllers, sql server and everything else you can think of. slackware > * |
My company (..)
That's a nice testimonial but claiming "it works" or stability as unique selling points for Slackware versus other distributions won't hold up and you know it. (Digressing a bit, and talking Linux in a commercial production environment, I would be the least impressed with uptime measured in years. Less downtime than covered in the SLA's: now that shows excellence IMHO. And that can't be claimed as distribution-specific either.) |
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Out of curiosity, how many other commercial Linuxes do this?
Hmm. I wouldn't want to narrow it down to labels like "commercial" unless you really value the underdog role. Only ones come to mind are vendors where in-house developers are allowed to work on kernel/FOSS projects in the bosses time, RH did provide the community with RPM and OBSD with OpenSSH. I'm pretty sure there's more examples, but if you where to counter this doesn't have any bearing on the article discussion I wouldn't disagree. I can see where you're coming from Having an eye for the procedural side of things ain't good you mean? you're forgetting that one of the main reasons Slackware exists is to put food on Pat's table. (...) That Slackware even competes on such a playing field is a testament to the bloke who assembles it, no? Nice way of putting it, absolutely, also a honest reason (for why it would matter to mr V) as well IMHO. |
Derivative projects? Count the number of live cds now trying Slax technology over Knoppix...not arguing relative merits of knoppix vs slax, there is a huge increase of late in slack based distros and modular pkg management to create your own live cds.....
As for Gnome, I think the key word in the chnanglogs is invasive...it tends to muck with kde menus, unless specially configured...which btw, i found Freerock an excellent example of.... As for the request for authoritive support and supporting the statements made in the original essay, it's listed under OPINION, not TECH or HISTORY or FAQ, and the general nature of distro reviews is primarily concerned with a users opinions and experience with the distros....i guess the response to the thread at least points up one thing....? Slack matters |
... GNOME invasive ...
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The invasive part is in relation to recommending other options for the GNOME desktop - Pat had several recommendations but could not recommend Dropline GNOME since Dropline had a habit of replacing Slackware standard packages for ones that have been recompiled for x686 only rather than compiling for i486 (with i686 optimizations). |
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I will quote it for you - right from his ChangeLog: Quote:
Since he seems to be improving his X11 builds with this next release, and is even progressing towards modernizing the builds by moving Freetype2 and Fontconfig out of X11 and into their own packages (one of the things we've done in Dropline for years now - Yay progress!), then there is certainly some hope that we will not have to include our own X11 builds, *provided* that there aren't any more known unpatched bugs in his X11 builds that prevent GNOME components from working correctly (this and the formerly included Freetype/Fontconfig are the big issues). Additionally, it's likely only a matter of time before PAM becomes a requirement for many pieces of software on Slackware (it already is, and he's temporarily able to get by with patching around it). In this case, we could likely stop building it on our own PAM (it's essentially a GNOME requirement these days, and other people on Slackware are busting their balls in an attempt to make stuff work without PAM and consolehelper), and we'd all be happy. That is, of course, unless it's simply done incorrectly. I think that Piter Punk has finally whipped Udev into shape for Pat, so we can probably stop including that one as well with Dropline 2.16.0 after Slackware 11.0 is released. Maybe someone will whip PAM into shape for Pat too, so he can finally start taking it seriously. Of course, it may just be "too complicated". Hard to tell what the reasoning is these days, seeing as there hasn't been a single legit security issue for several years now (see link below). http://secunia.com/product/1701/ |
Ok, gotta put my 2cents in for Slack.
I started out on Slack. It starts teaching you from the very start! As Slack folks will tell you... Slack has a steep learning curve; your gonna learn alot in a very short time. As it installs, Slack names and explains every package. This is a great way to get to know the system. It installs simple and intrinsically - tar.gz files. Tarballs will work on ANY system - therefore you should learn how to use them! Learn how to compile your programs with ./configure and make - it's a useful skill. Slack encourages you to dig down into the bin directories and etc - learn! If you bother to learn, you can do some very powerful things with Slack. The basic Slack install gives you all of the standard tools that any veteran Linux user would expect. What you learn in Slack you can take to ANY Linux distro and thrive - none of the learning is wasted. Heck, Slack is a better learning environment for computer science than some colleges IMHO. Anyway, enjoy Slack for what it is, Codifex Maximus |
No need to ask what slack gives back to the community since it was basically in a nutshell
"The Beginning" of the community distrobution wise... |
x686 vs. x486 "invasive replacements"
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PAM is one issue, but also the different philosophy between Dropline GNOME and Slackware is another issue. Dropline recompiles whatever it can for x686 only. Slackware is supposed to be compiled for x486 (with x686 optimizations). There was even a discussion on Dropline to create x686 compiled Slackware distribution because of that issue. So, no, it's not misinformation. You are probably thinking of complete information, whereas I only provided one item of information. |
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Debian? Universal?
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I read a magazine article that interviewed Slackware's creator. He created it when he was an MSU student. Moorhead State University is just across the river from Fargo. I thought that was neat. |
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He meet up with a friend from NDSU and they went out to a Fargo bar. It's there that his Fargo friend came up with the name Slackware.
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its dying
Sorry but slack hasn't mattered for years now. If slack is so good why does the author feel it needs defending by writing such a long winded rant? In this day and age of lots of new linux users fresh from windows xp not many will want a distro that still depends on the command line and is only now starting to use the 26 kernel. Compare the simplicity of ubuntu with slack for example, sadly I think slack is slowly dying.
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You're a funny guy. I'll stick with Slackware thanks. :D |
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Ubuntu is simple in that everything is done for you configuration wise. Slackware is simple in that you have to set it up yourself (often) and therefore it doesn't have the bloat of other distros.
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Ubuntu has scripts like automatix and easyubuntu these make ubuntu setup pretty much brainless and they also let the ubuntu devellopers off the hook legaly. I'm not sure other distros have scripts like these although you would think they would especially distros like slack and maybe gentoo.
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Slacking on!
Well done, a respectful and enjoyable read.
I have been meaning to email Patrick to thank and commend him personally for his work and dedication to the Slackware project. This article freshened in my mind some of the reasons I want to thank PV. While I very much relate to your article, I should add that I switched 'cold-turkey' to Slackware 11 in early January from Win-XP, and I am indeed LOVING the way Slack connects me and my 'puter, allowing me to see and feel and use every ounce of this box's capabilities the way I like, in contrast to having the Win-XP "enigmatic black box full of brick-walls" between me and my 'puter. Within a several week period, I installed, uninstalled, and reinstalled Knoppix, Ubuntu, Gentoo, OpenLX, Absolute-Slackware, and Slackware 11. Now all that remains is Slackware 11, and I'll be keeping it this way, though I'll surely try-out a few others down the road to see what they're about. Thanks again for the article! I'm rambling, so... Off I go ;) Sasha |
I'm glad you enjoyed it GrapefruiTgirl, and welcome to slack. I'm sure Patrick would appreciate the feedback of another satisfied customer. THere's a good reason that slackware is the OS on my production box, though by all means, experiment with other distros if you have the space or the emulators, heh.
Your post also proves that it aint as hard as people make it out to be, and that its possible to switch 'cold turkey' from Windows direct to Slack.....you might enjoy spending time on irc freenode ##slackware as well, lots of knowledgeable folks to help you out or just to talk with about life as a slacker.... cheers |
I've had the same experience as (it seems) quite a few Slackers...switched straight from XP to Slack, spent a TON of time on these forums and with Google, and have been enjoying my new-found relationship with my computer. I love telling my computer what to do, and having it do it, and being totally aware of why something goes right/wrong. I don't like feeling like EVERYTHING I do is controlled by some unseen magic. It's unfortunate that some people have such a negative perception of Slack, and to each his own, but it's very unfair to say that "it doesn't matter"...it obviously matters quite a bit to many people.
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my experiences with slackware has benefited me greatly. I can set up wireless almost anyware, compile from source, build kernels and troubleshoot alsa( sometimes). Slack on its own has no problems for ME, i have stopped using slack not because of the distro its self ,but because a lot of software writers and maintainers just forget to include documentation.
Very few will document their packages dependencies online and quite a few wont even in the source tarballs. Your screwed if anything you want to use requires gtk based libs or python, hours hunting undocumented dependencies for one package and eventually needing some program/file/libraray called sm, beat that one, doesn't google well at all. Best ive seen is a readme with "insert readme here" Anyway enough of the rant, slackware is a fine distro. Does what it says and leaves me wanting to live by K.I.S.S, shame i miss it so much when i try anything else |
I also found that to be a good article mephisto786, I'm a disgruntled winxp user as well - and still consider myself a Linux newbie.
Slack has been the first distro I've been able to get my head around and finally start learning something. Yeah it's some work. But it's not wasted work. I could ramble on about dependency hell with other distro's, re-installs, grub re-naming all my hardware when I don't yet know the naming conventions...........yada yada etc. It's obvious that folks here have some strong opinions about thier favorite distro's and why. I have simply been looking for a stable home desktop that works, and Slack is the closest I've come to getting that. Well done PV, and thanx. :) |
1. If I had to switch from Slackware _back_ to anything else, I would be in pain...
2. If someone wrote that slackware IS a good starting/beginner distro, I would be in this shoes (=2 yr slack-experience) two years earlier: Slackware IS a GOOD BEGINNER DISTRO!! 3. If I had Slack on my previous PC I wouldn't change it for year a longer: I would save money! 4. I look and see my Laptop outperform P4 on XP anytime (it's a P3-coppermine on slackware 11.0) and I like the feeling :-) 5. If there wasn't Slackware someone had to make it anyway; for it would be missing in the gap between BSD and other GNU/LINUX-es... 6. If there where a BETTER distro I would be running it, that's for sure ... 7. Slackware suites me best. BTW slax is beautyfull too :-) Now it that does not matter anymore maybe this does: 1. If more linux-newbyes would start on slack, there would be many more excellent linux distros and the existing ones would be in better quality too. 2. Are there more users switching from Slackware or vice-versa? Why? 3. What matters more: performance or control? if the answer equals to the latter then Slackware still *does* matter, if not, then why not use BSD or a OS from MS? A one that is more optimal or easy to install respectively? so: Slackware matters *a-lot* for me. |
I love slackware!
My mad question to Pat was:
"Dear Patrick! Help me!!=) I have a question. I 've been searching all the forums related to my problem but I hadn't find any proper solution. So.. when I exit from KDE I'm getting such messages - "couldn't open fontconfigs chosen font with Xft!!!". What does it mean? how to solve this issue??" God answered me: "Well, I'd guess it means what it says. :-) As far as what the problem is, I don't know. I haven't heard of that error before. Good luck, Pat." Of course, some time later I've solved this problem. What I want to say.. hmm.. Can't imagine I'm asking a question to Bill.. to Mandriva's team, to Solaris burning in Sun hell team... I know what he was probably answering - "look deeper". |
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Since you seem to want to promote Dropline Gnome, go ahead. But don't spread FUD about why Patrick dropped Gnome completely and also only slightly recommended Dropline because of the choices that Dropline made. And before you (again) slight my comment - I was there and ran Dropline for well over 6 months before going back to stock slackware. |
The Dropline team twisted your words. They labelled your points as "the jibber jabber of a troll" and painted you as a raving lunatic whose points can always be dismissed, no matter how well supported. Therefore, I can see why you would be infuriated enough to not let this go after 4 years. However, this point has largely been mooted. Zborgerd hasn't logged in since 2008. The latest version of Dropline GNOME is for Slackware 12.2, and none of the regulars in the Slackware forum either use Dropline GNOME or would recommend it to others.
For reference, this is a recent thread where the topic of Dropline came up. The universal consensus was: use GSB. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...13-1-a-875390/ Dropline GNOME is dead. Since they labelled everyone who disagreed with them as trolls and lemmings, I'm happy that it died. |
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32bit http://saxa.droplinegnome.org/i686/2...3-i686-1dl.txz http://saxa.droplinegnome.org/i686/2...86-1dl.txz.md5 64bit http://saxa.droplinegnome.org/x86_64...x86_64-1dl.txz http://saxa.droplinegnome.org/x86_64...64-1dl.txz.md5 Of course they are ALPHA, and for slackware 13.1 which for much of the people running the latest is not interesting. But for who is still on 13.1 and will stay there because its not a priority to upgrade the system just because he needs to run the latest it can be an option. Soon will be 2.32 for slackware 13.37 , and gnome 3 only when it will release 3.2. Since I and just few other people are working on a big project like this, I do not think that its easy to create a good product, therefore it requires a lot of time, which right now i prefer to spend with my family rather than creating the latest available packages for people like you who do not know how much effort is needed to create something like this, and just doesn't know how to say thanks for people who are making something you do not install on your machine. You are not the only person on this world , so other people should have the right and choice to install and judge by themselves. Rgds Saxa |
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I see that the release schedule didn't turn out as you'd expected. But you did get 2.32 for 13.1 out of alpha. |
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issues with few programs, nothing that would make your computer crash, also there have been many updates to various packages, and I would consider it as minimum as a RC stable. The thing is that we have always used RC to indicate when we had really all programs built and working well, just to fix up the minimum things. In a possition where I'm at the moment I would not been able to call it RC, because we still have not all the programs built (ex. LibreOffice) but yes, if you want to try it out, it is very usable and you can safely install it. That is my opinion. So go ahead and report what is not working for you and I will try to fix it up. Thanks for following our project. Saxa |
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