Constructive Criticism of Slackware

H_TeXMeX_H · 08-01-2012, 08:25 AM

I have reported this thread, and I firmly believe that the OP is a troll and must be punished for trolling in the main forums.

hitest · 08-01-2012, 08:52 AM

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Originally Posted by Mercury305

1- Get rid of outdated docs and software and all unnecessary stuff.

Outdated software? KDE 4.8.4 and XFCE 4.10 are prime examples of Slackware offering new and up to date software.

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2- Be more open to innovation

I know that you do not agree with Pat's decision to leave out dependency resolution. You will need to learn how to live with that if you wish to use and enjoy Slackware. This forum regularly reports issues/problems with Slackware. Changes to Slackware are often a result of user suggestions, observations as noted in the Changelog.

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3- More support (maybe widen the inner circle with new recruits) No man is a mountain.

The present development model is working well so I see no reason to change things.

dugan · 08-01-2012, 09:26 AM

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Originally Posted by Mercury305

PS... that DoS attack done on me was pretty lame... Especially that I have multiple routers to connect too.

Get a Life!

Sorry to hear that you suffered a DoS attack.

It looks to me as if the only way someone here could have gotten your IP is by emailing you and getting a reply back. Your IP might be in have been in the headers. That should narrow down the list of suspects.

Mercury305, there's more to "constructive criticism" than writing few bullet points. Recommending specific ways to implement your recommendations would help, for example. (For a further example, which "outdated software" would you recommend removing?) For bullet point 3 ("widen the inner circle"), you might want to look at the slides for Why Django sucks and how we can fix it. It makes the same recommendation for another open source project, identities someone who he deserves to be in that project's inner circle, describes why that person should be in the inner circle, and identifies the issues with the project's organization that have kept that person out. That is, I think, a better way to present the "widen the inner circle" recommendation.

Mercury305 · 08-01-2012, 09:41 AM

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Originally Posted by Alien Bob

Apparently you were talking about the SlackBook here. Put your money where your mouth is, run "git clone git://slackbook.org/slackbook", enhance the text where you think it needs fixing, and send a git pull request to the book's primary maintainer. This is a community effort. You are part of the community, it is give as well as take.

If you compare Slackware as it is today (the almost ready Slackware 14) with the version that you ran in 1998, you will see masses of innovation in the distro. You can install and start using Slackware almost without editing any configuration file these days. Compare that to 14 years ago! This is of course not all Slackware's doing - it is the software which makes up the distribution which has evolved and allows you, the user, to do things in Slackware you could not do so easily 14 years ago. All these innovations found their way into Slackware. This is an evolutionary process, all the other distros have gone through this as well. Still, Slackware managed to remain true to its own philosophy. It has not been forced to look like all the other distros by adopting dependency resolution, GUI configurators and other stuff that makes your Granny happy.
Slackware is about control and the freedom to choose. Those are natural boundaries for what we allow to become part of the distro and what not.

In fact, you are confusing "innovation" with violating the core philosophy of Slackware Linux. The "innovation" you seek goes against that philosophy. The ideas you want to see implemented belong in other distros. The conclusion is evident. You may have to find another distro that matches your needs better.

Again, this goes against the distro's philosophy. The core team will stay small, the development model will remain closed. No public bugtracker, no commit rights, no public repository other than the finished packages. This is the only way to ensure that Slackware stays true to its roots and ideas.
But the support model will also remain: there is this forum, the Freenode Slackware channel, as well as personal blogs by several of the core team members. The line to the developers are shorter than in any other distro. We actually do listen to people. With Slackware, you do not have to go through twenty stages of apprentice-ship before we take you seriously.

Constructive criticism is alright with me. But you seem to be desiring some changes in Slackware which are never going to happen. This is something you have to accept if you are going to stick with this distro.

By the way, I was very disappointed to read that someone ran a DoS against you. I almost cannot believe it was someone in this forum, I certainly hope it was coincidence and there was something else at play. But differences of opinion should be "fought" with words, not with destructive tools.

Eric

Thanks I will check out the new Slackbook. Honestly I don't have bad intentions for slackware just speaking what was on my mind. The not having a dependency resolver has always puzzled me and still does to this day since it can be added as optional tool and those who don't want to use it don't have to. Also not everything I was asking for is GUI based also I prefer the KDE as a Netbook and Desktop to be honest. Again even without auto dependency I prefer to use it as a workstation because i am unable to find a distro that matches its speed. So I am still happy with what it is just criticizing certain things. I still have used 13.37 on my other netbook I have not updated yet. Just waiting for the stable release of 14. Thanks for the reply and sharing your thoughts in a civilized manner. Also thanks for your contributions to Slackware.

kabamaru · 08-01-2012, 09:49 AM

Hello Mercury305,

the problem is that you see a problem where most of us see no problem

Some of the docs are outdated, but don't forget you are free to update and enhance them, or even write new ones. Maybe there is not enough demand, as it seems most Slackers use other sources for troubleshooting. Personally, when I have an issue I 'google' it. 99% of the time, the answer is in the 5 first results. And most of the time the answer is given by this forum. Arch's wiki is a great resource too. Slacker's tend to find the way, without making fuss.

It was actually pretty funny, when a few months ago everyone was like:
- "Oh no, www.slackware.com is down. Slackware is dying! I'm gonna die like a dog!"
And Slackers were like:
- "So? The mirrors are working. Happened before. What's the big deal?"

Lastly, most people here use Slackware not despite of its characteristics but because of them. Manual dependency handling is one of Slackware's core features, not deficiencies. That may sound strange to a lot of folks, but fortunately they have plenty of alternatives to pick from. Also, would it be more innovative if Slackware just adopted the X new software because it's the new cool thing? Slackware instead chooses the innovations that serve it's purpose, i.e. to provide a modern but simple (design-wise) and dependable operating system.

kikinovak · 08-01-2012, 10:11 AM

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Originally Posted by Mercury305

I spent too much energy trying to get my opinions out its best I just continue my work and use my energy somewhere more productive. I will meanwhile continue you to use the 3 distros I chose myself all for different reasons, which includes windows for multimedia and popular software. Thanks guys.

Why not put a little effort into reading some documentation about Linux in general?

http://tinyurl.com/no254g

ponce · 08-01-2012, 10:20 AM

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Originally Posted by nixblog

Well as an example, I was trying to set up a WPA2 connection and was having a bit of trouble so I went (as one would) to the wireless section of Slackbook. That was not very helpful when you compare it to the likes of the same sections in the FreeBSD Documentation or the same section under the ArchWiki.

I know it was just an example, but on the homepage of the slackbook, there's a link to the beta version of it: that section (updated) should be enough to get a WPA2 connection up and running, I think.

Slax-Dude · 08-01-2012, 10:57 AM

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Originally Posted by Mercury305

My biggest problem is the dependency resolution thing. Its just unlogical. You can't just say it messes things up and not use it. At least give an option to use it.

As said before by other users, we don't use slackware despite the lack of dependency resolution... we use it BECAUSE of the lack of dependency resolution.

Nevertheless, there are slackers that don't agree with this... but instead of trying to change slackware core they changed their systems to get a "slackware with deps" operating system.
If you would like such a system, contact Stefano Stabelini and help him with the slackware 13.37 version (or even slackware 14 when it is released) of it.

BTW: I would like to see slackware distributed as a bare minimum system, that one could then expand to something with a specific role (like an email server, or a web server, or a file server, or a desktop, etc...) and thus have a lean system with no "unneeded" software.
I understand, though, that would be troublesome to slackware maintainers, so I made my own (see my signature).

NOTE: I learned A LOT about dependencies just by making this system.