Dedicated Slackware users persuade me
 

The last time I upgraded was when Slackware 10.2 came out and I've maintained it this entire time on my system - and its been great (feels the same now as the day I installed; unlike some other OSs). I'm a huge fan of Slackware and I've stuck with it for a while for my main systems.

Well it seems I'm going to be upgrading in a few days, and I'm considering switching to Gentoo - the only other distro I would consider using. Portage's robustness is attractive.

I think I've gotten my Slackware systems' very well secured and I want to, above most other priorities, be able to do the same without problems in the future.

I hope some of you elder Slackware fiends, like myself, can help persuade me. Thanks.

Slackware-12.1 is great, i also recommend Crux-2.4 (unless Crux-2.5 was released) which i think Crux's ports system is better than Gentoo's portage, but it is up to you and you alone to make the final decision, i do think you should give Crux a try before deciding on switching from Slackware to Gentoo...

Another system to consider is FreeBSD, it has ports which is similar to portage in Gentoo. I'm marking my sixth year using Linux this month and Slackware is my preferred OS. In my home I run two Slackware 12.1 boxes, my wife has a Debian 4.0r1 box, and my teenager has a Macbook.
I've used quite a few operating systems over the last several years, but, I always come home to Slackware. It is an easy decision for me. Why mess with success?
Slackware all the way, man!

By all means try Gentoo out. We'll see you in about a week when you come back. ;)
Atleast that's what's always happened to me whenever I've felt the urge to scratch the distro-hopping itch.

I've been using Slackware since V2.1. 13 years give or take. 12.1 is as good a Slackware as I've ever seen.

Try Gentoo out. If you like it more than Slackware, then great. If you don't, then we'll all still be here when you come back and having had exposure to another distribution will make you appreciate Slackware all the more.

That is the kind of reasoning I've been using. I use FreeBSD and OpenBSD on all of my servers - but for desktops I really need the flexibility and features that Linux Kernel offers.

Maybe Crux's system is more streamlined than Gentoo's - but is it possibly more robust or flexible? Gentoo's been around for a while and has so many ports that I use.

I think that you want to run Gentoo:-) Linux is all about freedom and choice. Enjoy yourself! We will be here when you get back:-)
One of the things that I enjoyed about FreeBSD was being able to choose between installing programs using pkg_add and the ports tree. Very nice:-)
I've been mildly interested in Arch and have the net install iso burned, but, I can't get myself motivated. I'm a Slacker:-)

Yeah, this might be a psychological question. I hate to say Bye to the intimacy I've had with Slackware for so long, but I may have to try catalyzing my activities with emerge.

I ran Gentoo for a while several years ago, and I liked it. The portage system seemed to work quite well and it was a pretty usable distribution.

Having said that, for some reason I came back to Slackware and it just feels "right." I've tried various other distros (RH, Gentoo, Ubuntu, and Lycoris), but Slackware's always home and 12.1 is terrific. I just installed it on my new ThinkPad T61 and it's been great!

you can (once you have the slackware tree on your hard drive or some place) up grade slackware in less than an hour most of that time will be wating for packages to install (you can be off doing something else)
you will spend at least 15 hours installing gentoo (you will have to be at the computer the whole time)and you will be with out your computer the whole time
to top it off getting the source tree for gentoo will tack alot longer
the down side to gentoo is that the thing that stoped me from going with gentoo was the start up scripts
tracking down a problem and configuring things is an intense pain in the head when you have more one set
of start up scripts to maintain I started with red hat

I highly recommend that you try Slackware 12.1 on at least one of your machines before leaving Slackware. A lot has changed since 10.2. You may find out that you would rather stick with Slackware.

Have you made extensive use of SlackBuilds for building your packages? If you haven't you should look into slackBuilds.org. Also, Chess Griffin made a nice tool called sbopkg that can make working with Sbo.org's slackBuilds even more convenient. You may find that this is enough for you and that a full blown Portage is not necessary.

Also, there are many third party package managers for Slackware that may suit you better if pkgtools aren't enough for you (even the Portage port emerde). You say "Portage's robustness is attractive", but what exactly are you looking for that you don't see in Slackware? Do you want dependency resolution, for instance?

Stability..
Security..
Speed..
Simplicity..
Power..
Tons of packages..
Great Community..

What else do you want? :)

Thanks for your replies.

I can't argue with you guys - and yes, I will try to test slack 12.1 before I switch completely. Also, in terms of dependency resolution, typing, for instance, "emerge ardour" and having all of its crazy dependencies installed correctly is pretty sexy.

I (hopefully) won't be using anything KDE or Gnome, but I do use a spread of applications that will require adding some of my own slackbuilds - and I don't mind that.

My original plan for upgrading was getting Slackware 12.1 and just using slackbuilds to I can cleanly manage stuff in the future, but then I remembered my experience with Gentoo on another system. That is why the decision is still up in the air.

There's no need for persuasion, if you want to try Gentoo, go right ahead, I recommend you do so you know all your options. My recommendation is that you should not go for bleeding-edge, it's you who will be doing the bleeding, try to use older more stable software no matter what distro you use.

I can thoroughly recommend Slackware 12.1, but don't let that put you off. :)

Just downloaded this. It is nice and easy, and should only get better as it develops.

Thanks for the link shadowsnipes.

samac

Having cut my teeth on ATT System 3 (and being overjoyed when SVR4 finally included sockets), I find the Slackware init, shells, and directory structure more palatable than the Berkeleyish flavors of Linux. This is, of course, a personal preference and can't really find fault with Gentoo or any other distro. Slackware suits me well, better than others I've tried -- but I have tried them, so I'm in agreement with some of the others above... try other distros and I'm sure you will find at least one to which you will keep returning. For me, that is Slackware.

Please let me know if you run into any issues, if any packages don't build correctly, or if anything in the the list of updates are messed up. It's working pretty well, but bug reports are welcomed as I am actively improving it. :-)

I have run various versions of Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, DSL, Knoppix and *NIX-based OSes such as BeOS and QNX. What I have found with Slackware is that it keeps your mind and your skills fresh. I am always learning with Slackware. In an age when most distros provide you only with environments, such as KDE or }gasp{ GNOME, Slackware offers Window Managers (does anyone remember those?) and a selection of them, too. The reason that I mention this is that Slackware is a Linux OS that gives you the chance of actually trying things for yourself. You can use an environment and stay within your comfort zone, or you can try using a wndow manager, like Fluxbox or FVWM and go through the experience of customizing your graphical experience through text editors. If it sounds scary, that's good. How else do we grow, but through new experiences? If you can alter the TWM menu to your liking, maybe you can expand your experiences through programming with PERL or kernel hacking. Using Slackware as opposed to using some of the other distros is like living in your own home on your own land versus living in a condominium. If you want a Linux distro that is always easy to use, go with Ubuntu. If you want a Linux distro that offers the easy use of environments, but also the alternative to experiment and learn, then go with Slackware.

gentoo is a great distro,
i learned a lot from gentoo 2007.1,
nice howtos, lot of information, portage - great !!
but not a good community

i installed gentoo on to a laptop,
i suggest everyone to try gentoo too, pretty good like slackware!!
everything works in gentoo too
but this time they struggled a lot to release gentoo 2008.0

still slack is my first choice ;)

regards

I installed FreeBSD 7.0 on a free partition on one of my Slackware 12.1 boxes today. Slackware is my favourite OS, but, FreeBSD is fun too:-)

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...t/freebsd7.jpg

Going from Slackware to Gentoo seems a bit odd to me, as they have very different philosophies. Slackware aims to be very stable and well tested. It has maybe 1-2 releases each year, and has a very restrictive policy concerning versions of packages it offers. Gentoo on the other hand will never be stable, because its a rolling release distribution. This will also make you run the risk of system breakdown, since major changes might be only a «port-upgrade» away. Gentoo offers rather the newest of the newest than proven stable packages. You can also ask yourself what benefits do you have of compiling and tweaking every single package, while in Slackware you can tweak and compile those you want to, using the buildscripts provided by Pat.

Some people are concerned what will happen to the Slackware project, if anything happens to Pat. Gentoo on the other hand is criticized of the arguing/infighting developers between, and lack of directions after Gentoo's founder resigned from the project.

Some of the positive points with Gentoo are the excellent online documentation (I often use them myself to solve puzzles on my favorite distribution), large repository and a better (at least more feature-rich) package manager.

Like the other guys says: the most important thing is to make up your own opinion, find what suits you best. We have all our different needs, unequal priorities and different tastes. I guess Slackwares small repository and none-dependency-solving package manager are making you look elsewhere for a better alternative?

Many edits:
I agree 100% with whitshade
But also try gentoo, crux is great too. If you get bored with portage give Paludis a try, so much faster than portage. And if you're really feeling adventurous, exherbo may provide some fun. Whatever you do, have fun, all distros are basically the same anyway :P

Interesting that this thread was started on the same day:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-703581.html

I don't believe in persuasion or convincing, I say, use what you want to use and what suits you best. So, go with Gentoo if you want or go with Slackware, it doesn't personally affect me one bit.. ;)

I like them all. I use them all, ok you caught me I use a couple of them.

Slackware has built-in "gentoo"
 

I've just "discovered" SlackBuild and, after looking at the source packets in the Slackware source, I've come to the conclusion that there is no need to go to Gentoo - one can use the slack sources to build one's "own" system.

The source packages are SlackBuild packages.

I, too, was thinking of trying out Gentoo or even LFS, but now I am more excited about the possibilities of SlackBuild and have already started building my own SlackBuild packages.

The advantages are obvious - one already has one's own Slackware system as a reference.

By the way - many, MANY, thanks to the people at SlackBuild - I think the project is great!

BTW, Synesthesia, I too have just upgraded from 10 (10.1) to 12.1 - hence I wasn't up to speed on how much SlackBuild had developed - and consequently I didn't understand that it is really the system upon which Slackware is based.

Agreed. Eric, Robby, et al do a fantastic job! :cool:

After years of distro-hopping, and settling on Debian for a while, I have fallen for Slackware. It's wonderful - it's as easy, or difficult, as you want it to be.

That being said, Gentoo is also very good (my third choice of distribution) but the only thing I have against it is it can take forever for something to build and install. Granted, what else would anyone expect from a source-based distribution?

It's true, though, "once you go Slack, you never go back."

I wouldn't agree with that as a general truism. I did honestly give Slackware a go at one point, but it was too much work for me to get a decent desktop set up and since I'm always looking for new software I found that Debian suits me best.

Dependency resolution can be a chore to maintain if you want to install a lot of third-party software or need somethings not found in the official Slackware distribution. On Debian more than 18,000 packages are just an apt-get away. On Slackware you need to compile from source on many occasions and even then some packages might require quirky configuration/compilation parameters to work. Some odd pieces of software simply refuse to compile no matter how you try.

Unfortunately, whatever Slackware users might say, dependencies are tedious, boring and require a considerable amount of time to resolve manually, especially for larger applications. I don't consider it "educational" beyond the first or second time I do it.

I liked Gentoo at one point too, but the "download from source and compile every single thing" methodology was beginning to eat way too much into time spent working. Also portage can and occasionally does give compilation errors.

All said and done, Slackware is great if you agree with Patrick's philosophies and preferences, because after all, it is Patrick's distribution. I don't happen to agree on some issues, so I stopped using it. So I went "Slack" but I did come back.

In favour of Slackware:

+ Strong sense of community and a helpful user-base
+ Users are usually knowledgeable
+ Configuration of the system is logical and well organized
+ More UNIX-like than any other Linux distribution (I use the term UNIX-like in a very general sense)
+ Very easy to install and use a Slackware box without an active internet connection (meaning it's a totally self-contained installation).

Well, I can safely tell you that after using Slackware, I have almost no desire to try out any other distributions anymore. I've bounced around a lot, and Slack has everything I want.

Then again, Linux is extremely personal. Each user finds something different that suits them. My advice is to try around a lot until one grabs you.

I entirely agree and I think that's the experience of almost every experienced Linux user where "Slackware" can be replaced with a distribution name.

But once in a while I love to experiment outside my comfort zone if I happen to have some free time. After all, that's why I tried Slackware, played with it and got familiar with it, but decided against it on a day-to-day machine.

Of course at my work machine, I might use Slackware because I won't need too many "toys" to play and I basically feel the need for a Linux box to allow me to write technical documentation and maintain our company website.

The longer I use Slackware, the more I appreciate how logical, and well-designed the OS is. I also really like FreeBSD, but, Slackware will always be my primary operating system.
We are lucky to have a very dedicated group of developers and users that care passionately about the evolution of Slackware.
And come on..........Slackware is freakin cool:-)