Nice article about Slackware on LXer
 

Here goes: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/93393/

Enjoy! ;)

Good link, nice reading, intelligent arguments :)

Thanks!

Yes very good link adriv.

I'm still "holding my breath" to see a "great review" (like they do weekly for ubuntu) over at Distrowatch since their infamous:

"DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 210, 11 July 2007
Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The all-new Slackware Linux 12.0 should have been the major story of the week, but it was the release of Elive 1.0 that stole some of Slackware's thunder"

Still no article to date ...

Thanks for the link.

A nice review, except for one thing: the writer took a "Slackware vs. Ubuntu" line, and it's fine as such but apparently (especially in the end) the arguments used started being pretty selective (good things of Slackware brought up, then compared to bad things of Ubuntu; bad things of Slackware kept hidden, while good things of Ubuntu minimalized). For example package creation; not a word about how Ubuntu handles code compilation or package building..in my experience it's not that difficult after all.

Most of that review was good, but I hoped the reviewer would have been a little more fair. Well, it's human after all..and still a lot better than many "reviews" out there, containing a few nice arguments about Slackware that are often forgotten when talking about "the elder".

I think that as Linux is seen more and more by the masses, the comparisons of things under the hood will be forgotten in favour of the more accessible things, like package managers and desktops. Slackware will always, by design, be unfavourably compared when we compare the more polished items. The Ubuntu desktop will always be shinier than the Slack desktop. The Ubuntu package management system will always beat the Slack one. And yet, Slack is still around simply because of the philosophy and methods.

Weirdly, comparing distros is now becoming an apples and pears comparison.

In your opinion. To say that either is better than the other would depend heavily upon one's priorities and requirements.

Personally, I believe things to be the opposite of what you said there. ;)

It is. I wonder who started comparing distributions in the first place, or rather, who started comparing distributions' properties that aren't comparable as such (like "LFS vs. SuSE" in general)..

At one time, all distros were mostly the same, small diffs in packages, package management and the look of it all. Over time the changes have grown much bigger and made the distros far more different.

I'm not sure about the

bit, I used Ubuntu for two years and my girlfriend still has it in her laptop and I do remember having new version of some of the (core) programs (for me: soundjuicer, rhythmbox, openoffice, gnomebaker...I'm a desktop user) before upgrading it every six months :confused:.

Package management is not for linux yet. Everything is changing too much to make package management worthy to use. Compiling from source is not recommended for package based distros so you always need to wait until your repo will be updated (or maybe not). This only increases frustration.

Package management for sure is a touchy topic. I would have worded the issue a little differently, but that's me.

For example, Ubuntu doesn't have 20 or 30,000 programs for you run. There is that many "packages" in the repo, but not that many "programs" for you to run and actually use. It's ambiguous and misleading, but many bloggers of the world say this, and it's a falisy in my mind.

What I mean is, in the Debian way of doing a default installation, your packages must be (a) just the binary and the bare-bone extra's that it needs run (b) all includes are put into a different packages (c) documentation is many times to be put into a different packages.

So for example in Slackware we have what, 8 packages or so to get KDE installed over a basic CLI system (plus all of X). For a Debian system you need almost a *hundred* packages for KDE, they're all split up. And when you do install your KDE in Debian, by default they dont even give you the include files, the documentation, etc. But that's how they want it. It's actually quite smart to do it this way for some pc's, but not always. It's not a one size fits all solution I think. Neither is Slackware's.

For example, in Debian you have "libkopete" is a package, "kopete" is a package, "libkopete-dev" is a package, and you still don't have your documentation for it yet at that point.

So if you want to do something, you now really have to hunt down all your includes and libs and lib-dev's in a debian system, and I think that is the point he was trying to get to. There is no quick way to go and get all the includes, and libs to build on a Debian system. There is no "apt-get install requires". Now Slackware has all the includes on your system when you install Slackware, so should you decide to do something all your stuff is already on your pc and waiting to go.

Now the Debian way says that's bad, your wasting space, they're not needed so only grab them when we need them, and they fall back on the strengths of the tools to call dpkg. Which is a must on a debian system, as it really can be an accounting nightmare when all the apps are split up so much. It's a good/bad thing really. Because at times, for one pc you may want a light install, no includes, etc and the Debian style is better. But if you like to build your own app's and stay more bleeding edge, then Slackware's package manager really shows it strength.

I think for a newbie (which I still consider myself) that it's easy to compile / make binaries edit: In slackware by hand than in a debian system. I think the process actaully takes less time overall on a slackware system. Especially given communities like SBo. I'm finding it easier to stay more bleeding edge on my slackware boxes than on my debian box. I know I can venture into debian testing or unstable for bleeding edge binaries if need be, but it's not supported and frowned on for newcomer's. And as time goes on I can really bork a debian box if I play in the testing and try to run stable and I need a stable box but bleeding edge here there. And there is debian backports, but it's really for people who want latest clamav or wine an d that's about it.

For example, a program like openoffice. That is changing and adding so many features so quickly, but in the Debian way of doing things I wont get a later version of openoffice in stable for about another year and a half. And it will most likely be old by the time the next debian stable ships. That's a very important app to many.

So at the end yeah, I tend to agree with Alien Hominid, package management on the gnu's are a real pain, whatever the distro is.

But both distro's, have one thing in common that I think is gnu/lin's real strength is that we can script them to do whatever we want and have control. The packages really do come out when we say uninstall, and an a new package thrown in just works, and no reboots. So at the end of the day, they just "skin the cat differently". But like the author, I'm finding the "old fashioned archaic" pkgtools actually more flexible for my needs overall.

Well I'll stop rambling cu.

Well, not just gnu's. I have yet to meet an operating system where obtaining, installing and managing software is perfect; every OS has serious flaws for some people/uses. For example Windows; unlike everybody tends to say, it has several different "software distribution" methods (.exe installers, .msi installers which require the installer software be up to date, plain binaries to be copied, self-extracting/script-something this and that, ... so it's not just Unix where a general way of installing something is missing) and in the end the software packages usually just install loads of things (often things that already exist on the system) and leave half of them behind when they are asked to remove everything they installed (for some reason registry keys tend to stay after removal). Some may even remove files they overwrote during the installation, and in a bad case you'll get something removed that you'd need, and are forced to reinstall something else..

At the moment I feel like Slackware's way of managing software is the one that suits me best. At the moment. For me.

Of course Ubuntu has it's strong points. Let's be honest: if someone coming from Windows (who's not eager to learn) but wants to give Linux a try, Ubuntu/SuSE/Mandriva/etc. is a better deal than Slackware.

I think it's not the point of the article to put down Ubuntu. As I read it, it's just a way to strike back at those people who piss on Slack (as being 'old-fashioned' etc).

I ran Ubuntu for more than a year and the truth is, I never liked it that much. But that's personal. Problem is that if you want to drive people away from Windows, Slackware isn't going to do it. Not for the masses.

That doesn't mean that there is no potential for Slack, it's just a different segment of the 'market'.

And yes, compiling stuff in Ubuntu is harder than in Slack. And yes, it's a bit buggier and slower. And yes, I tried Gtk-Gnutella on Ubuntu and got the message that the version was too old, so it didn't run... :)
So yes, depending on the repositories certainly has its downsides.

And yes, I hope Ubuntu is going to be a big success.
They deserve it!
It's just not for me. ;)

True, tho the mind boggles at why try something new if you're not going to learn how to use it well, or from it.

I also wish the best to Ubuntu, and for those who didn't find what they where looking for in it, they will keep on searching.

In my opinion, Ubuntu is great as a stepping stone to real down to the CLI, DIY Linux for those who want to learn. After all, not everyone will jump straight into something like Slack.

For those who want computer as an appliance though, Linux is "not quite there yet"©

You got my drift
 

If people read the first introductory paragraph to my article/opinion piece, they would understand that my intent was not to discredit Ubuntu but to point out that the anti-Slackware articles seem to appear with the same regularity as the Ubuntu reviews--comparing how easy it is to use Ubuntu when compared to, say, Slackware.

I simply used Ubuntu as an example and for comparison and contrast, not to discredit it or say that it's a terrible distro.

Kudos for your understanding this!

Thank you! :cool:
And thanks for the article, I really like it.