Well, sorry, but no it didn't (fork), no it doesn't (differ) and no it (grub2) isn't.

Salix does not use grub2, exactly like slackware does not use grub2. Salix uses LILO, just like slackware uses LILO. And exactly the same kernel too. This particular user wanted to use grub2 though.

That said, I agree, this is not the place to talk about this problem.

Well, a couple of differences are that Mr. Volkerding doesn't develop Salix nor does he support it.

Anyone said he did?

Even the Salix website says that they are based on Slackware. How is that not a fork?
If I'm not mistaken, they do provide an official grub2 binary package. At this time, we do not.
Interesting that they use the exact same kernel. I'm surprised they do. Sorry for the false assumption... I'm not a Salix expert.

Agreed there.

You did, by claiming the two distros were not different.

That's the difference. It is based on Slackware, it's not a fork of Slackware.

Salix in no way did anything like this. Salix development is 100% based on Slackware development and is definitely not independent. It just adds a package repository with more packages on top of the Slackware package repository (not replacing it, the Slackware repositories are used directly). If you change something in Slackware, it will immediately affect Salix users exactly as it will affect Slackware users.

No, Salix 14.0 at this time does not include a grub2 package in the repositories. And there has never even been a choice during installation about it. It's either LILO or nothing, just like with Slackware.

Nothing surprising about that really. Everything is exactly the same in Slackware and in Salix (well, almost: http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.ph...from_Slackware, but still those can be overriden and a user can choose the Slackware ones any time)


They are not the same thing, but at the same time they are not different in any way that matters. Every technical aspect is the same, Salix just adds some stuff on top of it (like dependency resolution), but in no way the "Slackware way" is blocked or replaced by force. Same kernel, same glibc, same package management tools, same package, same eveerything... As I wrote above, if Pat decides to break/fix something in Slackware, it will also immediately break/be fixed in Salix. That doesn't make him responsible for it though.

Salix 13.37 had grub2 in its "A" series, so Pat was correct in his statement that Salix offered an official grub2 package. No idea why it was again dropped for Salix 14.0.

Eric

Yes, I can see how that could be misunderstood. Consider everything in salix/a as being in extra/a. Everything in the salix repositories are actually extra packages. Being in the "A" series doesn't make it any different than being in any other series, by no way it means something like "it should always be installed and be part of any installation". As I wrote before, grub2 was never included in any salix installation as standard. Users could install grub2 (like any other package) from the repositories after installation, but that's not much more different than a slackware user installing grub2 after installation using SBo, or some prebuilt package from another source.

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I've been using Salix for some time, out of curiosity, as well as a mix of Slackware and Salix. So I can confirm Salix is truly based on Slackware (it uses the Slackware online repos), with a few addons (slapt-get, spkg), a few minor tweaks to base packages (ntp, sysvinit-scripts) and lots of software in their repos. They're a friendly bunch, and they're doing some nice work.

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Vanilla Slackware is my OS of choice but IMHO the Slackware ecosystem is richer for having Salix around. It is certainly far superior to Vector, Zenwalk and others that are based on Slackware, as they try harder not to deviate so it is possible to use make use of their work without having to fully commit to everything. Though I no longer have an actual Salix install (I used it on an eeePC for a while), like you I use some packages from the Salix repository. It is a great source of binary packages (gapan himself is the maintainer of a very large number of their packages). Occasionally I also read and comment on their forums and agree they nice, friendly and helpful people. As such I frequently recommend SalixOS to others.

Sorry, I know I am going off topic now but I felt I needed to say that.

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