What ? Pat V. has been ill ? When ? I didn't hear about this. If it's recently, hope he gets better.

@ introuble

Do you by any chance happen to be the one who wrote that review, just curious.

Patrick Volkerding returns home
Slackware Current ChangeLog Notice
Sat Dec 18 23:22:21 PST 2004
http://lwn.net/Articles/116305/

I can't speak for anyone else's experience, but for me, the upgrade from Slackware 12.0 to 12.1 was the quickest and easiest I've ever done, and I go back to the days of upgrading MVS and VM on IBM mainframes.

Almost everything worked like it should, out of the box. I add about 50 packages on top of the Slack install. Of these, 3 would not compile: (1) mplayer complained about ivtv and the compile quit, the solution was to use ./configure --disable-ivtv (2) libexif-gtk (needed for gphoto/gtkam) needs a patch gtk2-fix.patch (3) jack-rack 1.4.6 would not compile, but 1.4.7 is available and will.

There is also an issue with k3b 1.0.4, previously you could write, then verify, and when the verify finished it would eject the cd, now it writes, ejects the cd, and it will not load again and the verify fails. You can check an option "Do not eject medium after write process" and the verify will now work, but it won't eject the cd when it's done. So you have to poke the eject button on the burner with your finger, big deal! In any case, it's supposed to be fixed in the next release of k3b.

One other thing I ran across: I use the bare minimum set of fonts, as I use dejavu for just about everything. Previously you HAD TO install font-bitstream-type1, font-cursor-misc, and font-misc-misc, to that you now have to add a new package, font-alias, or X won't come up. You will only run across this if you cut back severely on the fonts you install.

All in all, a job well done, much gratitude to Patrick and the crew.

Thanks for the link, that was a long time ago, at that time I was not even using Slackware.

Sounds like BS - Before Slackware. :) hehe

Were either or both of these from http://slackbuilds.org or was this with a standard configure/make/make install ?

This quote from his article implies, suggests that Pat is a dictator ruling Slackware with an iron fist. This blatant exaggeration is ridiculous. True, Pat does have the final veto over software which is included in each stable release. But, there is a core group of Slackware developers who work tirelessly to help Pat produce Slackware. Also, Pat receives bug fix notices from a multitude of Slackers from around the World.
You would know this if you were are part of our community.

Yep, got me.

No, I'm just kidding; sorry, your attempt at starting drama has failed.

Actually I had read it as a kind of "tongue-in-cheek Slackware fan" kind of thing to say. "One thing that Slackware has OVER Debian"; so he considers the statements that follow GOOD things, ADVANTAGES of Slackware.

Say you're a GNOME user; I'd say you're pretty much out of luck when it comes to Slackware [and don't tell me "ah there are 3rd party distributions of GNOME; etc. sure, they exist, but some screw with your system, some don't allow you to run slackware -current; etc. The Point is it's not part of the official system -- I hope this doesn't lead to a GNOME-related discussion, it's just an example, I could simply pick any other piece of software which is not part of the base system, and if Slackware provides programs X,Y,Z for task Q and you happen to like program W, you're "out of luck"].

So I don't find that "ridiculous".

Since when is this about me? And how do you know I don't know that which is what you say I don't know? + he said "To the best of my knowledge"; how can that be an exaggeration?

Nobody is saying you don't have that right. BUT... surely you must be aware that by doing so you could make yourself appear an uneducated fool.

If you were to create such a website, it would be my right to have that opinion about you - and write about it. :)
He speaks for himself.
Maybe your observation is partially correct. The problem - as I see it - is that he did not read the instructions before installation. He even admitted that fact in the article.

@ introuble

I also hope you realize you can compile your own programs on Slackware, but I guess you probably would have no clue how to do that, right ?

Its fun reading articles like that. Why, Why, Why do they continually do this type of review? Is this a desktop OS?

Well, its what ever you want it to be. Slackware makes no assumptions. Desktop? well a few mods and a little reading and its a wonderful desktop. Server? few tweaks and some reading and its a wonderful server. etc etc. The author even states its a

description: Do-it-yourself-NUX

If you don't care whats going on or what your computer is doing by all means install Ubuntu but he shouldn't come around giving POOR reviews that just says RATING.

Slackware never claimed itself to be a noobs hand holding trip down the yellow brick road. Sometimes you gotta do big grown-up things... like read. I mean really how long does it take to type a single sentence in a search? Or to open the slackbook and look at the index. If hes so concerned about productivity then move to ratpoison and a strictly cli.. you'll save gobs of time not clicking.

Read and you will be enlightened.

This was with a standard configure/make/make install.

Yup, got me. How could I ever had argued with an elite Slackware user such as yourself skilled in the fine art of "compiling your own programs" ( :O ! do you actually write your own programs H_TeXMeX_H ? respect++; ).

It's quite simple: you're out of luck BECAUSE you're forced to build your own packages or find some 3rd party repository which usually has no simple way of notifying you of updates.

Quite frankly, you're quite boring, and your thinking is limited. Here's one Debian user who knew about Patrick's illness long before you did.. would you like to know why I knew about it? Probably because I ran Slackware in the past. And Gentoo (although I haven't quite been able to understand what that emerge thing does, does it have anything to do with that compiling thing you speak of?). And others.

Lay off.

Are you suggesting that Ubuntu users don't know what their computers "are doing"? What does that even mean anyway? What exactly are you supposed to know? [And since when should a regular user want to know too many details about how his/her computer works "under the hood" as long as they can get the job done? Are you intimately familiar with the way your car works? Or your fridge? TV? Radio? Shower? ]

Oh Eris! Another distro-rivalry slanging-match brewing. GNU/Linux users: one big dysfunctional family. Come on, kiss and make up!

There are very intelligent Ubuntu users that know exactly what is happening. But Ubuntu makes it so you can literally know NOTHING (literally) about your computer and still use it. Great, yes? Well, if you're technologically illiterate (a luddite, let's say), it's fantastic, because it'll work. But it won't work 'optimally' because it has to assume you know NOTHING. Slackware assumes you know SOMETHING and is therefore designed to be run with optimization in mind (fast, stable, no GUI tools to cover up what's happening under the surface -- which can both cause stability and security problems, depending on how it's written). They're both great, and they serve different purposes.

A fridge is a simple thing that does not require any knowledge to setup or use. But if something bad happens, you CALL someone to fix it. I don't want to have to call someone every time my computer breaks just because they've simplified the OS beyond the level of being able to fix anything should it go wrong. Similarly for a TV or radio. A shower is literally a very simple thing and I should hope you have the level of intelligence to understand why water comes out when you turn the tap. If not, I overestimated your intelligence. Plumbing, maybe a little more complex -- but again you call someone for that.

As for the car analogy, I know nothing about cars -- so if anything goes wrong, I get all nervous and have to take it in or talk to someone that knows something about cars. That's not fun. I would rather learn about cars and figure out how to diagnose a problem -- and I may do that some day. Your analogy here was especially poor I think -- cars are immensely complex and things go wrong ALL the time, requiring you to visit a shop if and when it does (in general I have no problems with my car, and it's pretty old -- but things happen once in a blue moon that I can't troubleshoot myself).
In general, the Slackware community has some great third party repositories, both containing SlackBuilds and packages. Definitely not as extensive as Debian, so obviously Debian has an advantage there. No debate. But I don't install THAT many apps (I install what I want/need, and once it's installed I don't have to do anything more. I use SlackBuilds, so if a new version comes out I can generally just change the version number and it'll compile), and so I wouldn't really benefit from Debian. Plus, some of the apps I do install wouldn't be available for Debian anyway (molecular modeling, protein modeling, etc.), and I'd still have to compile them -- negating the point. You make a choice when you use Slackware or Debian (or another distro) -- if you want to put your fate in the hands of `apt-get` and pray that it resolves dependencies properly (which it often does), great. But if you've ever had a dependency-hell problem (I admittedly haven't and use Slackware for other reasons) then you'll understand why Slackware doesn't automatically resolve dependencies, even if you'd still be willing to trust apt-get after having such an event.

Some people use Slackware on machines that they DON'T want to crash, no matter what they install. By giving them the power to see EVERYTHING about the OS (from text file configuration to a simple package management system that allows you to identify any file installed with a package just by using `grep`, for instance), they can be pretty sure their system isn't going to crash. You can be reasonably sure that Debian won't crash as well, but you're trusting someone else there (unless you build your own packages, which negates the point of Debian).

If I told my friends that I compile all my programs from source, they'd laugh at me. And that's fine. They'll stick with their over-priced Macs (which are great computers which I'll never own because I don't appreciate such an outrageous hardware markup with no ability to upgrade your system beyond trivial stuff). I just like knowing what's happening on my PC -- and thanks to Slackware, I can do just that.