Speaking to things running forever... we installed slack on our server sometime last year. That was the last time it was turned off/rebooted/messed with. 'nuff said, sheep.

I keep trying different UNIX flavors, then I keep going back to Linux.

Yesterday I tried, for fsck's sake, to install FreeBSD 7.2 AMD64 on two different laptop machines (a Compaq and an Acer), and the system doesn't even boot (I tried all possible options - verbose logging, single user mode, ACPI disabled etc.), so I can't even get the installation up and running.

Earlier this week, I installed the same version of FreeBSD as a Virtual Machine under Linux and while trying to install KDE, I stumbled upon installation errors - go figure.

A couple of weeks ago I had installed Solaris 10 on one of my machines, and then after the first updates were installed, the system refused to boot. Whenever you install Windows, the first thing you do after system install is to start looking for drivers over the net.

The hardware support is just so much better in Linux - at least in my experience.

I was thinking a little thing... Why doesn't Pat replace blackbox D.E. with LXDE? This would be fantastic

why replacing when you can just add?
lotta slackers use flux/blackbox or windowmaker...

Agreed. I do like FreeBSD, but, Slackware beats it hands down with hardware identification. One of the odd things that I discovered about FreeBSD is that dbus and hal need to be manually enabled for a USB keyboard and mouse to work properly in X.
I boot more frequently into Slackware.

Edit added later: You do need to double check the HCL prior to installing FreeBSD.

yes yes, flux/blackbox are such wonderful alternatives when you finally get fed up with KDE and its bloat. Although I don't think anyone would complain if there were another option to use with your X :-).

Because we've already got a part of blackbox, there's fluxbox, it's better than blackbox because it's more customizable, well for me just adding LXDE would be great, but there are too DE in slackware... I'd remove the less used Most part of us use KDE, XFCE, fluxbox and not blackbox... Of course there are people who use it, but they aren't a lot It was just an idea

What's blackbox? What's fluxbox?, what's LXDE?, What's KDE? What's Gnome?

Sure! I run an X Server on Windows boxes, but in UNIX I use the CLI desktop LOL!

Gotta just love OpenSSH, right?

Seriously though, Run-Level 3 is your friend.

Okay now to get back on topic: How many of us have subscriptions? I spun my own iso from slackware-current and I've been running slack since I stopped publishing the Linboard Linux distro back in the pre 1.0 kernel days. The choices then were SLS (which didn't work any better than Bill Joliet's BSD either, which is why I created Linboard in the first place), Linboard, and Slackware. Then others came along like Yggdrasil and such, and the (very lame) RH eventually showed up and we all hailed the RPM, which sucks because you pretty much have to upgrade the box for security reasons if you aren't willing to make your own RPMs after about two years since those mACROSfOT bozos come into the UNIX world with their "upgrade" mentality and don't realize that a simple kernel compile or d/l / package/compile of BIND, Sendmail, or whatever the daemon that needs to be updated is ALL that needs to be updated...

Yah, just try to find a current security release of an RPM for an RPM based distro older than two years - you gotta make your own or do the mACROSfot style solution. Heck, I got Slack boxes so old they're still running on 386's - sure, I've had to replace a power supply here or there, and on occasion even go to the junkyard or ebay for a motherboard or BIOS chip, but I typically use purpose built servers and if it's serving that purpose why bother installing the latest and greatest Linux Distro on new hardware?

Oh, yeah, Don't think I don't run slackware-current on my personal prod workstations either - coz I do LOL! But heck, for a database server all you need is a JBOD and lotsa fast memory, for example.

Now.... hm... everytime the Slacksters get quiet (and there hasn't been any activity in the changelog for a few days)..... Surprise! So I'm thinking that my fav mirrors are gonna be slammed hard in the next few days - anyone else suspecting that all their buddies are gonna be waking them up real soon with phone calls to alert them that it's time to d/l the latest and greatest of the oldest and greatest Linux Distro?

Give DragonFly a try, if for no other reason than for the HAMMER FS, which is totally bitchen!

The one thing that really bothered me for a while was the 'non-trivial' procedure I had to go through to run XFS on Slack. I never liked Ext2 (and especially not Ext3 - why make a clunky thing clunkier?), but for years it was all we had. I also like ReiserFS on Linux, but I've never had a prob w/SGI's XFS.

What would be kewl is HAMMER on Slack

If HammerFS is capable of delivering everything it says it can, I'd be pretty keen to see it work it's way into the current tree. Has there been any kernel development regarding it as a valid Linux FS?

I have been especially interested in their dedication to the delivery of a native clustering kernel. If Hammer can be delivered to Linux without dependency on the Dragonfly kernel it runs on, Hammer would indeed be a fantastic asset. But I see problems with the porting of Hammer to Linux.
1.) Linux is not yet native cluster capable.
2.) There is too much conflict between different sources as to what clustering should be on Linux.
3.) Much of that conflict is due to the economic considerations of "corporate distributions: Redhat, Suse, Mandriva. And while Debian is not corporate by definition, they have their own set of aspirations which are not conducive to negotiation.

And then, there's one more issue that can't be dismissed regarding Slackware. There would likely be resistance from the majority of Slackware users (being seen as unnecessary), since most of them only run desktops and not servers for enterprise installations. Trying to convince them that Hammer should be included would take more effort than it's worth. Look instead to third parties like the "Access Grid" project to deliver the necessary tools for things not currently included in Slackware as standard features. That project is well defined, and already devoted to such services as would benefit from Hammer. So in the future, we might well see Hammer delivered by Access Grid.

I guess I (we) could chat with Christoph Willing about this.
EDIT: I just emailed him about this. I'll let you know what he has to say about it.

Shingoshi

Well said Shingoshi:

I suppose the few of us who would really like to see this FS make its way into our realm will just have to do what we can to get it there, since it is pretty likely that getting distro support on it won't happen anytime soon. Can't wait to hear what Mr. Willing has to say tho...

That's the sort of thing that I've NEVER been able to get my head around. From my perspective, Slackware IS the Enterprise Linux distro of choice. Or you can roll your own Gentoo and there's a couple of others.

Although rpm -ivh *appears* to be as easy as installpkg, the reality is that you then you find yourself hunting down all these dependencies on rpmfind.net (sometimes for hours, and one package dependency requires three more packages, etc...)

Not to mention that you have to spend more time DISabling holes in say, RHEL, than you do ENabling features you want in Slack LOL!

This whole, "Hire a Linux n00b who has his MCSE", and... Heck! You can't even do a quick kernel compile in RH w/o voiding your support agreement. You have to ask RH to do it for you, telling them exactly what you want, and pay them to do it!

I came from a BSD bacground coz we couldn't get IP to run on ARPAnet with AT&T UNIX. I'm a Solaris lover (and a Bill Joy fan too). For any real UNIX head, Slack just seems to make the most sense to me where GNU/Linux is concerned.

If RPM based distros were so great (and their marketing surely is), then there woul be no place in the enterprise for NetBSD and the like. I've seen slack arch's come and go over the years, and yet, there's an arch for S/390. Hm... There's gotta be a reason for that.

I'm not bashing anyone for running slack as their workstation ( I do myself) - it does whatever you want it to do, but the less stable rpm based distros seemed to have more to offer out of the box for that for the average power user who wanted bleeding edge over that of stability (Like Mandrake, before they had their IPO, crashed, and burned).

Slackware is kind of a bitch to deploy across a desktop environment compared to a couple of other distros, and flame me people if you like, but I still recommennd mACROSfOT on the corporate desktop almost unequivicably.

Hey That would be fantastic, although I don't know how receptive Matthew is to having his flavor of UNIX marginalized at the expenxe of of his file system being widely adopted For those who watched the FreeBSD 4/5 meltdown on the devel lists which resulted in the birth of DragonFly, well, you'll recall how ugly it was.

Still That's a great idea Shingoshi!, Yes, please keep us posted and email me anytime!

Kindest regards,

I'm not talking here about tooting my own horn for the sake of making my ego bigger. No, I'm talking about showing by the tally of votes garnered, just how many people believe the suggestion made is something they would like to see happen. Since I already advocate for the introduction of many technologies, it would help those responsible for the development of those technologies to see what level of support they could expect to see from this (Slackware) group in particular.

So if you as I do believe that Slackware is an excellent foundation for Enterprise Linux solutions, show it by voting with thumbs-up on this suggestion.

Thank you!
Shingoshi

I've started a new topic dedicated to the implementation of Hammer on Slackware. Please participate there instead of corrupting this thread.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hammer-744248/

Shingoshi