Since I've started playing with NetBSD I tried out pkgsrc on Slackware 14.2 this week. All I did was install youtube-dl with it so far. Conveniently I got a perl along the way that has the uniq function in its List::Util module, which will make one of my scripts work without a weird cpan based hack (but why does youtube-dl depend on Perl?). Not sure I'll install much more for now, since I've mixed feelings about having this parallel set of non-slackware (or SBO) packages, some of them different versions of the same software. Even setting PREFER_NATIVE=yes it doesn't link to base Slackware libraries or prefer base software near as much as I would like. And besides I'll probably get my fill of pkgsrc installing this weekend from updating to 2020Q2 packages over on the NetBSD partition.

Still, if you're someone who is lacking in patience for getting new versions who doesn't want to track slackware current, maybe it helps. The nice thing about being so separate is that once you get your new Slackware it's easily rm -rfed. And you could pick and choose between base slackware and pkgsrc versions on a case by case basis. E.g. for many packages, as has been pointed out before, Slackware 14.2 is in fact very up to date. I wouldn't take firefox from pkgsrc in preference to the slackware package, for instance.

If I'm interpreting the pkgsrc package name and DESCR correctly it may give a way to run plasma before the next slackware:

DISTNAME= plasma-framework-5.70.1
COMMENT= Plasma library and runtime components based upon KF5 and Qt5

Or maybe this is only the libraries and not the whole desktop?

I suppose you could do a similar thing with GNU guix, though I'd be surprised if they had plasma either. Nix?

1 members found this post helpful.

A note on use case for Slackware-32 and multilib: Steam requires 32-bit support. Individual titles are a mix of 32- and 64-bit. For those of you who don't game on linux, doesn't matter. For those like myself, does.

2 members found this post helpful.

Are talking about wine32?

Well, let's see. I sometimes contribute to SBo, but I don't do that much though. Just if I use something what is not there, I usually submit (if it's possible to build and run something with 14.2 old dependencies, otherwise I just keep stuff locally)

So, I guess you may call me accidential SBo contributor.

Can I call you a victim of cult fanatism?

I guess you are wrong. In 2020, one person cannot maintain distro alone.

It's totally incorrect to compare number of Slackware packages with corresponding number in Debian. Slackware packages are more solid, and Debian packages tend to be parted (xxx-bin, xxx-dev, xxx-doc etc.)

You would need to double (or even triple) number of Slackware packages to roughly compare those numbers.

While Patrick does enjoy substantial and sometimes even critical assistance, he, even more than Linus with the kernel, is the ultimate arbiter and the assistance must conform to his vision or it doesn't get in Official Release.

So I am betting you will eat those words, even if it is in 2021.

We are talking about dev group. He can't be alone there on a daily basis. Pure vision would not help.

Yes, I do like Slackware very much, but I don't much like this kind of post in a Slackware forum. Do you really want people to think that Slackware fans are a religious cult like the Moonies? And that we enjoy stoking up the fires of hell for heretics and unbelievers? Lots of people out there prefer systems that are easy to install and use to those that are easy to understand and maintain. It's a matter of temperament. I always thought that Linux was about choice, or is that no longer the case?

7 members found this post helpful.

No. Last time I did a reinstall (new PC build about a year ago) went to install Steam before installing multilib. Steam complained about that. After install, Steam itself has a mix of 64- and 32-bit components. Again, individual titles can be either 64- or 32-bit. This is before getting into Wine/Proton.

It has so far.

I think a better way to compare a real install is to look at the size of the root partition (without /home and /var) after a clean install of the distribution. KUbuntu is not very big by default for exemple (around 3 Go).

Some distributions have a lot of little scattered packages. Slackware has bigger packages in general.

Also it seems that the default installed number of packages as for example Ubuntu is not the same as the global list of available packages like we can see here :
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1006...e-command-line

For Slackware and the global list you should count the well known contributors : Alien Bob, Ponce, Slackel, Slackonly, Conraid, ... And all the SBo packages.

For the SBo SlackBuilds there are currently 8032 packages (5596 in 2015 - https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...1/#post5450157).
> grep 'NAME:' SLACKBUILDS.TXT | wc -l
8032

My install with the Slackware current and some other packages from the above repositories is sized 27 Go (1857 packages) against 8 Go from default size.

Also server distributions are generally lighter because there is no window manager.

Again, please stop presenting your opinion as fact.

It's not my opinion. It's just healthy and rational view of the reality.

I don't mind if some people prefer imaginary world though, where one person can maintain OS on his own and the Earth is flat.

as this has actually happened the last 27 years maybe the imaginary world is the one in which this didn't happen.

1 members found this post helpful.

Yes it is. Just like everything else you've said in this thread.

If you cannot support it with data, then it's an opinion.
I guess you've never heard of Erasthorenes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hZl3arO7SY