Unobtrusive.

It doesn't second guess me. I really like that. Sure, for someone new to that way of life, it can lead to some pretty fantastic errors (I speak from experience!), but that's just a matter of learning and doing things "right".

A Vision.

It seems to me that Patrick have a vision for Slackware. All too many distros suffer from lack of vision. They change direction as the wind blows, and that can be quite annoying when trying to maintain a bunch of servers. With Slackware I feel fairly safe in knowing that Patrick probably wont wake up one morning and decide to make any violently drastic changes. Sometimes dictatorship is a good thing. I think we all appreciate the fact that Linus have maintained complete control over the kernel. The Slackware approach is IMHO somewhat similar. It makes me feel safe.

The People.

I'm new to Slackware, but I've already come to appreciate the community around here. People are nice and help is abundant. It might just be me, but I really feel that Slackers often know a wee bit more about their distro of choice, as opposed to say Suse or Ubuntu people. The Trustix peeps are also quite helpful, there's just so damn few of them.

The Package System.

I've only just started to mess around with makepkg, but damn it is sweet. It's not that the Slackware package system is much better compared to other package systems, it's just that to me it "feels" right. I can't explain it any better. I just really enjoy being able to create a custom Dovecot package from source. Configured my way, packaged my way - it installs my way. Unobtrusive. There's that word again. :)

aye! i second that!

I think the point I was trying to make in my post which I didn't explain to well, was that you don't have to "learn" Slackware to use it, and you can "learn" Linux without Slackware, but Slackware as a distribution is well suited to the person who wants to "learn" Linux.

As for feeling superior, I do feel that I know more about Linux than most people, so in that sense I am superior. A mechanic working on my car better feel superior to me in terms of automobile repairs, I'd be very concerned if they didn't...

It's probably true that some people gloat over their perceived superiority, and I suppose the argument is that Slackware users have a larger than average proportion of gloaters, but people who pride themselves on their superior knowledge tend to choose the tools that enhance this knowledge (audiophiles aren't as likely to buy Nexxtech gear, for example -- no offence intended, Circuit City).

I may be over stepping my bounds here, but...

That paragraph says alot to me.

Hmmm? He's made 9 posts here at the forums most of which are here in this thread

Sir, are you writing a book or another "is slackware 'still' relevant article"?

Truly if you want to know these things, look @Ilgar's links, read Slackware's to do list, or go out on the net and read blogs if you need to do research.

We have a new vesion of Slackware out and people to help out, this is really counter-productive.

I think (judging by the replies) he thought he was misunderstood, and his posts were polite and mostly apologetic. Every now and then people come and ask questions of this kind, and I don't think there's anything to worry about this particular thread. :twocents:

i used mandrake first ,then redhat.then suSE, then slackware.. im kinda stuck here because i want an os that DOES WAT I TELL IT TO DO

Fedora et al just offer more software in their repository. A fairly complete development system can be installed in around 2GB in Fedora and RHEL. That's GNOME plus the usual suspects (gcc, valgrind, many development libraries).

Let me comment on a some parts of your post as someone who has used Slackware for eleven years (besides the BSDs), and quit about a year ago.

The only real netinstall option in the Slack installer are NFS installs. For installing from an internal NFS server, that's great, but absense of FTP installation support is a pain.

Yeah, you have to select all packages manually, and have to know the library dependancies (or find them out by trial and error).

Each to its own, but I started to agree over time. If you have a deadline, say next week, it is really painful to manually compile program X which has n dependencies that are not in the standard Slackware package set.

Another nit is that the package set is very small. This means that you'll often have to install other software, and to track security updates for this software. Even basic widely used packages like PosgreSQL and Postfix are not there. And outside a hobbyist setting, you can't really sell that, especially because others do it with a simple apt-get upgrade or yum install. It is just something that is not viable within most (but not all) parts of the real world.

This is probably one of the reasons why you barely see Slackware installs in enterprises these days. It is mostly Debian and Red Hat.

When it comes to a building a minimal system, most BSDs beat Slack hands down. BSD libc and userland are a lot smaller, but have better features at the same time.

Yup. This forum is great. Most other resources are a lot of ego clashing.

If you learn Slackware, you learn Slackware. There is a standard (LSB) that specifies what a Linux system is. IIRC this implies having a SysV-like init system like Red Hat or Debian, and having the RPM or DEB package manager. Slackware does not conform to the LSB, and differs from many other distros.

The other argument usually put forward is that Slackware forces you to learn Linux. Most Red Hat system administrators that I know don't install system-config-* and do manual system administration. So, it is just what you want. But learning Debian or Red Hat gives you more knowledge of 'mainstream Linux' than Slackware.

---

My point of view is that Slackware is a great-UNIX like system. And that's why I used it for such a long time. But it is not viable for me anymore. The BSDs provide a system that feels even more like UNIX, and are much more modern. E.g. they support modern networking technologies, have better package management, better portability. As a Linux system I can't really recommend Slackware for people who use Linux for critical systems. The investment in unnecessary software maintenance is much too high. It uses a vanilla kernel that was never really tested for higher end machines, clustering, etc. With enough work, you can do everything with Slackware. But why tinker with e.g. software RAID, LVM, IPsec, if it works out of the box on other systems, and they can be administrated with the usual suspects (mdadm, lvm, setkey/racoon).

It is a fine system, but slightly overrated by its community.

hi guys send me a ragnarok bot plz send it in my email luidpasco@yahoo.com

I tried FreeBSD 6.1 and liked it a lot, but, I always come back to Slackware. I'm not a Linux professional, but, a hobbyist. I love to tinker with Slackware, plod along, and learn about this fantastic OS. I know sysadmins who do deploy Slackware in corporate settings without too much difficulty. Slackware is a stable, robust distro. I've also used RH and currently run Debian Etch. Etch has apt-get which I agree is an amazing package management system.
But, I will always be a Slacker. I find this forum to be very helpful, I learn a lot from the veteran Slackers here. Slackware does the job for me.:D

This is understandable. Your needs are obviously beyond what Slackware can provide. I can see how a Slackware system would be frustrating to someone who had to use it for a living, because it is far from the most complete Linux out there. On the other hand, it's simplicity and flexibility suit me. But I'm not an IT professional. Computers are just my hobby.
I tried OpenBSD about 6 months back. It was the version dubbed "the Blob". I can't remember if that was 3.8 or 3.9. While it did have a driver for my wireless NIC, that particular driver didn't support WPA encryption. This was a deal breaker for me.

WPA encryption has worked flawlessly for me under various flavours of Linux (including Slackware) since September 2004.

That said, I understand that the OpenBSD driver was written from scratch without the use of proprietary "binary blobs", unlike the Linux driver for my card. This is an attractive feature. I will be trying OpenBSD again in the future, but for now it's Slackware all the way.

A pain ? It's a very subjective and questionable statement. Yes, it would be nice if installer would support ftp install but Slackware's package management don't directly support remote installs and due to minimalistic approach the 1st CD contains almost a complete system so it won't save too much like at Debian f.E.

Why one would do that ? If you deploy Slack without a check if it offers required important (and complex) software, you've made a wrong decision in the beginnig and that's not a distro's fault but yours.

Yes, Slackware package base is relatively limited from the quantity point of view, but if it'll satisfy customer's or my requirements what's wrong with that ? If MTA is asked and there is no special and/or reasonable demand for Postfix why Sendmail couldn't be used ? It is valid for other apps too (MySQL/PSQL, Apache 1.x/Apache 2.x etc).

I don't know what does mean word "enterprise" in binding with Linux to you but in praxis you'll met RHEL or Novell's SLE 99% of times - distros with paid full support backgrounded by a big commercial company, with certified support of Enterprise software vendors like Oracle. Not the case of Debian or CentOS.

Sorry but that's a plain BS. Can you somehow support such claim ? I've built many routers and in my experience minimal base system of FBSD, NetBSD or even OpenBSD is much more bloated then f.E. Slackware's. In addition this "base" system is installed without a use of some package management, so there are no installation records for later manipulation like additional software removal.

We do use Slackware for enterprise stuff...
 

Hi there

We do use Slackware at work. It rocks.

It's great to be the SquidMaster in my intranet (all my other coworkers excepting the boss can't access "those" websites ;) ).

Though I'm still new to Slackware, I'd like to add my small comment...

i bought an eMachine W3502. I tried to install:

Xandrso OS3 Deluxe--- FAILED I tried various options.. It would jsut hag during install
Xandrso OS2 Deluxe----FAILED " ' ' ' ' ' '
SuSE 10.0 Boxed Ed-----FAILED Went on, wouldn't boot
Fedora CORE 5---------FAILED Graphis so far out of whack I couldn't dom anything
Mepis-----------------No sound, graphics were weird
Knoppix (various versions)---FAILED refused to install on HD
Pink Tie Linux---------FAILED Graphics so far out of whack it was uninstallable
Darkstar Linux--------FAILED went on.. wouldn't boot
Ubuntu----------------FAILED Graphics all messed up
Kubuntu---------------FAILED ' ' ' ' ' '
Mandrake--------------FAILED ' ' ' ' '
etc.------------------FAILED ' ' ' ' ' ' '


Slackware 10.2--------SUCCESS Flawless (after I reburned install media.)

Why this is, I have no idea. But, if it wasn'r for Slackware, I would not be using Linux at all on this box.

-Joe

weird to know so many distro failed with your system.... :-)

joegumbo, I could give a similar list and point to the success of Slackware-based distributions on my eMachines system. But in my case it's not the system because the only way most others failed was in setting up my network. The problem is the DSL modem from the local phone company and that's the only high-speed option where I live, except for satellite. I tried virtually every distro in distrowatch's top 20.

Debian-based distros as a class - forget it, no network access. I tried Debian, PCLinuxOS, Mepis, U/Kubuntu.
Xandros - no network.
Arch - no network.
Fedora Core 3 mysteriously accessed the drive too often for my taste.
*BSDs - no network.

For some reason, though, SUSE and Slackware-based distros work on my system flawlessly.

VectorLinux worked great.
Slackware worked great.
Zenwalk Live works great.
Zenwalk is currently working wonderfully.

Slackware and its derivatives are simply better at detecting network hardware / "Winmodems."

I run older hardware, so Slackware is perfect for my needs. Slackware runs very fast out of the box.

It depends on the situation. There are enough servers machines without optical drives. Yeah, with some creativity, it is always possible to install Slackware. But why not provide such relatively simple feature? Some BSDs fit this on two 1.44MB floppies. The initial CentOS disk for netinstalls is about 10MB. It doesn't really add bloat, and helps many users.

True. But the years of the simple LAMP servers are mostly over. Applications *do* require a plenthora of Perl modules or a bunch of Java class libraries. The world has changed. As such, Slackware is less relevant as a general purpose operating system than it was 6 or 8 years ago. The tagline on the back of the CD sets is not pretty relevant anymore "Slackware Linux provides new and experienced users with full-featured system, equipped to serve in any capacity, from desktop workstation to machine-room server". That's a pretty bold claim. Yeah, it can possibly run on some "machine-room server", but it is not equipped to do anything particular useful.

As I said, Slackware is a good system. I really liked it as a tool that can be used virtually everywhere (from desktop to server). But that has changed.

Heh, more than half of the customers have existing databases, code, etc. Some part of the othe half wants modern web applications, and you'll have to add *a lot* to support that in Slackware. Or do you write your own templating systems, O/R mappers, SOAP functionality, etc. for every job?

Actually. I am based in Europe, and Debian has a lot of presence here. (I personally prefer RHEL/CentOS).

Right :). You can easily squeeze a NetBSD system in 5MB disk space with dynamic binaries. Heck, NetBSD libc is 1MB. Have fun squeezing Slackware Linux in such amounts of space. Yeah, you can do it with blackbox, but blackbox is not Slackware, or by statically linking stuff. But you'll probably not get near these sizes without busybox.

This describes some approaches:
http://www.yazzy.org/docs/NetBSD/netbsd-on-cf.txt

There is, and it is called 'syspkgs' it is not on by default now. But you can rebuild NetBSD with syspkgs, and use package tools to work on the base system.

to danieldk:

I'd agree in many points with you.
Only I don't see Slackware's goal as the all-task-covering/all-purpose distribution. It may be suitable for standalone servers, simple desktops/workstations and routers while not straying from pure and proven unix concepts and keeping prestigious reliability. If I'd have to maintain incosiderable amount of custom packages for a specific task, I'd consider it twice to choose Slackware, although I like its concept the most. For example my "limit" for an Imap/Smtp server is to keep up-to-date Clamav, SpamAssassin, Spamass-milter and bunch of less then 10 Perl modules.

Concerning building of a minimal system I've thought about standard ways by using default installation tool and package management, not about such hacks ;) When you also selectively pick up libraries from glibc-solibs (libc, libutil and libm covers most of dependencies and are total of 1,33 MiB - ver. 2.3.6), use minimalistic shell as ash (0,09 MiB) and custom kernel (~ 1 MiB) and some stripped down utilities, you may get a very small system without hacking with busybox or even dietlibc. Getting Slack on 32MiB CFlash is troublefree if you know what you are doing.

I don't know why I use Slackware.. Pat V and his little lemmings constantly piss me off to no end.
They don't ever seem to have a mind of their own. What Pat V says seems to be law. For some reason
though, after a year or so of bouncing around from distro to distro, I always found myself back to using
Slackware. Yes it may be lacking in many areas but that is how it was created, leaving it to the user to
customise it to his/her own needs. Do I like the philosophies of it's creator or some of its users? No I
don't, but I do respect the work he and others put into creating it. It takes minutes to install unlike most
others, I don't have to go through a bunch of B.S. installing dev tools and headers to compile a simple
program like some others, I don't end up with a super bloated desktop that runs slow as hell like
some others, and last but not least, I don't have 3/4 of my system replaced when using apt to upgrade
a non distro supported package. I like the fact I can install a .tgz and if it don't run, I can find the few
things it may be whining about and upgrade/install them and go although I usually just end up creating
my own packages that I may use later on should the need arise to do a reinstall. One of the things I
"REALLY" like is the fact that if one actually takes time to read some of the config files in /etc, alot of
it is preconfigured for you. You just find what it is that you need, uncomment it, and go.

I guess I could go on and on but I think that gives a few reasons I prefer using Slackware over others.
If there was another Slackware type o/s that was as simple and clean I would probably use it since like
I stated before that I don't tend to agree with some of the knucklehead B.S. that it's maintainer does, but
looking past that, for the most part, he and his buddies do great work and until something does show up
I will continue to use Slack.