Yes, I know. Back then there were many solutions. Remember Supermount? It was never included in Slackware, but was trivially easy to install and configure. If you want to see how it worked, see if you can find an iso of Mandrake from 2002ish.

Then there was also usbmount, mtools and autofs, any of which could have easily been tweaked for roll out in a public library.
:)

The BSDs get mentioned quite a bit around here, especially over the recent past. They are nice, but the default installations require significantly more work than Slackware to get to the same level. I'm sure most of the people who mention them haven't tried them.

I think Slackware is an OS, Slackers may have a different attitude because of it though. In the same way Ubuntu is an OS but some Ubuntu users have a different (an Ubuntu) attitude because of it. I used Slackware, and will use it again, but I don't have a Slackware attitude, instead I have a Linux attitude and that means I want to learn from all aspects of Linux not just one. Open source is about sharing and improving through sharing. There are positives and negatives to all distros having an overly positive attitude about 1 distro indicates the user has blinkers on or is a fanboy.

You have it completely wrong, in my case at least, and your comment indicates my reply above in this post is pretty close to the mark. It is more about learning about Linux as a whole and not just learning about Slackware or Slackware being "sexy". I'm a member of a few forums but this is the only one that has a sizable Slackware group that actually posts on it (the fact this is the official Slackware forum is probably the cause of that). I can easily get my fill of RPM, and other, type distros in other forums but I can't get much on Slackware anywhere else.

"If you want to learn RedHat, learn RedHat. If you want to learn linux, learn Slackware."

No, if you want to Learn Linux build (understand not just copy and paste) LFS, if you want to learn Slackware use Slackware. The point of my previous post, which seems to have been lost on you, is Slackware is not Linux it is one variation of Linux. To learn about Linux as a whole not just one variation of Linux we need to take part in more than one community.

I'm afraid I have to disagree.

What he was getting at with the quote is that Slackware does things in standard ways, it teaches you to use standard tools and sensible, portable techniques of administration. Certainly it's not exactly the same as LFS or Gentoo or OBSD OSolaris or what have you, but it knows it's a member of the same family and it behaves in a manner consistent with the family.

Other linux distros have tended to fall into the trap of 'differentiation' - doing things differently for the sake of marketing. Slackware has not. So when you learn Slackware, in a real sense you are learning the core of *nix in general. Shell scripting, text editing, system administration are not that different between these systems.

When you learn other distros, you are much more likely to wind up learning to just click their proprietary tools, and call support if something goes wrong. When you find yourself on a closely related system with different proprietary tools, you are even more lost than before! When you have problems you have no understanding of the system architecture or the system tools, you cannot diagnose the problem, and even if you could you would have no idea how to fix it.

Computers should empower people, not the opposite.

Slack is the only distro I use that really doesn't encourage 'black boxing' at all. I also use Gentoo, and it's superb, but as an administrator you tend to get good at deciphering the mighty portage. Unless you learn to write ebuilds, you won't learn much about where everything goes.

Even Arch for all its pared down simplicity tends to push you towards some copypasta with configuration, especially since systemd came along. The community is so large and the tools so good, you will seldom have to think about writing service files or PKGBUILDS. In many ways it's a sign of how successful it is.

I learnt more about scripting and administrative basics playing with Slack's beautiful and simple package manager. Forcing the user to do some simple jobs after providing them with a useful and fully featured install is a great way to learn. Likewise I learnt a lot more about init because I did not have the service handler script to rely on. These are great things.

I knew some people would.

Other distros don't know that? The quote is a marketing tool and as a marketing tool it worked quite well on Slackers.

I disagree with this sentiment. Shell scripting is shell scripting no matter what distro you use. The same goes for the other aspects you mention.

When you learn another distro you learn to use that distro, you can always move to another distro and learn that. Slackware is different simply because Linux is not a "standard" OS. People should be allowed to choose whatever system they want without someone suggesting they can't fix something because they aren't a Slacker and therefore have no clue as to how the system works.

Just because someone doesn't want to learn Slackware's methods doesn't mean they are learning how to "just click their proprietary tools". It isn't that everything else is different to Slackware it is that Linux offers a wide variety of choice and Slackware and its methods are one of those choices. For a thread based on a discussion about systemd, and the overall systemd discussion throughout LQ is based on a loss of choice the suggestion that offering people choice and that choice means they won't learn and is a bad thing strikes me as rather backward.

This I agree with but they should empower people in the way the person wants to be or needs to be empowered. Not everyone wants to or even needs to learn shell scripting. Telling someone that they must learn scripting when they do not want to learn scripting is pushing your value onto others. Empowering people is letting them make their own choices, treating them as though they are not as bright as a Slacker is not empowering them rather it is belittling them.

Computers are tools that get you from A to B. Empowering people would be letting them getting to B as fast and as easy as they can.

Interesting point of view. Slackware is my favourite version of Linux, but, I run a variety of operating systems from time to time. At the moment I'm running Slackware and OpenBSD. I really would like to see our various communities become closer and see fewer xenophobic comments, flame wars. We are stronger together; we all run Linux/BSD.

I totally agree.

United we stand divided we fall (btw I am not a unionist by any stretch of the imagination).

This sort of statement in this forum is like walking into the "Bar de l'OM" in Marseilles, the headquarters of the Olympique de Marseilles soccer club, and claiming loudly that there are other soccer clubs in the world, like for example your personal favorite the Paris Saint-Germain. :)

I don't have a personal favourite soccer club. Infact I dislike soccer but I have nothing against others liking it and discussing it away from a soccer club.

I was joking, of course (I'm a passionate climber and runner, and I'm a complete stranger to soccer). I try to keep an open mind and a basic curiosity for other systems, and I'd say I'm quite proficient on Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu and openSUSE. That doesn't keep me from proudly wearing my Slackware t-shirt. :hattip:

Mass exodus? I recall similar talk when GNOME was dropped. I learned a new way, and continued using Slackware. If Slackware uses systemd then I will learn a new way and continue using Slackware. There is more to Slackware Linux than GNOME or systemd.

No, I don't think that it's something good.

I view it as a arrogant behavior.