XFree86 3.x was the last X-Server to run a video card without a kernel component because the X.Org binary that was usually installed or linked against as the main X binary was compiled for a single video card only. You often would see binaries like:

x.3dfx
x.nv
x.ati

and usually the main "x" binary was nothing but a symlink to one of the vendor specific binaries.

...on various Linux boxes due to the way XFree86 3.x was formulated.

XFree86 4.x and X.Org 6.x required a kernel driver to have proper hardware access restrictions via the HAL/DeviceKit layer when the drivers went modular under the DRI specification.

What are those changes? I don't know what you 're talking about.

Not everyone is trying to dumb-down Linux; there are still several distros where configurability/customizability are high priority. I do not think Slackware's KISS philosophy will change anytime soon, nor Gentoo's philosophy, nor LFS.'

I agree with you, I do not like how much influence that developer has in the Linux community and do not see any benefits to his projects. Any efforts to fork the project or separate out essential pieces (in keeping with Unix philosophy) are met with derision by that circle. Besides Slackware and Gentoo, Debian is another holdout vs. these changes and they are much larger. Ubuntu is as holdout but more because of NIH syndrome than anything else. Right now, I think it's still a little premature to assume all major distros will bow to this influence.

Remember too that Linus is still around to fight for his OS and he has been vocal against some of these decisions. Even though Linux is far bigger than Linus these days, he still carries a lot of weight.

Food for thought: Slackware has held out against PAM for years! I don't think you have to leave Linux unless you really want to.

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ReaperX7, you talk too much :P Sorry if it comes off as bad, but really, if you spend the time you used on actually doing something instead of writing this rhetoric (like spin off a distro, or what like kinikovak does, spin a blend of Slackware, or, just actually start to use FreeBSD alongside Slackware,) I might be more inclined to be sympathetic to your mountain-out-of-molehill dilemma.

Remember, you can just stick to a specific version; you don't need the latest-and-greatest, and if you do, you'll find ways to make it so.

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Sorry to step on toes and burst bubbles but I've said it already that I have no time to create my own distribution of Linux.

The problem is the upstream is sending down what it is going to send down regardless of how we the end users and admins of systems feel about it. Even if I make my own distribution, in eventuality, it won't matter.

In case you haven't been following things you should look into what's being done to cgroups in relation to systemd, as well as how half the entire Linux world feels about systemd and what it has done along with udisks, consolekit, devicekit, etc. that is literally leading Linux down a path away from being Linux or any UNIX-like system and becoming another Windows-like or OSX-like operating system all for the benefit of a user group that doesn't even exist for Linux at all.

If you can't Google all that up on your own without being babyfed the information, then I'm sorry. However, AlienBOB has posted here about it in the last systemd discussion in the last few pages so I suggest you get our your butt and look them up without having a nanny lead you around, which is not me.

If you're an LFS user, in essence you've already created your own distro! You selected the toolchain, package manager, etc. all the way up the stack.

Maybe some history will help: look at what happened with Gnome 3. Many users disliked the new Gnome and as a result both Mate and Cinnamon were born. There are a ton of other options as well: LXDE, KDE, E17, razor-qt, the list goes on and on. If I don't want Nepomuk/Akonadi/Virtuoso dependencies for example, I can look for apps that only have QT or GTK dependencies. There are always choices with Linux.

Flip the flip off, wonderful person. I'm not really that into linux, as simple as that, but i was interested in the discussion, that's why i asked.

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Nope, you're making it your problem; you can always choose not to participate in that game of upgrades.

Like people already mentioned, there are stuff in Slackware that isn't even in the mainstream (PAM, Gnome,) and probably will not be there ever (but you never know; people and ideas change, and Linux will change, whether you like it or not.)

What relevant information you're bringing up is muddled by your own (and others') grandstanding of issues instead of actually doing something constructive; I envy you having so much free time writing stuff like this...

Use whatever you like. BTW, did you post the same in the *BSD forum?

daemonforums is another nice place for BSD discussion.

Not sure I'd ask this question there, though. They're nice enough, but seems to me they're less into idle discussion, more into discussing specific technical problems (maybe that's true here too, but with a bigger community things go astray more?). If you do, you'll just get people telling you flat out that BSD is vastly superior to Linux (after all they've made their choice, and it's a human trait the need to, sometimes emphatically, verbally justify our choices to others). So take the most pro-slackware posts in this thread, cross out slackware and insert XXXXBSD. Actually, it may even go beyond that -- the GNU and Linux revulsion in some quarters of the BSD community can be so vehement as to be a little unattractive sometimes, less so than the converse from what I'm seeing here. On the other hand, a link to an interview and a few posts expressing fondness for Slackware there was what drew me to try it. So if anyone's frustrated that a Linux forum is directing someone to a "competitor," well at least that time it balanced out in the other direction.

FreeBSD's advocacy documentation itself has an entry on Why use FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/advocacy/ There's this (ugly, in an opportunistic sort of way, IMO) statement that bears on some of the Poetering et al. induced flux frustration certain Linux people seem to be expressing lately: "Stability in FreeBSD means much more than that. It means that upgrading the system doesn't require upgrading the user. Configuration interfaces do change over time, but only when there is a good reason. If you learned how to use FreeBSD in 2000, most of your knowledge would still be relevant."

But formal advocacy is it of much more value than discussion forum advocacy? Cross out FreeBSD and put in Slackware in that statement, would a long time Slackware user object saying, "that's nice, but I don't think it quite applies to us?"

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Well, I'm glad you asked, my brother. FreeBSD is a great distribution. But it is only one in a long line of distributions. Slackware, on the other hand, is the final one.

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One distro forged in the fires of Mount Doom. One distro to rule them all.

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@hitest - are you suggesting that Pat is Sauron?!? ;-)

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Shhhhhhhhh. It is a secret.

I attributed Patrick more towards being Aragon trying to free the Linux users rather than enslave them.