I've got some for you to try.

j/k

EDIT: Ok, I've made it through most of this thread and I think the simplest answer to the "why use Slackware" question is: because we like it.

I've used Fedora Core 2 more than any other non-Slackware distro and I find the package dependency issue to be a major headache. One thing a think a lot are missing is there is generally nothing keeping anyone from building from source on any distro they choose. I was trying to get Apache 2.0 running on FC2 with PHP support and ran into so many dependency issues (including circular dependencies) I bailed on that and simply build everything I needed from source and the machine has been purring along nicely since AND still on FC2.

Slackware certainly is for those who want more of a "hands on" approach but there's something to be said about a "hands off" experience as well. On another machine, I have a now old Mandriva installation running and when I put my USB flash drive into a USB port, an icon for the drive appears and I can double click it and get to the files. NO manually mounting anything and it "just works". Ideally, I would get my Slackware system built to the point of this kind of functionality but that will take time.

Now to contribute to the "who's more of a manly man" commentary, those of you running current versions of Slackware distros are panzies and only a "real man" like me starts with an outdated distro and brings it into the 21st century from source, by hand, and with pride.

(Ok, you can all stop laughing at me now.... )

Peace...

well...what i think is that the configscript
of that program doesn't do a good job.

i've got 10.2 with the original libpng.
when i try :

egag@slack21:$ readelf -s /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0.1.2.8 |grep png_write_image
327: 00019590 492 FUNC GLOBAL DEFAULT 10 png_write_image

so...the symbol is there and can be detected.
look at how the script tries to figure out the support.

btw. there is no such thing as "a bugfree distro".

egag

The part that i posted is what breaks libpng. When i removed that from his buildscript i was able to compile my apps fine. For some reason, when libpng is stripped it causes errors in some programs, but not all.

The problem is no doubt due to the method that the configure script gets what png supports, but then again slackware's, and ONLY slackware's png library reports incorrectly to Electric Sheep. It could be a bug in the software, but it is one that only manifests itself in slackware. (and one that is repaired by simply rebuilding png without stripping the libraries)

yes, it might be only with the Slackware libpng.( i really don't know ).
but i don't think that means a bug in Slack.
( could be the script also ).
probably, if you would hack the script to forget about libpng,
it would compile ok.

i just looked into it because, afaik, if bugs are found in Slackware
they do get fixed.
and if you report them with a fix for it,it would be hard to ignore.

egag

Hi

I did not know Debian was politically biased. I am not, and although I am NOT a leftist (I have very strong personal reasons which I will not discuss here) I consider Debian is a very good distro: in fact, if Slackware did not exist, I would certainly use Debian.

However, Slackware exists! Thanks to heaven!

I like Slackware over all other distros. Even so, being something not-developed-by-me, there were still some missing points (for me). So I made a "distro" of my own, based in Slackware. It has all what I like and Slackware lacks (kernel 2.6 from the start, GNOME, i686-optimized glibc, some apps added and some others cut, etc.). I had to remade many packages. Some that needed to be upgraded in order for the thing to run. Some other for fun.

So far, the best way I found to do it my way is by following Pat's path: the SlackBuilds.

So I have a drive full of sources and SlackBuilds. After 10.1 (the last "vanilla" Slackware I installed), I think that Slackware, my way, is the best distro for me. I emphasize "for me".

I end this post by stating again that I AM NOT a leftist. I respect them. But I don't want to be called so only for saying that Debian is a good distro.

Anyway I like Slackware better.

For those of weakening faith behold the new changelog
http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=i386

slackware is coming real soon. I can feel it now. Praise Pat V.

doesn't get better than it saying prerelease

Well, gee, I'm probably one of few here who installed Debian first, then tried Slackware and stuck with it!

It's mostly that Slackware had exactly what I was looking for. Also, when I tried Debian, it had *just* hit Sarge, like the first day, and it's bugs were driving me nuts. Then also Debian is extremely political and it's users tended to be a little on the uh, arrogant side??? For one thing, this is on my "office box" which is not online (as opposed to the "family box"). Debian's legendary package management is a Godsend for an online machine, but have the machine offline and you're stuck with no second option (what?!? I have to download *how* many disks?!?). Then there's the issue of complexity: obviously, I'm no stranger to it. But Debian was the first time I'd seen Linux be more complicated than it *needed* to be. What with half the directories filled with softlinks to other places in other directories, and 7 different apt-utilities when it seems like you should only have one, it fealt like it was put together by somebody who hoped to God you'd never look under the hood.

By comparison, Slackware is squeaky clean, from the kernel outward.

Slackware I got lucky with, it installed perfectly on the first try, loved my hardware, and since my primary interest is programming and graphics design, it had most of what I needed and the rest installed easily from tarballs and such. I also liked that it focuses on having multiple desktops available (I'm a desktop-switching freak, equally comfortable in any of the desktops I've reviewed here), and that Slackware includes all of the GNU console-level tools, plus full docs including all of the HOWTO archive. No kidding, I am fluent in about ten programming languages, so having these resources at my fingertips is absolutely essential.

That being said, I notice that *derivatives* of Debian tend to be a much bigger show. So while I don't use Debian, I am a big fan of Knoppix and Damn Small Linux, and simply raving fanatic about grml - if I had no Slackware, I'd install grml and build from there. Debian seems to be the best distro to use for a base for starting a live CD, go figure.

Nevertheless, I don't *hate* Debian. I've been following their news, and it seems like they're re-organizing and fixing some issues; doubtless I just happened by Debian at a bad time. They're worth preserving if nothing else than for the huge number of distros based off of them.

ROFLMAO

me too!!!

I've blown a hole in my lungs preaching this to a world that cannot understand this basic fact, so I don't expect it to take hold here. BUT one more time:

There is no such thing as "ease of use". There is only "ease of task". Programs that are "easy to use" only appear so because they accomplish "easy tasks". Example: Gnome Tetris is "easy to use". It's whole purpose in life is to let you play tetris. Sed and awk are very "hard to use". That is because their jobs are much more sophisticated.

Sed and Awk are what you use to do really really really hard things like turn your C++ source into HTML-safe code so you can post it. Or find and retrieve the 25 wallpapers you forgot to include in your gallery that are now mixed in with the rest of your archive of 250 images. Or scrape, collate, and compile headlines from RSS feeds and save them to a file so you can pipe the headlines to your MOTD without having to visit a webpage.

Programs that accomplish hard tasks are done as "easy to use" as the poor harrassed programmer who designed them could possibly sweat out of his/her brain. There is nothing in computing from Mario Brothers to Assembly Compilers that is one iota more difficult than it absolutely positively has to be.

Similarly, Ubuntu was designed for the "low-end" user, who's never heard of C++ code and thinks it's silly that I would care about posting 250 wallpapers and doesn't mind watching 3 Flash animations load before they see the headlines.

It's "easy to use".

Slackware is for users like me. It's "hard to use". But life would be impossible for me without these "hard to use" tools because I do a lot of things that are "hard to do". And for that, I am hated and reviled and villified and my tools are burned in effigy for being "ELITIST"! Bring back the Inquisition, we're not done! Whoops, excuse me, was my getting any work done at all getting in the way of the people who just need a computer to chat and email and go "A/S/L? whatEVER!" at each other in Digg.com?

Hey, human race, let's never strive or achive or work to improve ourselves ever again, anybody! We wouldn't want to be labeled "Elitist", now, would we??? Damn books, throw them all away! All those authors...what elitists!

Thank you all for sitting through it again. Watch for the upcoming movie...

I've been using slackware, on and off, for most of the 2 1/2 years that I've been using linux (BTW, I'm a left wing kook and aging hippie). I've just had better luck with slackware than with other distributions. I've found that installing packages from LinuxPackages.net is almost as easy as apt-get. Well, maybe I'm overstating it. But it's certainly not difficult. It is at least as fast as debian. Easier to install. More stable (imho, I always seem to have sound problems with debian). It just works (excuse the cliche). Oh yeah, and I'm a subgenius, Praise Bob!

BTW, I've got nothing against Debian. It's a fine distro. If you prefer it to slackware then use it. I think one of the major reasons that I like slackware is that I know it better than other distros. When I run into problems, I have a better idea how to solve them. So if you know and are more comfortable with debian, then use it.

I still have to see the first distribution that does not include sed or awk. Besides that, I have seen many people who work on the GNU/Linux (such as GNU projects), who use Ubuntu as their favorite distribution. I guess that one of the main characteristics of elitism is that people think that only people in their group have some ability (for instance, intelligence or experience). People use Debian, Slack, Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora, SUSE, and many other distributions to do everything from C programming to playing games.

In the end it all boils down to taste .

It's funny how the term "elitist" is only ever used by people who think that they don't belong. In the sense of this thread, this term tells nothing about happy Slackware users but a lot about those who seem to envy us.

Ok, Hosiah needs to lay off the heroin.

Tools can accomplish "hard tasks" and yet be easy to use. For that matter, tools can accomplish "easy tasks" and be hard to use.

Let's take apt, portage and pkgtools. Which one is easier to use? *EASIER TO USE* not which one you prefer due to <some_other_reason>. I think we can all agree both apt and portage are easier to use than pkgtools, yet they all treat the same task: package management.

So, if "package management" is a DIFFICULT task, by your judgement Hosiah, the tools should be hard to use. Are apt, portage hard to use? Not quite. If "package management" is an EASY task, how come pkgtools isn't as easy to use as apt, portage?

Also, you tend to be a bit of a drama wh0.. um .. fan. You say that you use Slackware because it's got these "hard to use tools" because you need to accomplish hard to use tasks. Now, are these tasks Slackware specific? Because if not, they can be accomplished using tools available for many (most/all) other Distributions, so your argument drops. If you were referring to Slackware specific task, then please let us know which they are (*NOTE: you said you can't live without the tools that do these tasks, so think wisely before you answer).

---

Again, I think you need to lay off the heroin and the drama.

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You then go and start bashing Ubuntu users, saying Ubuntu is for people who have never heard of C++. And why is that ? What does the choice of distribution have with a person's programming skills ? For that matter, take it this way: an easy to use distribution (i.e. one that lets you upgrade/install stuff only by using a mouse), like Ubuntu, will make me spend less time maintaining it, and more time focusing on developing C/C++/Python/Perl/PHP/ASM/whatever programs.

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I think you should think twice before you post. Especially if you're going to bash distributions, and complain about how you're always trying to educate "the masses" but they never listen to a genius such as yourself.