[SOLVED] What can we do to build a larger community?

Welcome to LQ and the Slackware forum Zihen!

I hope that you discover and benefit from the philosophy behind Slackware, Unix and Free Software!

But to get there you will need to discover why Slackware is not popular with the masses, and why that is a good thing! The assumption that "larger community" of itself should be desirable is fundamentally flawed.

Leave the herd and take off the mask so we can share in your smile of delight as you explore the Freedom and Slackware!

Originally Posted by fatmac ....& there you have one of Slack's many problems as to why it isn't more popular with the masses. You might just as well use LFS.

Sorry but when did popularity with the masses become the be-all and end-all of Linux?

The reason there are many different Linux distros is that there are many different types of users. One size does not fit all. Mass usage is the Microsoft/Google philosophy.

There are people for whom Ubuntu or Mint are ideal. There are people for whom that much complexity and fragility are a pain in the proverbial. Why don't we show a bit more toleration for intellectual diversity?

And btw, what's wrong with LFS? I've more or less given it up as a way to make a full working system because build methods have become too complicated but in principal it's a wonderful idea.

@enorbet -- one of the reasons people might not want to install everything is that they don't want the menu in, for example, Xfce or KDE, spammed with dozens of applications. An option to install a bare minimum KDE desktop (or do they call it workspace?) would allow people to use just the handful of KDE applications they want while not having to look at all the unwanted, extraneous clutter in their Xfce whisker menu. Krusader, kwin and occasionally kdenlive -- that's all I want on my disk from KDE and it has absolutely nothing to do with disk space.

This is one of the few recurring grievances people have with Slackware and I for one don't see why users have to be patronised by the clique of true Slackware users around here whenever it's brought up.

@Gerard Lally: two small scripts to hide KDE apps in the menu of others desktop or show them in all desktops.

@fatmac - It's not nostalgia when you don't even know or report the facts about the installer. First you claim it's "All or Nothing" (only 2 choices) then that having 100 choices is the problem with the installer. It can't be both ways fatmac. You're just spreading FUD... kindly stop.

Hello Gerard Lally and thank you for your considered response. I wonder if you are aware that you can edit your menu or just type in the first few letters of what program you're after in the Menu Searchbar and bingo! you have it? It is still a considerable advantage to most users to have the Full Recommended Install even if only when asking for help. It is a "Known Good" common denominator in addition to assisting in handling dependencies.

Originally Posted by Zihen Sidenote: everything seems pretty (out)dated on 14.2-stable.

Hi Zihen! Your assessment is correct: Slackware-14.2 is outdated!

To remedy that situation, there is slackware-current, which is also stable. It does, however, frequently change. Many slackers read the change log, and when there are substantial or important changes, they re-sync with current, and rebuild 3rd party packages. There are a few tools to help with this: slackpkg can help sync with current, and sbopkg can help rebuild the 3rd party packages.

To switch from 14.2 to current, read the UPGRADE.txt instructions inside the slackware source directory.


As far as expanding the slackware's user base, the easiest way would be to remove the fluoride from the city water supplies.

Cheers. Welcome to slackware.

Originally Posted by enorbet It is still a considerable advantage to most users to have the Full Recommended Install even if only when asking for help. It is a "Known Good" common denominator in addition to assisting in handling dependencies.

I don't buy that argument enorbet because even if you have a full install the minute you start adding third-party applications you contaminate Slackware anyway.

Originally Posted by Gerard Lally I don't buy that argument enorbet because even if you have a full install the minute you start adding third-party applications you contaminate Slackware anyway.

Adding extra packages *usually* doesn't cause problems, but missing dependencies can certainly cause problems. If people aren't familiar enough with how to understand the compilation or runtime errors, it can lead to much more frustration than what would be experienced with a heavily populated menu.

Now, if people leave out kde, xap, or xfce, it's not as likely to run into dependency issues as leaving out libraries or development packages (since many will use SlackBuilds to build software rather than binary packages already compiled), but some programs do rely on having kde, xfce, or some packages in xap present. If a user tries to build a program relying on those without them installed and it fails to build, frustrations can abound...

Originally Posted by slac-in-the-box Hi Zihen! Your assessment is correct: Slackware-14.2 is outdated! To remedy that situation, there is slackware-current, which is also stable. It does, however, frequently change. Many slackers read the change log, and when there are substantial or important changes, they re-sync with current, and rebuild 3rd party packages. There are a few tools to help with this: slackpkg can help sync with current, and sbopkg can help rebuild the 3rd party packages. To switch from 14.2 to current, read the UPGRADE.txt instructions inside the slackware source directory. As far as expanding the slackware's user base, the easiest way would be to remove the fluoride from the city water supplies. Cheers. Welcome to slackware.

Seriously? You send a beginner to slackware-current? Now we send even the rookies to the development tree of Slackware, also known as -current?

How s/he will deal when the system will break after an update? Because sometimes it still breaks, specially when you go also Plasma5.

Originally Posted by Zihen Two years ago, I tried to install Slackware as my first linux distro. However, I failed to dual boot on a UEFI machine alongside windows after many attempts. I gave up and installed Ubuntu instead, the installation was smooth. Recently, I switched to Manjaro-i3 community edition, which is minimal and fast. I have learnt a lot more about linux. I feel like I can try slackware again. I realize the main difference between SW and the other popular distro(s) is the community support. With large community like Ubuntu, Arch and Manjaro, a lot of minor but annoying problems can be easily solved by solution provided. I know SW has a very supportive community here, but things would become better if more users join SW and start contributing. In your opinion, what can Slacker do to attract more active users? PS: I am still fresh in SW, but I would love to know how to contribute to SW. I have read slack doc, but I keen to know about personal tips and experience.

I don't think you can do much, except for using it, and if you have the time, participate in for example creating slackbuilds, or documenting stuff on a blog/site.

Gnu Linux distro's gained a lot of popularity in the last years, but I think Slackware's popularity stayed the same. So growth on one side, and stale on the other side, makes something suddenly seem less popular. Ten or fifteen years ago only tech savy people moved to Gnu Linux. Nowadays "everyone" uses Linux. But everyone is not able to do it the Slackware way, while a lot of stuff, useful or not, can be done more easily on the more popular Linux distro's.

Some other reasons:
The Slackware website seems like it is an abandoned project, except for the changelogs. This does not help. If the dev can't spend time on it, then outsource the website development to the community. That is, if you care about exposure and popularity.

The lack of a recent stable release. The install media of Slackware 14.2 comes for example with an outdated kernel which means that people with recent hardware might experience problems. There is no updated 14.2.1 release with backported stuff or updated kernel to counter that. Other projects that use Slackware as a base suffer from this as well. If you can not run it, you won't use it.

- The increase of change in toolsets/libs/programs in Linux distro's in general. Stuff is simply changing faster then in the older days. And the newer crowd wants to be part of that, which requires more work on Slackware then using apt/dnf. Not having a recent Kde/plasma, is also an issue for popularity.

Originally Posted by Zihen I realize the main difference between SW and the other popular distro(s) is the community support. With large community like Ubuntu, Arch and Manjaro, a lot of minor but annoying problems can be easily solved by solution provided. I know SW has a very supportive community here...

I've found the Slackware community to be sufficiently large to provide the community support I've needed, and indeed it is very supportive. I'm a non-technical user—I'm a musician, not a computer programmer!—and when I've looked for help out on the internet, I've often found what I've needed by reading the advice given by people using other distros. I've found, in this, that the largest communities are not necessarily the most helpful: Ubuntu forums are great for generating a lot of responses, but I see a lot of bad advice and a lot of people saying, "I have this problem too, help please?" To be sure, there's good advice in there, too, but honestly, the signal to noise ratio favors a community like this one here.

A larger community that is similarly populated by experts might be Arch—I rely heavily on their documentation, for instance—but frankly I prefer the way that Slackware works. Most of my problems aren't Slackware problems so, similar to your note, I find a lot of minor but annoying problems can be solved by searching through the Linux universe a little more broadly and not relying only on people who know the operating system that I use.

Originally Posted by LuckyCyborg Seriously? You send a beginner to slackware-current? Now we send even the rookies to the development tree of Slackware, also known as -current? How s/he will deal when the system will break after an update? Because sometimes it still breaks, specially when you go also Plasma5.

Yes I am serious--but never too serious.

Do you have a link to slackware-15 stable for the rookie who noticed how outdated 14.2 is? Zihen already has 2 years of distro hopping and has returned to Slackware to learn!

So far, I haven't experienced the system breaking after an update--but I don't use plasma5. I set up slackware64-current on my wife's laptop, and my 10-year-old's laptop, and if they can use it, anyone can. I don't really re-sync theirs very often--only if there's some kind of extreme vulnerability like spectre and meltdown and the mitigations are needed. Their laptops just purr on with slackware64-current just like they did with slackware64-14.2, and from their point of view there is no difference. From my point of view, it's easier because it's only one slackware to care for.

But in the scenario where a system breaks after an update, it will have most likely broken for others as well, who will be discussing it here, and solutions can be found just by searching their discussions. And if a solution wasn't found, then a question can be posted.

I am a permanoob: as soon as I figure one thing out, I move on and am still a noob one level deeper.

I've found that the slackware community doesn't want be bothered with noob questions that could be solved by a mere lq or google search--who likes people who want you to do their homework for them? I understand this motive, and think that's why we like keeping slackware a small community of people who know how to read the documentation first--as was expressed by many in this thread. It's that motive that fuels your exasperation for sending a rookie to the development tree: they'll end up having to ask lots of questions.

On the flipside, when intelligent noobs cite other threads and documentation--evidence that they're putting in their research hours/days/years--the slackware community is (and I hope remains) accommodating and forthcoming, which is why I'm here. If Zihen's system crashed on -current, and I happened to be signed on at LQ and paying attention, I would be willing to help. Helping at levels where I do understand I feel buys me credit for when I need assistance at levels I struggle with.

Originally Posted by fatmac ....& there you have one of Slacks many problems as to why it isn't more popular with the masses.

Yeah, but "the masses" drive automatic SUVs...

Popular doesn't mean good.

Originally Posted by EdGr Slackware emulates a traditional Unix system. This is great for people with Unix experience, and not-so-great for everyone else.

I think it runs a little deeper than that. Slackware requires the user to be comfortable using a computer from the command line. And being an old DOS-head, it suits me perfectly.

Originally Posted by EdGr On Slackware, the source code is readily available and all tools are provided to compile it.

Yeah, that's one of the best things about it. All the source code, tools, and "little tricks" are there in the box.

Originally Posted by hitest I've used Linux and BSD for 18 years; I've run a lot of different operating systems. However, when I move on to something new I don't visit the forum of another OS and tell them I no longer use their OS.

This right here. A+