What make slackware unique? Other then the way it installs, what makes it different then any other distro?

I am asking this question trying to understand linux better.

IMHO ...
1. Slack uses bare package.
No modification at all compare to the one you would find in the original author site. E.g: original kernel, KDE, GNOME, etc.

2. Slack integrates them in the simplest posible way.
If you are looking for any package's configuration,
you would find it in the generic form as explained
in the how-to or the manual.
Patrick's modification is clear, with enough comments.

3. Slack uses BSD style init. Simple to followed, hardly to be missunderstood.

Those in turn make Slack:
* Once you dig it, in a relativelly short time
you would exactly know what is going on inside your machine.
* Easy to be modified and optimized as you like.
* Less compatibility/dependency problem if you want to upgrade some packages.

Those are the most great felling I missed so much
in other big distro like Redhat, Mandrake or Suse.

To me, what makes Slack unique is its pure simplicity. I don't know how else to describe it... But I'll try anyway.

It's more hands on, meaning you have to know what you're doing in order to make something work... be it something most people take for granted (eg. the scroll wheel on the mouse), or to something more advanced (eg. getting ALSA to work on your sound card). For those who just want a "normal" workstation, this might scare them off... but for those with initiative to learn, this is pretty exciting.

Kocil mentioned BSD-style inits... to me this is a Godsend after frustrations with Sys-V inits. All I need to do is just edit or create some RC script, chmod it +x, and (if needed) link it to some of the core RC scripts.

Yet another advantage is avoiding RPM-dependency hell that plagues Red Hat and Mandrake (which I've used before). What's more interesting is the recent addition of automatic dependency checking features of Swaret.

Another useful feature of Slackware is the ability to keep it "current", ie. you do not need to wait until the next version to come out in order to update your OS. Try doing that with Red Hat or Mandrake.

Another thing that I like about Slack is that it requires me to learn about my system. Understand what makes it work or breaks it. A bonus is that many Slackers out there (especially in these forums) are veteran and helpful Linux users with years of experience.

Slack is the only distro I'd recommend, although I highly encourage friends to try out as many distros as possible and choose whichever that they like the most.

Slackware in a word is:

Simple.

It's been commonly described as the most unix like distro.

I suppose that's mostly because Slack sticks to the basics, and doesn't complicate things with much distro-specific jargon or obscurities.
It's package system is very very simple. Just untar a slack .tgz package, and you'll see what I mean -- Organized simply by what directory the binaries and files go into, and a simple info file which tells alittle about the package and what files are what.
After dealing with pkgtool, you'll hate rpm.

I'm relatively new to linux, and the common word on the street seems to be that "Slackware is hard!".

Well... Since it's so bareboned, I found it to be the easiest. The first distro I ever installed was RedHat 7.2. It installed fine, but I ran into a lot of problems with rpm and installing packages, and generally getting the hang of everyhting... After I installed it, i left it alone for quite a while because I had no Idea what I was doing.

Then I tried VectorLinux, which is an even more stripped down version of Slackware, made to run on older hardware, and supposedly easier to install.

Well, I found it was incredibly easy to install... But what surprised me was that, when I installed Slackware, the installation procedure is almost the same. Very easy, straightforward.

It's just easy, because it's simple! I dont' know how else to describe it
Everything just works, because it's unfiddled with.

-Shade

Allow me to add my view's...

Slackware is great for people who like working with text file's, the default slackware install is set up fine for those who don't, but i find it cool to be able to modify the system to meet my need's. I set up my firewall with 7 line's that give me everything i need, it seem's far more simple than the GUI I used in window's. To be honest I have not actually tried any other distribution, I went straight to Slack, because I heard about the configurability, and never looked back...I'm not done configuring yet!

As a slack n00b myself I'll second the posts about forcing you to learn.

I learned more about linux running slack for a month than I did in the year I switched around Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, EvilEntity, Knoppix. Those are all good distros but each one is quirky, and a lot of what you have to learn to do is distro specific. With runnign slack, you'll learn how the kernel / X server and thinks are configured and later if you switch distros you'll learn how to manually edit config files if you need to.

The things I like best about slack from short-time user perspective is:

1. no rpms - no dependency hell. It's so annoying using ark or some package manager for RH or mandrake to install anything. You spend most of your time hunting around obscure websites for packages you might need. I like swaret for main distro upgrades with slack, and I like pkgtool to install packages. Nice and easy. I dont' think they're quite up there with the simplicity of Debian's apt yet but swaret is a very easy way to keep your system up to date.

2. I personally think slack is a little faster than RH or Mandrake.. it feels less bloated to me.

3. Using source packages instead of rpms. I like this a lot. It allows me to make any optimizations / modifications I want. Now, I'm not a programmer but there are sometimes I can comment out something I don't need or trim down a file to make it easier for me to read. I'm sure this can be done in RH or Mandrake but it seems that they are really pushing to have a system that is very much like Windows with a different filesystem and a command line that actually is useful (as compared to windows)

Just my opinion.

That's all I have to say......AMEN !! SLACKWARE RULES!!!

9 times out of 10, if nobody else can fix your problem....a slackware guy can.

I'm not kidding here...

Slack is simple, not hard, has a small footprint. Stable. Fast. Great documentation and support.



Get some slack!

try a gentoo man.

Gento is faster and simpler than slack,
but you have to compile everything by your self.

So I would recomend gento,
if you have a fast computer and
a little bit patient to install it all night long

See yjimbo comments on
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...003/07/3/73458

I would have to disagree and say slack is quite a bit more simple than gentoo

>> I would have to disagree and say slack is quite a bit more simple than gentoo

Ouch ... you are right.
My fingers were typing a word too many. Sorry

Of course when you ask a Slackware forum what is unique about Slack, expect biased answers. Here is mine, which might be slightly less glowing.

Another word to describe Slack is: Manual Configuration (which can be a good thing).

Most distro's have various configuration programs that you are suppose to use to get things done. This might be okay if they all worked correctly. When they don't, you have to go in and manually edit the configuration files. Here is where some real differences show up:

With the "other" distro's, these files typically don't contain good comments inside of them that guide you. Because Slackware expects you to configure things this way, you will see nice comments, and examples inside these files. *BSD people tend to like Slackware because *BSD use the same well documented, manual configuration philosophy (they are even better at it IMHO).

With these "other" distro's, there are often extra unused copies of various configuration files scattered around the file system. This confuses you when you try to manually configure things because you have to figure out which one is actually used and where it might be. Slackware tends to be much cleaner about this.

With these "other" distro's, you then fight with the configuration programs that will try to undo your changes as soon as you run them to change something else. Since very few such "helping" exist programs in Slackware, nothing messes with your settings except you.

=====

Now for some downsides:

I actually like system-V init scripts. With them you can start and stop individual services at any time, and/or easily configure which ones you want to run for any given run level. This is only one reason why Slackware is a long way from complying with the "Linux Standards Base".

There is plenty of dependancy hell with Slackware too. It is just different. There is no dependency checking so when you install/upgrade something and try to run it you find out quickly what librarys are missing. You then have to go find them. The new "swaret" script helps, but I am currently having of trouble with it (typical of what I explained above). So far the best package handling I've used are Debian's "apt" tools, but they are far from perfect. I have trouble with them trying to uninstall most of your system when performing a simple upgrade (usually associated with KDE) and doesn't put it back, but I'm learning how to deal with it. Gentoo and *BSD "ports" system is good too, but you have to compile most everything yourself, which can take quite some time. There are improvements in package handling being made all the time with all distro's so at least the future looks bright.

Because of the lack of dependency checking, expect less than a stable system if you DON'T do mostly a full install of Slackware. When you pick the packages to install, you really have to be smart about it.

Slackware has kind of a small software base (well, as compared to Debian unstable's 13,000+ packages at least). Fortunately you can steal packages from other distro's and install them in slackware using various tools and with less trouble than doing this with other disto's.

PS: I think my favorite Slackware version for it's time is version 8.1. It simply installed and just ran very close to perfectly on every piece of hardware I loaded it on to. I can't say the same for *any* other OS, which unfortunately includes the later Slackwares (currently struggling along with 9.1).

>> I actually like system-V init scripts.

Try Vector Linux.
It genially combines slack's init and sysvint.
I'm very impressed.

Interesting (and recent development I guess). I used to use Vector Linux on old machines with small hard drives. I abandoned it once it started to get too big for this and started doing customized installs of Debian instead. Maybe I should give it another look and consider it where I use full-sized Slack instead?