Why Slackware ?
 

Hi All,


I am using linux for couple of years and as it is a choice on which we stop and find the right distro.
I came across that slackware being considered amongst the best surviving oldest linux distro .
I read many comments on why use it .

as :

a) its a very strong and robust distro
b) if you learn this , you learn linux whereas if you learn redhat/ubuntu you learn ubuntu.


I gave it a try and to be honest, i didnt find any much difference.


missing of simple package manager doesnt really mean its stable
as it was argued that slackware doesnt contain NOT thoroughly tested package.


I'd achieve the same thing in any of the distro.. isnt it

If I take example of Ubuntu.
a) it also gives an option to use only stable packages. ( whihc are fully tested by Ubuntu team )
b) you can tweak anything using commandline as you do in slackware.
c) Ubuntu also provides some very good supported package which slackware not very easily.


one argument, that slackware doesnt patch any code and it uses or represent same as developer wanted.
I doubt that... ??

If ubuntu or any other distro needed to patch it. its because of exetended support and to more precisely fit into it.
one size doesn't fit all hence all other distro also change based on needs.
thats whay probably slackware also do get them running.


Its just a KDE/Gnome/XFCE sitting on top of kernel doing all job.. isnt it..


So where does the big difference come?
I'm not offending , but want to realize how slackware is considered as most advanced comparing to other distro.


Your answers would really help me taking a break and to finalize the distro, which I wont change later.


Cheers!!

I think you've already answered it as well as any of us would:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post3932034

right! :hattip:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post3932034

.

RedHat and Ubuntu have differences (including package management) so learning RedHat is NOT learning Ubuntu.

To say you don't learn Linux when using Ubuntu or RedHat is a lot like saying you don't learn to drive a car if you drive an automatic instead of a stick. It just isn't so - it is simply an elitist opinion of people that don't want to do anything else. You can add new software versions to both Ubuntu and RedHat outside their patching methodologies the same way you can to Slackware or any other distro by compiling the sources.

If these pinheads really want to have full control it seems they should be doing "Linux from Scratch" rather than Slackware.

Discussions like these are "religious" in nature. They believe what they believe because they believe it and you're not going to change their minds any more than they're going to change yours.

For a corporate environment though using Slackware means they're likely not going to get competent professionals (as RedHat and Suse are the dominant commercial distributions) or even most hobbyists as from what I can see most of them love and use Ubuntu. Your argument to your manager then might be "Who do you hire to work on it if the Slackware fans leave?"

I had used Slackware at home for a while. I actually switched from Red Hat 9 to Slackware,(8-9 maybe.. I can't remember, I did upgrade to Slackware 10) Then I switched to CentOS for pretty much this reason:



I wanted to work as a Linux Admin in a professional environment and given the area I live in RHEL(CentOS as well) is the dominant Linux distro.

Because Slackware seems to me being a solid and well documented distribution that lets me do things the way I like to, e.g. compiling additional software from source and handling it with the Slackware package tools makepkg, installpkg, removepkg, etc.

The answer I always give when people ask me why I run Slackware is "because I have Slackware webpages to maintain."

Hi,

Pinhead? Go back under the bridge pinhead troll.

Commercial is the keyword that you used.

If your happy with paying then by all means then do so.
Don't come to a Slackware forum with poor arguments and weak at that which are nothing more than babble. Talk about religious then your speaking in 'tongues' and probably no one to interpret properly anyway. Poor!

You don't know control let alone a GNU/Linux distribution as to how it should truthfully and trustfully function or how to maintain a decent reliable system. Got your RHCE? Send it to me and I'll put it to good use. TP! I can't though, my septic would get messed up by using the cheap cert paper to wipe. I guess it could be done and then sent back to you fully certified. :)
:hattip:

A little early in the discussion for this, don't you think?

You're saying that professionals competent with Slackware are too few in number, and it would be expensive to find a replacement?

le rofl....

It's not. IMO it's the least advanced. And that's why I like it.

Slackware is the AK-47 of linux Distros. It may not be as technically advanced as an Armalite, but thanks to its simplicity (and in some places downright crudeness) there's really not that much that can go wrong.

Well, that's how I see it anyway.


Use what you like, and let other folk use what they like and the rest will attend to itself.

Agreed!
Spot on! =)

Slackware uses BSD-style init scripts (which I prefer), whereas every other major distro in the civilized world uses SysV init scripts. So no, with Slackware you do not learn 'Linux' in general (nor is it possible to learn 'Linux' as applicable to all distros -- you can learn about common GNU/Linux tools or the Linux kernel, but every distro has their own management systems).

I don't know how you can say that...Slackware starts in runlevel 3, it only releases software updates for major bugs or security vulnerabilities, it has no official third-party repository, it (again) uses BSD-style init scripts...there are *many* differences between Slackware and most other distros. Whether these differences are better or not is subjective.

Every distro attempts to thoroughly test their software. Slackware just has a habit (which is changing because of upstream pressure from projects like KDE...but certainly this was true a few releases ago) of using old, proven stable software instead of bleeding edge software, and it does not update software for the sake of updating software. This is the main pull for Slackware to me. I do not like updating software just because there is an update...I do not like updating 4 or more packages every time I turn on my PC. Others may see this as a bad thing if they like to run new software.

Mostly true. The stability issues with other distros may come from using software from third-party repositories which may not be tested by the core Ubuntu team. This is ignored in Slackware because there *are* no officially supported third-party repositories.

Slackware indeed does not patch anything unless necessary, for the most part. We can use vanilla kernels, which is just not possible in many other distros. By using a vanilla kernel, it means we get only the code known to be stable on *ALL* Linux distros since it represents the common code -- there is no code supported exclusively by Slackware developers which would represent a severely smaller base of testers. Other distros patch their kernels out the wazoo, for good or bad, and this certainly can (though not necessarily necessitates) lower stability.

In Slackware, yes. In others, it's patched KDE/Gnome/XFCE sitting on top of a patched kernel doing their job. Whether those patches are 100% stable and secure is questionable especially considering the number of patches applied to software in some (though not all) distros. The Slackware faithful would point you here which for many indicates why all patches should be pushed *upstream* instead of trying to fracture the developer base, which can create bad scenarios like the above. Slackware was never vulnerable because that patch was never applied.

There are differences. It is not more advanced than other distros. Whether or not you like those differences is subjective. If you like them, give Slackware a try. If not, there are plenty of other distros more suited for you in the ether.


Some of us do not want to spend hours scouring the web for security vulnerabilities or bugfixes, or do not wish to build an entire system from scratch, including compiling major software packages like X, QT4, etc. which take a long, long time (and certainly some knowledge, especially with the iffy state of the latest xorg). Thank you for the complement though; my head does resemble a pin and I am proud of it.

I like what I like because I like it. (See? You're not the only one who can write nonsense.)
Elitist? No. Definitely not.
Pinhead? Maybe. I've been called a lot worse.