Slackware This Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
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04-08-2004, 06:30 PM
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#1
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Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: teddy bears Land
Distribution: Slackware 10
Posts: 176
Rep:
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why slackware is so Unix like?
i have tried out several linux distros, like mandrake, redhat, fedora, conectiva, suse, knoppix, even debian. they all have similar working on, similar commands stuff and initscripts boot up. well, i even tried once Openbsd for a few days i delete it cause i found it to be very limited in apps stuff, well when i firts install slackware and begin to use it, i found it so similar to BSD issues, the install process, the xfree configuration is the same one that BSD runs, and even the slack interface in X windows system work a little similar to BSD flavors, not to say that others linux work similar, they don't in fact. i was a little confuse and lost when i begin using slack, cause it was so different compare to others friendly and not friendly (debian) distros. i have a friend who use debian, and sometimes doesn't understand why slackware work the way it does, i not saying that for this reason slack is bad, it isn't i love the way slack runs, fast and stable. but for newbie people or for people who have use several distros, working the same way is a little confuse at the beginning, maybe is just my imagination but i found slackware is very similar to a BSD flavor, is like an open door between linux and BSD. or i may be wrong.
comparing slack to other linux distro:
1-slack doesn't have dependencies stuff, most all the other distros do.
2-slack use system V rc. scripts to boot up, other distros not, at least the one i have use.
3-why does slack doesn't have folder that save your config files, like network folder in debian, or sysconfig in other linux distros.
4-why slack don't let you use X app stuff like all the other distros, i mean for example if i login as root in a terminal and i want to modify something i do kwrite file.conf and slack say error can't connect to X server???? why happens this? this action is properly of BSd system not linux system. and let's not forgot the fortune cookie games tipical of BSD system, so if slack is a linux system, why is so similar to BSd?
5-if you lose something, like root passw, problems whit lilo, etc.. and you whant to enter to slack whitout root passw, the command linux single doesn't work here, and in all the other linux distro do (all the ones i have use).
Last edited by little_ball; 04-08-2004 at 06:46 PM.
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04-08-2004, 06:51 PM
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#2
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Member
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Germany
Distribution: Slackware 14
Posts: 87
Rep:
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Hello,
Quote:
4-why slack don't let you use X app stuff like all the other distros, i mean for example if i login as root in a terminal and i want to modify something i do kwrite file.conf and slack say error can't connect to X server????
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well, if you don't like it that way, a little script would help:
Code:
#!/bin/sh
DISPLAY=:0
XAUTHORITY=/home/hp/.Xauthority
export DISPLAY XAUTHORITY
exit 0
Ok, it's a bit "quick'n' dirty", but I think it should work.
cu
hp_tux
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04-08-2004, 06:59 PM
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#3
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Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: teddy bears Land
Distribution: Slackware 10
Posts: 176
Original Poster
Rep:
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Hello, is not that i don't like the stuff of X displays errors, (by the way thanks for the script, do you have one that could make some theme of superkaramba boot up too when i login to kde ) is not that, i just wonder why slack act like this, i have a friend that say is cause slack have a lot bad configure packages and xfree may have be bad configure i don't believe that cause BSD act the same way, im just curious about why slack it supposed to be a linux distro, why it work so much as a BSD one.
Last edited by little_ball; 04-08-2004 at 07:03 PM.
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04-08-2004, 07:09 PM
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#4
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Member
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Germany
Distribution: Slackware 14
Posts: 87
Rep:
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Hello,
Quote:
i just wonder why slack act like this
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well, I think it's because it's just more secure! Linux is a REAL multiuser OS, and I think that my little script only makes sense if you work alone on your machine.
cu
hp_tux
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04-08-2004, 07:15 PM
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#5
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Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: teddy bears Land
Distribution: Slackware 10
Posts: 176
Original Poster
Rep:
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excuse me but i don't see any security issues in give error when try to connect to X, i mean if someone login whit ssh to your host, why he or she would run some X app in your home??? this is not any security stuff at least not for me, and there always another way to do that, you could use vim instead or gcc, etc.
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04-08-2004, 07:44 PM
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#6
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Member
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Germany
Distribution: Slackware 14
Posts: 87
Rep:
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Hello,
oh, I'm no expert regarding to that, but I think, when X-server and X-client communicate over a network, the data may could be hacked, and a cracker may find some vulnerabilities. When there are no data, the cracker would have no chance - no, there would be some more difficulties for him I suppose...
cu
hp_tux
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04-08-2004, 08:04 PM
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#7
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Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: teddy bears Land
Distribution: Slackware 10
Posts: 176
Original Poster
Rep:
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ohh i'm not an expert either on crack stuff i'm newbie in fact, but i do know that most of the attacks are made by exploits and buffer overflow i found very obsolete the stuff of finding data over the net, however it still could be possible to a malicious people to try out this option who knows slack it still giving me surprises
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04-08-2004, 08:05 PM
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#8
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Naperville, Illinois
Distribution: Gentoo, CentOS, SuSE
Posts: 14
Rep:
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Why use it....
I guess my simple question would be; Why are you using Slackware? You stated that you have tried several, but you are using Slack. Hmmm! Slackware is the best distro out there and I guess that could be why. Just curious.
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04-08-2004, 08:19 PM
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#9
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Member
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Germany
Distribution: Slackware 14
Posts: 87
Rep:
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Hello,
Quote:
Slackware is the best distro out there
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yes, I think it's the work of a genius!
cu
hp_tux
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04-08-2004, 08:44 PM
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#10
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Senior Member
Registered: May 2003
Location: Malaysia
Distribution: Slackware, LFS, CentOS
Posts: 1,307
Rep:
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First of all, it's not recommended you run X as root.
You should login as a normal user and if you need to run some apps as root, just open a terminal and enter su. Enter your root password when prompted and then run the X app.
However, (no offence) but I think that running an X-based editor to edit config files is overkill. If vi or emacs seem too complex, you might want to try pico or joe which is more like DOS's edit
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04-08-2004, 08:45 PM
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#11
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Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: teddy bears Land
Distribution: Slackware 10
Posts: 176
Original Poster
Rep:
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why i am using slackware??? i will answer,
1-slack runs very fast in a pentium 300 Mhz. the others distros above, i could drink a coffee eat a donut and they all still booting up.
2-slack upgrade are inmediately the advisory bug is release, you just go to their site and find a new stable package to upgrade, instead all the linux i use above, have cute upgrade software like drake, yast, up2date, apt, what for? if they just give you the same package you have in your release just patched.
3-you don't have to wait to next release of slackware to have all your package to the newest, a swaret --upgrade to current it's enough. all the others distros in this case force you to wait.
4-slack give you all his source code, (debian too let's not take off credit for this) but.. is a little hard to understand why if slack bring you all his code, is less vulnerable that mandrake, redhat, suse ( most comercial than free) and even debian, if you don't believe me check out www.linuxsecurity.org and compare how buggy are all the others distro compare to slack updates packages.
5-slackware is not have bad configure packages, it just have more security issues that make him act like this.
i'm not complaining about slack, i just want to find reasons why it acts like this to know how to explain it to my friends.
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04-08-2004, 09:39 PM
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#12
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Member
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 173
Rep:
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I use Slackware precisely because it is like the BSDs. I moved to slackware from FreeBSD because my new laptop did not have hardware support in BSD. I found Slackware to be quite easy to pick up.
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04-08-2004, 09:45 PM
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#13
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Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: Tokyo - Japan
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 348
Rep:
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I'll start from your initial question on the first post and go on through the others:
1-slack doesn't have dependencies stuff, most all the other distros do.
The guy who created Slackware, Patrick J. Volkerding, decided that slackware would not fall in the "dependencie-hell" that the dependencie-based distro gives you. You know, try to install something on debian not through .deb packages... it will not recognize your installation, it will want to install the version it has from that package (which you don't want) and you're in hell! :P So, to avoid this Patrick said he won't support dependencie-based packages.
2-slack use system V rc. scripts to boot up, other distros not, at least the one i have use.
Actually all the distros you used ARE based on System V boot scripts. Slackware is based on the BSD boot scripts, just like *BSDs (freeBSD, openBSD, etc). That comes from the ancient days of unix and linux But slackware remains this way because another thing Patrick wanted is that slackware was the most standard distro out there. If you check directory structure from slack 3.6 and 9.1 you'll see that changes are minimal. Then you can always rely on slackware. Knowledge gained once is knowledge for ever!
3-why does slack doesn't have folder that save your config files, like network folder in debian, or sysconfig in other linux distros.
Once again, this is from the ancient days of slackware, 10 years ago... above answer might answer this too.
4. Question 4 was already answered. That's such a hole you know. Because that doesn't involve only root. I've been doing some testing on remote control, and I was able to open a GUI software (KPaint) from my computer in another system, and the GUI was showing on the other computer! X system is a server as anyone else... You're just so vulnerable as your servers are.
5-if you lose something, like root passw, problems whit lilo, etc.. and you whant to enter to slack whitout root passw, the command linux single doesn't work here, and in all the other linux distro do (all the ones i have use).
Security on and on! If you want to do that type on LILO (change hda1 to your linux root partition)
linux root=/dev/hda1 init=/bin/bash rw
root=/dev/hda1 tells the boot to mount /dev/hda1 as your root partition, init=/bin/bash tells the boot to not start the normal scripts but to give you a shell instead
4-slack give you all his source code, (debian too let's not take off credit for this) but.. is a little hard to understand why if slack bring you all his code, is less vulnerable...
That's why! because all the code is available! as slack users don't rely on .rpm or .deb files, we just have our .tgz files and source code - that's the good thing about not having dependencie system, you can install part from packages part from source without problem - it's easier to take a look at the source code, tweak it, improve it and give improvement away to the community! (if you want to compile source code but still manage your software through .tgz packages take a look at checkinstall... you can grab the slackware package at: http://www.linuxpackages.net)
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04-08-2004, 09:46 PM
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#14
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Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: Tokyo - Japan
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 348
Rep:
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Man, this was a long post but I hope I can help you guys starting with slackware in every way I can!
Be Happy! Slack it.
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04-08-2004, 10:26 PM
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#15
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Member
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Upstate NY
Distribution: Slackware/YDL
Posts: 77
Rep:
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Slackware is more geared toward being the Right Thing than Newbie Friendly.
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