• BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
    0·
    20 days ago

    I used to Slackware that time when RedHat’s package system constantly broke, and no internet so I couldn’t use Debian.

    Good times.

    • azimir@lemmy.ml
      0·
      20 days ago

      The annoying younger sibling?

      After a run of RedHat - Fedora - OpenBSD - OSX to about 2007, I gave Debian more of a try in the form of #! Linux. That was a great minimalist distro. Ever since then it’s just one Debian variant or another. It does the job with minimal fuss.

      It really helps that I don’t push the hardware with shiny new equipment or need much in 3D drivers. Linux Mint on desktops, Debian servers, Ubuntu only for driver issues, Raspian/Armbian on SBCs.

      • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        0·
        20 days ago

        I’m partial to installing vanilla, headless Debian and then frankensteining everything together myself from there.

        • azimir@lemmy.ml
          0·
          19 days ago

          Nothing but the basics that way!

          The hardest core version I saw someone do that was long ago. My best friend and I were using OpenBSD back in early 2000’s. He installed a minimal install. From there he pulled the source tree makefiles. Then he started running make on Mozilla (pre firefox days). He just kept building, patching, fixing, and hammering away. Eventually he built the whole GUI environment, dependencies, and Mozilla which took that computer months to complete it all.

          Today, he’s the lead engineer for a massive tech company.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
          0·
          19 days ago

          Same. There’s a lot of options in open source software, and so I try different applications until I figure out which I like best. Then apt sorts out how to make it all work.

  • nesc@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    What’s the point of slakware, what exactly does it offer? When I was new arch user 15 years ago it was exactly the same, sparse updates, no package manager, limited support.

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
      0·
      20 days ago

      I mean, if you’re an arch user you probably should get it, given it’s kinda the same train if thought that brings most arch users to choose that.

      The point is being a barebones system you can do what you want on top of, it tries to avoid making any choice for you.

      I’ve kinda often thought of it as the step between LFS and Gentoo/Arch for users who want the most control over their system.

    • Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world
      0·
      20 days ago

      Patrick Volkerding

      Slackware users love the fact that precious Patrick builds the entire thing himself. They also really like the fact that it uses no modern Linux technologies, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

    • mech@feddit.orgOP
      0·
      20 days ago

      It’s a unique combination of extreme stability and extreme KISS philosophy.
      Sparse updates are a selling point for some people. You do get timely security updates, but you don’t get “version number must go up”.
      For installing additional software there are 5 package managers that I know of, 4 of which resolve dependencies.
      The base system doesn’t need a fancy one because the installer already resolves all dependencies.
      And as for support, there’s well-written documentation installed with the system, and linuxquestions.org has a very active community where the main dev and the maintainers post regularly.
      It’s certainly not a good distro for most people, but it’s the perfect one for roughly 10000 users worldwide.

  • Resplendent606@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    Here is what I don’t understand about Slackware. Why does the installer recommend on installing everything. Not just a few applications most people might need. It recommends everything. Of course you can do a more minimalist installation but the installer recommends against it. Every application possible.

    • mech@feddit.orgOP
      0·
      20 days ago

      Because Slackware doesn’t have dependency resolution in the base system.
      Additional software you install from slackbuilds includes dependency info, but dependencies that are in the base system aren’t mentioned.
      The maintainers test against a full installation and anyone giving support assumes you have a full system. You can do a more minimal install but then you’re on your own. Similar to installing Arch without following the wiki.

      • Resplendent606@piefed.socialEnglish
        0·
        20 days ago

        Thank you for the great reply. I am not saying one way is better but coming from Debian that was very foreign to me. I have a lot of respect for Slackware and people who use it.

        • mech@feddit.orgOP
          0·
          19 days ago

          It is very foreign today and stems from a time without wide-spread internet access.
          A distribution was a set of software on physical media. You bought it, you installed it, and your system stayed like that until the next release. So it made sense to include the kitchen sink. That way, the same distribution was useful to everyone, regardless of use case or personal preference.

    • Lee@retrolemmy.com
      0·
      20 days ago

      Slackware was my first and I didn’t know that package managers existed (or maybe they didn’t at the time) to resolve dependencies and even if they did, they probably lagged on versions. I learned true dependency hell when trying to build my own apache, sendmail, etc from source while missing a ton of dependency libraries (or I needed newer versions) and then keeping things relatively up to date. Masochistic? Definitely for me, but idk how much of that was self inflicted by not using the package tool. Amazing learning at the time. This would have been mainly Slackware 3.x and 4.x. I switched to Debian (not arch BTW).

    • mech@feddit.orgOP
      0·
      20 days ago

      You certainly learn a lot about paths, environment variables and compile options.

        • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
          0·
          18 days ago

          I guess I don’t have that problem. Just received ten 256 to 500gb sata ssd of various brands. They were going to recycle due to microsofts stance on windows 11 compatibility. Just reloaded 31 dell 7440/7450 AIO computers with zorin. Local library is going to give them out to kids.

            • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
              0·
              18 days ago

              Its not hard to accumulate a few extras right at this moment. There are so many computers being scrapped all you have to do is get involved recycling them for the needy. Those ten SSD are going back out. I’m wiping them with ShredOS right now to go out in computers for kids. We even receive some gen 8 or better intel computers that get replaced with all the older machines. The hard part is convincing companies and institutions to let us have them with memory and storage attached. We do a DOD wipe on them all.

    • mech@feddit.orgOP
      0·
      18 days ago

      Here’s a good up-to-date installation guide which mentions the most common pitfalls:
      https://ratfactor.com/slackware/new-computer
      Note that the author uses Slackware’s default elilo bootloader. I prefer installing grub, which will be the default in the next release.

      To install grub during installation:
      https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/howto-install-grub-on-slackware-with-efi-4175727510-print/

      Afterwards, you’ll probably want to:

      • change to default runlevel 4 in /etc/inittab, to boot into a graphical desktop
      • install and setup slackpkgplus, a plugin to Slackware’s package manager that lets you use additional repositories, especially the alienbob repo
      • install flatpak from that repo to make your life easier

      But I can’t stress enough that if you’re just looking for a good, functional Linux distro, this isn’t the right one.
      It’s a museum piece. You’ll face issues that other distro’s maintainers have solved or hidden away long ago.
      It takes a special kind of curiosity and interest in the history of Linux to enjoy this as a new user.
      And the only reward is an operating system so simple you’ll soon know every part of it inside and out, and which won’t change on you or do anything unexpected.

    • nesc@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      0·
      20 days ago

      Looks familiar, like every second book from sci-fi golden age. You can read, Sargasso of Space.

    • __hetz@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      20 days ago

      Cover of Utopia Zukunftsroman #299, 1961 by Karl Stephan. I’d never heard of it but it reminded me of the cover art for Truckfighters’ album “Gravity X” (which itself is from the cover of an issue of Space:1999). Turns out he didn’t do that cover but he did actually do some work for Space:1999.

        • __hetz@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          20 days ago

          Sure thing. I got on a fuzz rock and stoner metal kick for a while and that album cover stuck with me. Then the usual compulsion took over and I ended up on a deep dive through old sci-fi, pulp comics, etc.