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1 • Imaging a drive and compressing it (by Yan on 2022-02-14 01:47:28 GMT from Canada)
The solution proposed will copy the entire disk, including unused sectors, which probably contain old data. This will make the image larger than it has to be, and hurt compression.
One solution is to create a file as big as the free space, fill it with zeroes, and then delete it:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dummyfile rm dummyfile
2 • Slackware - not just for old-timers (by Andy Prough on 2022-02-14 01:57:43 GMT from Luxembourg)
I first tried Slackware two years ago, after having used GNU/Linux since the late 90s. I disagree with Jesse's contention that there's no appeal for new users. I thought it was incredible, and felt like it lets you fully immerse yourself in running a system the right way, rather than having a bunch of bloated interfaces that don't even make computing less complex or more efficient (here's looking at you, systemd). I did not keep using it at the time, as I kept hearing version 15 was right around the corner. Now that 15 is here, I intend to make a daily driver out of it.
3 • Imaging a drive (by Franks RedHot on 2022-02-14 02:14:57 GMT from United States)
A long time ago, I used to archive my system by "cp -a"ing the partitions to an archive partition. I know its not imaging, but it was a fast way to backup/restore, even on that slower computer.
Just sayin...
4 • Slackware mostly for old computers as well. (by Noor on 2022-02-14 02:20:17 GMT from United States)
I tried to install Slackware 15 on few year old laptop and it seemed to be confused by UEFI and emmc. There's very little documentation to help get it running and what tricks I know didn't work. I don't think there's been no progress in the last 20 years but I agree with the conclusion for maybe the last 10 years Slackware has made so little progress that I likely won't be coming back. My laptop is happily back on Ubuntu.
5 • Slackware (by Debian based D. User on 2022-02-14 02:21:35 GMT from United States)
I have used Slackware in the distant past only one time. And never used it again.
I did Vote: I have not tried Slackware Because I do not use it.
Some times It is difficult to Vote, this Opinion Pool.. Or maybe. I do not understand.
Then there is times, where the Opinion Pool is easy to place a Vote..
6 • Slackware (by Terry on 2022-02-14 03:03:41 GMT from United States)
I tried Slackware when it first came out in the early 90's. Those days Linux was only command line driven with color files and folder font displays. All you could do is basic linux commands and that was it. Slackware at that time was one of 3 flavors of linux that existed and nothing else. Flavors were: Debian, Redhat and Slackware. Nothing else existing except for Unix. Drivers for hardware for PC's are so few and lots of incompatibility. So Slackware comes a long way and still staying around the same said for Debian and Redhat!
7 • Slackware (by Jorge on 2022-02-14 03:51:34 GMT from Argentina)
I don't get the review as Slackware refuses to accept almost all change, it also misses out on all the progress made in the past two decades.
Flatpak and AppImage are ready outofthebox in Zenwalk by example . So it is proof that we can use such portable features in Slackware
All cross platform packages and libs are available and updated as well as any modern distro. So I am disagree with this review .. installer could be ancient but is the same one for this long time that currently people still known. So people could keep installing this distro in the same way as people did the last 20 years.. so I don't get the point when a distro should change the things that still working.
Improve is have a software ready to do and work whenever and wherever we need. The facts Slackware still doing as any modern distro.. thanks
8 • Slackware (by Matt on 2022-02-14 04:17:21 GMT from United States)
I tried Slackware somewhere around 2002 or 2003. I was proud of myself after successfully installing it. However, I ended up switching to Debian because of apt. I have used Debian continuously in some form or another since then.
I hate to say anything bad about Slackware. It is like insulting a decorated veteran. I respect Slackware, but I have to be honest and say that I agree with the review. If you want an advanced, fast, and simple distro, there are lots of other choices that offer major advantages: Void, Artix, Arch, Devuan....
9 • Slackware (by ASG on 2022-02-14 04:57:09 GMT from Australia)
I thought this was a very reasonable review. Slackware certainly appeals to a certain subsection of Linux users, but for most people who are fine with grub, systemd, etc. the review is spot on.
10 • Slackware (by Somewhat Reticent on 2022-02-14 06:34:22 GMT from United States)
Nice to see the churn-madness planets align long enough for Pat to crank out a full distro. Perhaps I mis-marked the poll - I met Slackware indirectly, through live ISOs and offspring, just as I deal with DebIan indirectly. I remember Kongoni with fondness, and hope Porteus prospers. The LiveSlak project by AlienBob has several live hybrid ISOs for the curious to try; there's Absolute and Zenwalk as well. Looking at Wikipedia I was surprised OpenSuSE's roots came from this fine tree. I don't believe Slackware is the only holdout against "modern" fashion trends.
11 • Slackware Documentation Project (by Microlinux on 2022-02-14 06:49:56 GMT from France)
Hi Jesse,
You might want to take a peek at the official Slackware Documentation Project at http://docs.slackware.com. I myself have contributed a few articles there.
12 • Slackware (by Dan on 2022-02-14 06:55:48 GMT from United States)
I have never tried Slackware, but did try Slackware based Slackel, and Absolute Linux.
13 • Slackware (by Hoos on 2022-02-14 07:05:40 GMT from Singapore)
I've not tried Slackware itself, but have tried a few of its derivatives, like Zenwalk, Salix, Slackel. I seem to recall that the 1st 2 used Slackware's text based installer though this was quite a few years ago.
It's not the greatest installer if you dual or multiboot on your machine, since choosing a swap partition means it's reformatted over, even if it was an existing swap. There is no choice to reuse existing swap. That changes the uuid of said swap, which means the fstab details of swap in your other installed distros are no longer valid. During bootup, systemd distros that cannot find swap anymore as a result will go into their 90-second check procedure, which is annoying. You'd have to edit your fstab file in your other distros to reflect the new uuid.
Slackel (Slackware Current + Salix) was an interesting variant with its own GUI installer that had more fine-grained control over installation, including whether to have a swap partition or even to install bootloader or not. It lasted a few years on my machine unlike the other 2, which I wiped within a few days.
14 • Ubuntu Hardware info tool (by Hank on 2022-02-14 08:11:50 GMT from Germany)
So now ubuntu has a tool similar to the inxi we have been using for ages on antiX and MX Linux. Progress I guess it is called. Gnome is still a lumbering memory hog and the so called lightweight ubuntu versions feel sluggish slow compared to any distro running ICEWM.
15 • Slackware (by Someguy on 2022-02-14 08:57:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ah, yes! In the days before W95, command line was king(queen?!) and typos could ruin hours of work. Slackware was so much better than RH and much easier than Autocode ...
16 • Slackware (by Simon on 2022-02-14 09:12:48 GMT from New Zealand)
Interesting, and I think accurate, observations re Slackware and its users...and interesting to see the poll confirm some of this (I'm a Slackware fan and will probably give this version a spin once slackbuilds.org catches up...and yes, I started using it in the late 1990s, like most other Slackers from the looks of things). I agree that for many people it may not be worth the effort, and there's no doubt that it's a relief, after getting used to Slackware, to install some new tool (like an online meeting client or whatever) in a hurry on a modern distro like Ubuntu by just typing one command, waiting a few seconds, and everything's ready to go.
However, I wonder how many people actually make the effort, to find out if it's worth it? Probably not many: they'll maybe give it a quick spin and decide it's too unfinished and not for them. If you invest the time in setting things up properly...trimming the fat out of the default install and the (easily editable) boot scripts, setting up whatever scripts you want for managing packages, and then building and configuring all the non-standard packages you want to use...it's a beautiful distro, much faster and leaner than most, rock-solid, and (perhaps best of all, in some contexts) amazingly friendly to builds of new software from upstream (distro-independent) source. Chucking together a build script takes seconds (from templates) once you're used to it, and Slackware's policy of sticking to basic upstream configurations and avoiding layers of complexity means that building upstream packages from source often "just works" as if you were building native (in the official packages) software on another distro (from SRPMs or deb sources or whatever).
So, it's not just nostalgia: I love it because it's tidy, simple, stable and trustworthy...it just does whatever you tell it to do, year after year...it has a fast, predictable feel to it that makes other distros feel clunky and complex by comparison. But, yes, it's not much fun if you suddenly need to install a package for an urgent meeting or whatever: what can be done in seconds on modern distros can take several minutes on Slackware...or even hours, if you're unlucky enough to need something that requires lots of non-standard (non-Slackware) libraries. It's a distro for people who'd rather understand their systems (and so need systems simple enough to understand) than trust to automation, so it has the pros and cons of that and will always appeal more to old-school UNIX-heads than modern ex-Windows users. I'm glad it's still around.
17 • Slackware (by eee on 2022-02-14 09:57:09 GMT from Poland)
"There is no welcome message, no first-run wizard." - this is not quite true. When You first log in as root, You can see a message: "You have mail". By typing "mail", You can read a Welcome message with a lot of useful information.
@16 - Nice to read. I agree
18 • Imaging a Drive (by tonny on 2022-02-14 11:57:34 GMT from Indonesia)
For imaging drive, we can use fsarchiver.
19 • Slackware (by oily on 2022-02-14 12:23:43 GMT from United States)
I first tried Slackware around 2000-2001, so had to answer accordingly. However, despite using it on and off over the following years (reflecting my only occasional use of Linux in general), I only started using it in earnest a couple of years ago with the end of support for Windows 7, having decided that would be the time I moved over to using Linux properly, so I'm effectively still a fairly new user.
Yes, you have to get your hands dirty on occasion, but I appreciate its simplicity, it doesn't limit me in any way, I can do what I need to with it, and find it a very useable and reliable system. A lot of things that used to take some pushing and shoving to work in the past just work without any intervention now, as they would with other distros. Slackpkg has been faultless for me, LILO is simple and easy to use, and the disc space needed for a full install isn't the slightest challenge even for my 13 year old laptop, nor is building any packages I want that aren't included.
There are many different distros, and many do things their own way. Unfortunately this review confuses Slackware doing its own thing with a refusal to accept change, they're not the same thing. A lot has changed in Slackware, both over the years and since the last release, though that's perhaps more from the angle of making changes when there's a good reason to do so, rather than change for change's sake, which can bring its own problems and doesn't necessarily constitute progress either.
20 • Slackware 15 (by Amilcar Pereira on 2022-02-14 12:39:08 GMT from Brazil)
The slackpkg fail is intolerable after more than five years of "development", so is the installer ignoring GRUB as an option even being GRUB included in the distro! Slackware 14.2 was the last version worth using, specially in SLACKEL derivative.
21 • Slackware (by Jesse on 2022-02-14 12:52:32 GMT from Canada)
@11: "Hi Jesse, You might want to take a peek at the official Slackware Documentation Project"
Not only did I check it out, I linked to it in my review.
@17: "There is no welcome message, no first-run wizard." - this is not quite true. When You first log in as root, You can see a message: "You have mail". By typing "mail", You can read a Welcome message with a lot of useful information
Your statement was accurate for past versions of Slackware. In fact, I was specifically looking for this mail message when I installed Slackware 15.0. It did not appear. Maybe it relies on a package I removed, maybe it was dropped for this version. Either way, it did not appear this time. So, yes, my statement is quite true. When I signed in as root the first time there was no indication of mail waiting like there was in previous versions.
22 • +1 fsarchiver to image partitions (by Bird Lopers on 2022-02-14 13:03:14 GMT from Australia)
@ tonny, agreed, @ Jesse, fsarchiver is an excellent tool, on SystemRescue no less... check out fsarchiver dot org :)
check /To partition is mounted & has enough room, don't mount From-partition & just use device name, or mount read-only
sudo fsarchiver -v savefs /To/fs_date.fsa /dev/sdz4
does great compression by default :) for # threads: -j # for encryption: -c -
(you could then e.g. sudo chown -v 1000:1000 /To/*.fsa if you wanted to move archive around easily...)
it can restore data to partition of different size than original as long as enough space
it can restore data on different file-system, e.g. you can backup an ext4 partition then restore it as btrfs
23 • Slackware (by pfb on 2022-02-14 13:10:27 GMT from United States)
I first installed Slackware 0.8 (or maybe 0.9) on a 286 machine. It had TKDesk as a window manager. The Redhat maintainers at work were impressed that I had TKDesk. A bit later, I got a 386 and heard about Mandrake Linux. I became a distro hopper. But I still have a warm spot in my heart for Slackware. I just installed it on a laptop, and am hoping Slackbuilds will catch up shortly.
24 • Slackware (by crayolaeater on 2022-02-14 13:19:42 GMT from United States)
I first tried Slackware as an alternative to Win 3.1, and the projected new Win 95. It was aquired on a 4 cd set from Walnut [Grove? Creek?] (if you remember them). As I recall, the base install went rather painlessly, and I had my cli boot through LILO, dual booting Windows as well after a quick edit. I seem to remember that all my hardware was recognized, but I did have to visit the HowTo files to get ALSA set-up to work, and to figure out how to manage my modem and dial-up network. My dial-up was a unix shell, so I had a very minimal base knowledge of how to proceed, (which in fact is partly why I tried Slackware in the first place - an extension of the unix user space to the home box seemed a natural way to go).
It was for me a great first experience to Linux land, and I learned a lot. It took a good while before Linux bcame my main driver, and it was with a Slackware derivitive. I've since moved to Debian, mostly because it gives me a bit more freedom without all the hard work. Yet I still try to keep touch with Slackware, and think it might be a way to reclaim the fresh experience of Linux again.
25 • Slackware (by Jay on 2022-02-14 13:23:31 GMT from Netherlands)
Slackware was my first Linux; without it I couldn't have run kernel 1.0.1. I miss running it in some ways - most Linux distros are significantly different nowadays and Linux's a much more complex thing to deal with than it used to be.
I'm with @2 and @6; Andy and Terry have it right. I currently run an Arch variant and am satisfied with what I can do with it, but I miss the well-integrated simplicity of Slack and how much easier it was to do complex things simply in Slackware.
Along with Slackware, I like Slackel and Zenwalk for the same reasons: they're all more interested in maintaining Patrick Volkerding's spartan coherence than they are in chasing change for its own sake.
26 • Slackware (by Sam on 2022-02-14 13:50:32 GMT from United States)
I picked up a boxed copy of Slackware in the late 1990s from my then-local CompUSA store in Denver, CO. Spent an unsuccessful weekend trying to install it. Switched to Red Hat. That's my Slackware experience.
27 • @21 Slackware (by eee on 2022-02-14 13:53:23 GMT from Poland)
Well, I didn't install Slackware 15 yet, due to lack of time, so I didn't knew that this message did not appear. But it is included in the install media, in package: aaa_base-15.0-x86_64-3.txz (see: https://packages.slackware.com/?r=slackware64-15.0&p=aaa_base-15.0-x86_64-3.txz&f). This is the file: "var/spool/mail/root.new". I've just expanded it "by hand", and this is well known Welcome message, as usual in Slackware. So, maybe something went wrong, that it did not appear this time...
28 • @21 - Slackware documentation (by Microlinux on 2022-02-14 14:23:43 GMT from France)
@Jesse, you include a link to the Slackbook project indeed. That information is horribly outdated, as is Slackware's main site.
29 • Another vote for fsarchiver (by Kingneutron on 2022-02-14 14:33:58 GMT from United States)
For bare-metal Linux backups it's pretty awesome. You can even restore ext4 to XFS on the fly, and just change fstab before rebooting. Code here:
https://github.com/kneutron/ansitest/blob/master/VIRTBOX/bkpsys-2fsarchive.sh
https://github.com/kneutron/ansitest/blob/master/VIRTBOX/RESTORE-fsarchive-root.sh
30 • Slackware documentation (by Jesse on 2022-02-14 14:36:13 GMT from Canada)
@28: "@Jesse, you include a link to the Slackbook project indeed. That information is horribly outdated, as is Slackware's main site."
Yes, I linked to the Slackbook project. I _also_ linked to the Slackware documentation project in the review. I linked to both.
31 • Imaging a drive and compression - solutions (by David Bentham on 2022-02-14 14:40:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
I highly recommend looking at - https://relax-and-recover.org/
Makes a complete backup and restore a simple approach.
But i love using clonezilla, always my go to.
in terms of shrinking images - https://github.com/Drewsif/PiShrink
Nice script can give you ideas on non raspberry pi machines.
32 • Slackware (by Luke on 2022-02-14 14:55:37 GMT from United States)
I first dipped my toes into Linux waters in the early 2000s, and I've always looked at Slackware as sort of a venerable elder of the Linux world, with respect but always from a distance.
In those early days I was happy to really dig into things and spend a lot of time getting things just the way I wanted them. My first attempt at installing Linux was Gentoo, and Arch in particular scratched that itch so well I used it as my main distro for a couple years even after using Ubuntu for several years before that.
These days, though, I just want things to work. I will troubleshoot things if I have to, but I don't want to have to make decisions about things I don't care about, battle dependencies, or manually configure things if I don't have to. I don't want to have to look up a guide or use third party tools to do any of those things, either, if another distro has them integrated and does them well.
Don't get me wrong, I love that Slackware is still around. I love that we have so many options (that's why I've come here almost every week for the past I-don't-know-how-many-years), but Slackware is one I will continue to respect and admire from afar.
33 • Slackware (by petras on 2022-02-14 15:16:42 GMT from Switzerland)
@17: "There is no welcome message, no first-run wizard." - this is not quite true. When You first log in as root, You can see a message: "You have mail". By typing "mail", You can read a Welcome message with a lot of useful information
@19:Your statement was accurate for past versions of Slackware. In fact, I was specifically looking for this mail message when I installed Slackware 15.0. It did not appear. Maybe it relies on a package I removed, maybe it was dropped for this version. Either way, it did not appear this time. So, yes, my statement is quite true. When I signed in as root the first time there was no indication of mail waiting like there was in previous versions.
The welcome mail is installed and available in Slackware 15.0. Just type mail as root in your vm and you can read a Welcome message with a lot of useful information.
34 • Slackware (by c00ter on 2022-02-14 15:20:25 GMT from United States)
I cut my teeth on Slackware. It was what my mentor used, and if I really wanted to learn Linux--it was so new--that was the tool to do so, he said. (He came from a UNIX background.) There were times I hated him, but I learned. After that came SuSE, then Mandrake, then so on.
Fast-forward. Oh my lord, if nothing changes nothing changes. I hadn't used or thought much about Slackware for quite a while. With 15 It was like meeting an old friend again--a friend still stuck in the '90s. Comforting but I was left wondering why? It was like all of the effort, all of the work so many of us have done promoting and working on and with desktop Linux was totally ignored. All of that work. It felt like meeting an old friend again--and getting slapped in the face. I'm old. I've never much liked change. And I never liked the '90s.
35 • Slackware (by c00ter on 2022-02-14 15:24:03 GMT from United States)
I cut my teeth on Slackware. It was what my mentor used, and if I really wanted to learn Linux--it was so new--that was the tool to do so, he said. (He came from a UNIX background.) There were times I hated him, but I learned. After that came SuSE, then Mandrake, then so on.
Fast-forward. Oh my lord, if nothing changes nothing changes. I hadn't used or thought much about Slackware for quite a while. With 15 It was like meeting an old friend again--a friend still stuck in the '90s. Comforting but I was left wondering why? It was like all of the effort, all of the work so many of us have done promoting and working on and with desktop Linux was totally ignored. All of that work. It felt like meeting an old friend again--and getting slapped in the face. I'm old. I've never much liked change and I never liked the '90s. But this is a new century, right?
36 • Slackware (by kc1di on 2022-02-14 15:25:37 GMT from United States)
Slackware was my first distro back in 1995/96 or so. Used it for awhile and went with Red Hat when it came out and use it until the Fedora split. Since then I've gotten lazy and Use Debian based distros mostly KDE is my favorite Desktop Though still use XFCE and Cinnamon at time. Best thing about Slackware is it's stability. But the package management is lacking by modern standards. In any event Congrats to the slackware folks for version 15. :)
37 • Slackware (by Semiarticulate on 2022-02-14 15:49:28 GMT from United States)
I can appreciate someone not seeing the up side to things being a bit difficult in Slackware, but to then proclaim to the world that there is no up side is assuming much.
38 • No, don't use dd to zero free space, use zerofree (by MInuxLintEbianDedition on 2022-02-14 15:54:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
Use zerofree to zero free space, then pipe dd into xz -ek9 for max compression, then restore by piping xzcat through dd back to the target drive
39 • Survey (by Sociologist Critical on 2022-02-14 16:08:44 GMT from Greece)
A basic undergraduate text book on research methodology includes instructions, rules, about what to do and to never do when constructing a survey. A good hour or two of reading may help you out, and help us not laugh at the silliness of the question and option every week.
I am a slack user, I have been for long, but I now hated it, and when slack-w changed so much by the time I realized how much I hate it, it would be too much work to move years and years of work and configuration to a distro that "sucks less"
40 • Slackware security (by Heinz on 2022-02-14 16:22:17 GMT from United States)
> The project's main website still uses HTTP instead of the more commonly used secure flavour of HTTPS.
How can I trust any distro that fails to implement a security measure as basic as that?
41 • slackware (by curto on 2022-02-14 17:15:25 GMT from United States)
hi all, i've been a slacker since 2007, 2008 it became the only os i use. for the 15.0 release, i've successfully installed slackware on 2 computers (dell (bios), hp (uefi)) with absolutely no issue, and added users with the 'adduser' command without any hiccups. the hp uefi replaced a very sluggish windows 10 for a 13 year old that absolutely loves being a new slacker. :)
42 • Hey jesse, (by Bob Markley on 2022-02-14 17:25:57 GMT from United States)
Hey, during the Slackware 15 review, you forgot to do slackpkg update gpg. That's why the Let's encrypt keys didn't work.
43 • Old timer with less patience (by John on 2022-02-14 17:26:34 GMT from Canada)
I bought a book that came with Slackware back in 1994 as my first step into the Linux world. I have distro hopped across pretty much everything since then, and while I appreciate the stuff I learned using Slackware - I just don't have the patience anymore.
I think part of the attraction back then was that it was new and cutting edge and so I didn't mind putting in the time to learn it. But now with distros that have 1 click everything and stuff just works, I no longer feel the need to do it all myself. I just want to use my computer and have it work as simply and as quickly as possible.
44 • Slackware (by David on 2022-02-14 17:27:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
I tried Slackware about 2010. I did manage to get it working, but there was simply too much stuff I didn't need and not enough of what I did. I subsequently used a derivative, Salix, on an old laptop and actually liked it. It offered all the reliability without the hassle. Anyone interested in Slackware's stability should wait for the upcoming Salix 15 release.
45 • Slackware (by Fox on 2022-02-14 17:28:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Slackware has been my daily desktop OS for over a decade. Still running the same install from about 12 years ago continually on the -current branch, have moved from multiple HDD's to now an SSD among huge hardware changes. Even the -current branch can be more stable than many "stable" distributions most of the time.
There's an old saying that says "once you go slack, you don't go back" and it's addictingly true for me. There was a time where i'd distro hop almost every other month, but settled on Slackware for how well it runs and the level of ease to simply edit a text file to change something on the system.
Cheers to patrick, alienBob and all the others involved with the project for yet another great release!
46 • Re Slackware security (by random_linux_user on 2022-02-14 17:29:06 GMT from India)
> How can I trust any distro that fails to implement a security measure as basic as that? @Heinz & @Jesse It's a myth that an https site by default is secure and an http one is not. Anyone can use a self-signed certificate and dish out malware/spyware through their https site. If you take a look at The Slackware Linux Project website, a user is never going to enter his/her details. The site is not interactive that way. A user is not going to send any personal/private information/data to Slackware site, that would require encryption. I can give a list of many-many https sites that are super-fishy but I won't since this is not that kind of place.
47 • Imaging a drive and compression - Being overlooked? (by Linux Revolution on 2022-02-14 17:33:05 GMT from United States)
I'm suprised no one hasn't mentioned Rescuezilla or Redo Backup. Both of these projects couldn't make backing up an image of your system any simpler. I've used both and they each work all the way from backup to restore without flaw.
Both use elementary level Wizards.
48 • slackware (by grindstone on 2022-02-14 17:38:43 GMT from United States)
Yeah grateful Patrick et al are keeping-on and doing so freely, it's just not for me much anymore. It rewards (enables?) an investment of time when a person is young and computing is hobby/interesting (some convenience rungs up from LFS etc.). If a person truly hates bloat, they are free to go after it, etc.--that's incredibly valuable. My life has only allows for "computer as tool" anymore and I'll only build what I absolutely have to and it still takes days to completely "set-up" deb-based stuff on a new machine to support my personal usage. Ran VL & then ZW for some years as good "desktop" options ages ago--and liked them very much. Absolute is lovely if a person can stand ICE and what that entails in exchange for speed. Without the infrastructure that the whole Slackware team provides, it's doubtful such would be so convenient for so many, so I remain grateful. I also know any commentary will not influence direction so mine is mostly for others. What you see out of many of us is respect, gratitude, and a sort of hedged love for fighting the good fight against the current. It's real--what Slackware does to your head if you have any heart at all. When you're in the thick of stuff, you read the comments in the text files and you see the generosity and teaching--like the world used to work. That fosters learning and the learning empowers. For that alone, I will always be indebted and that's the true value of Slackware to me.
49 • Re portable packages (by random_linux_user on 2022-02-14 17:47:33 GMT from India)
@Jesse You got your facts wrong here sir! Flatpak & AppImage technologies can be used on Slackware. Flatpak setup can be installed via available slackbuild and AppImage doesn't require any underlying framework. And I'm absolutely glad that this (Slackware) distribution, created by a single individual backed only by a handful of people is not forcing its users to use sub-optimal portable applications like one corporation with assets of over $ 350 million and a workforce of over 500 people and thousands of contributors. And for obvious reasons Snap can't be installed/used on Slackware.
50 • Where's the review at? (by Vasily on 2022-02-14 17:56:01 GMT from United States)
I came here looking to read a review, but couldn't find it. I looked and looked but all I found was some half finished ideas and plenty of FUD and propaganda to go around.
For anyone wondering if they should try Slackware out, I would certainly recommend it.
Slackware does less hand holding, and this is typical of the Unix approach that birthed Slackware. Slackware first came into existence when Windows was king, and non proprietary software was dominated by Unix and the BSD's. In fact Linux was developed as a Unix like kernel. Slackware's maintainer, Patrick Volkerding, had already been mainlining, and developing a Linux distro, for close to 10 years, before many of the not so new people of today, even got started --this is just one example of what you get when you choose Slackware, i,e, Slackware has one of the most stable and mature maintainers around.
The real question that should have been asked is: does the classic unix type approach to Linux still work? and the answer is a resounding YES!. The Unix type approach is far from dead. There are many other projects that still build on these principles: OpenBSD, Void to name a few. Just take a quick look around, and you will find plenty. Not only that, these principles laid the foundation to modern computing, and still exist at the foundational level of computing in general. So the real question is, why choose Slackware over some of these other Unix like choices; and secondly, why choose this type of approach over new types. Unix and Unix type operating systems have been around the longest. They have seen new ideas come and go, but have weathered the storm and proven sound time and time again.
In the Linux world, we have distro's like Ubuntu who spoon feed you everything you need. And if what they give you works for you, and you don't particularly care beyond that, then its hard to argue in favor of Slackware -- however, this all depends on what those needs are --, if you are looking for gaming out of the box, Ubuntu type distro's might be your thing. If you have more traditional needs, for example, you just do word processing, and surf the net and check email -- then Slackware might be better than alternatives. If you are looking to do development, then Slackware should probably be your go to choice.
After distro's like Ubuntu we have distro's like gentoo that build everything from scratch. These distro's give you powerful tools and lots of flexibility, but they are extremely demanding of the users.
Slackware is somewhere in between -- empowering the expert, but not demanding from the expert. in other words -- making things easy without sacrificing flexibility. Slackware is also suitable for people new to Linux; giving them all the tools they need to do simple things, and if they are looking to advance their skills, Slackware gives them the tools to do so -- there is an old saying, if you learn Debian, you learn Debian, if you learn Ubuntu, you learn Ubuntu, if you learn Redhat you learn Redhat, if you learn Slackware, you learn Linux. In Slackware 15 Patrick gave us a make world world script; further empowering its user's.
51 • Re file types and default applications (by random_linux_user on 2022-02-14 17:57:50 GMT from India)
Slackware's philosophy has always been to deliver vanilla software stack without any change/customization when possible, leaving it up to the user to set his/her defaults. So an audio file opening in XMMS is not a surprise. Application developers declare the suitable MimeType in .desktop files as they see fit.
52 • Slackware 15 (by Amilcar Pereira on 2022-02-14 18:04:44 GMT from Brazil)
@42 Jesse did not forgot to do slackpkg update gpg, he should never need to do that!
53 • UbuntuFrumsSystem Info-script (by Jeff on 2022-02-14 18:10:17 GMT from United States)
So they finally implemented something like Quick System Info aka QSI that MX Linux has had for several years.
54 • Slackware (by Any on 2022-02-14 18:42:54 GMT from Spain)
I am thankful Pat could give us a new version. Slackware may look stuck in the past but that is not the case. Remember, Patrick is the main driving force and he had problems in the near past. He is human and as such believes in the people's good faith but had bad luck. Slackware is as a childhood friend - you may not get any news about him for years but when you need him he is there. You know how he is, how he acts and what you can and what you can not expect from him. Slackware does not give you empty promises. It does what it does and does it well. Slackware is about doing the things once and forget about it, just use it. Slackware does not torture you with demanding a "strong" password, it's your computer and you put the password you want. If you care enough you use a strong password, if you do not care , then you use the password you want. Slackware does not take your hand for a walk, it just lets you choose your path.
55 • Slackware History (by Eirian on 2022-02-14 18:44:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
My connection to Slackware is contrary to the common route of using it early. I was introduced to Linux when the downloads of SLS were madde available on CompuSerrve in 1992. I could not get X11 to work and decided to reinstall Windows 3.1. I returned to Linux when SUSE (originally a German translation of Slackware (which in turn was originally a bug fix of SLS)) began selling box editions of Cdroms. After a few years I switched to Debian (another old distribution launched in reaction against the problems of SLS) and have mostly stuck with it since.
I bought a UEFI laptop in 2012 at a time when no distributions were working with the UEFI on the laptop. Later on I discovered the Legacy mode option in the BIOS. Oddly I then chose to run Slackware for the first time in my then 20 year Linux usage and loved it because it was so quite to load and close down. I tend to avoid Slackware now because of its bloat and dependency hell.
I should say howevver that I trailled 15.0 a day or so after it was released and was blown away by how fast it was running KDE Plasma. I am a natural Arch user (lean mean and current) but for business reasons stick with Debian and would only use Slackware for the fun of being able to say I use Slackware, BTW.
56 • Slackware (by Jesse on 2022-02-14 18:53:27 GMT from Canada)
@49: "@Jesse You got your facts wrong here sir! Flatpak & AppImage technologies can be used on Slackware."
I never said they couldn't be. Perhaps you should go back and re-read the review? What i did saw was that Slackware doesn't ship with Flatpak (or Snap) support out of the box. I never said it couldn't be added.
"Flatpak setup can be installed via available slackbuild and AppImage doesn't require any underlying framework."
Which is exactly what I reported in my review. Though if you read the whole way through you'll note that Slack Build didn't have support for 15.0 available yet and slackpkg didn't work, making it a lot harder (not impossible, but harder) to install Flatpak.
57 • Slackpkg (by Jesse on 2022-02-14 19:04:22 GMT from Canada)
@42: "you forgot to do slackpkg update gpg"
Not I didn't. In fact, if you look at the screenshot in the review in the package management section you'll see the results when I did try to run "slackpkg update" and it failed. On all three servers I mentioned trying.
I may sound grouchy writing this, but it's increasingly frustrating reading through the comments here from the Slackware fans who claim I didn't do something when I did (and wrote about it), or who claim I wrote something I clearly did not, or that I should have read documentation which I not only read but explicitly linked to and discussed using.
I welcome criticism and constructive feedback. I also welcome a debate about Slackware's place in the world - especially being that I've run most versions of Slackware over the past 20 years and welcome its continued existence. But please at least read the whole review first. There's no point in making false claims about what I did or didn't do and it just discredits your comment if everyone else reading the review can see that you didn't bother.
58 • slack test one (by deputy on 2022-02-14 19:34:02 GMT from New Zealand)
With Slackware 15.0 and then Absolute 15.0 following it, I downloaded them and gave them a spin in a VM. I voted "2020-Now" in the survey, but my "tried" did not even result in a working install. Slackware definitely had huge relevance back in 1998, but modern distros have mastered the install process - well, many of them. Thanks 15.0, but won't try again.
59 • @23 Slackware (by phil on 2022-02-14 19:37:46 GMT from Canada)
@23: ""I first installed Slackware 0.8 (or maybe 0.9) on a 286 machine. It had TKDesk as a window manager.""
Where did you ever got a Slackware 0.8 or 0.9? The first Slackware released was 1.0...
On a 286? The Linux kernel was originally written for a 80386. A 286 processor wouldn't support Linux paged virtual memory... AFAIK TkDesk was first ported on Slackware 3.0...
If you want to pose as a Slackware old-timer / early adopter, maybe a bit of fact checking might help :-)
60 • Imaging a drive and compressing it (by Vukota on 2022-02-14 20:30:49 GMT from Serbia)
I do a different approach. I create encrypted squashfs and than copy data over there, so i can mount it later and get data without extracting anything. Have a similar approach if i really want an exact partition/drive image. Backups are usually a weak attack vector if someone decides to rob you. Alternative approach may be even using zfs encrypted and compressed fs/backup.
61 • some more random thoughts (by Vasily on 2022-02-14 21:02:20 GMT from United States)
^Trying to run slackpkg as the root user produces an error saying we first need to select a package mirror
This is not an error.
^ I find it too much effort to get common tasks done with this distribution.
You never really explained what common tasks are so hard?
^There is a lot of manual work involved and very little, if any, benefit to being forced to do this extra work.
There is as much manual and as much automated work as you might like. If you want automation, you have lots of options. If you want to manual tune your system, then Slackware stays out of the way... its the best of both worlds.
^ Long-time Slackware users will probably be familiar with the Slack Builds project which provides recipes for building third-party software. This is somewhat akin to the ports system used by the BSD family of operating systems, though with more manual work involved in fetching and building the packages.
The comparison to BSD ports system is correct; however, the only real difference here is Slackware keeps a noticeable more clear line of distinction between official packages, and non official packages.... as far as more work, this is hardly true, there are many options for automation, that require no more work than unofficial package support in most operating systems.
62 • Slackware mail greeting (by Jesse on 2022-02-14 21:05:36 GMT from Canada)
@17: "When You first log in as root, You can see a message: "You have mail"
I wanted to double-check on this because I was sure I didn't see this message when I did a fresh install of Slackware 15.0. I did the setup again and on first boot, when I signed in as root, the "you have mail" message did not appear.
The welcome e-mail does exist and I can see it if I run the "mail" command, but there isn't any indication the root user has mail unless it is checked for manually.
This surprised me because, as I mentioned before, I've been used to seeing the message reminding new users to check mail when the system first runs with previous versions of Slackware. But it doesn't happen with 15.0.
63 • Slackware (by Simon Plaistowe on 2022-02-14 21:08:26 GMT from New Zealand)
Many years ago I trialled Slackware but it didn't meet my needs then and I can't think of a use for it now, so it's unlikely I'll ever return.
64 • linux that matters (by thim on 2022-02-14 21:41:43 GMT from Greece)
I am using Slackware for about ten years - for writing books, organize and edit phoprographs, R, tex, watching movies, listening to music, surfing the web, emails, zoom. steam etc.. Very ancient stuff, indeed. All those years, Slackware proved to be reliable, stable, predictable, the maintenance is easy and time needed for maintenance is minimal.
@Jesse surprised you failed to play a video. The step you have to perform is: right click, open with dragon. How you miss that? (Personally i prefer vlc, it's fairly easy to install it.) And btw, you were failed to exclude games during the setup, it's not system's fault.
Official Slackware release announcement: "The challenge this time around was to adopt as much of the good stuff out there as we could without changing the character of the operating system." Review in distrowatch: "given the project's apparent intent to avoid evolution"
65 • in closing. (more on the best of both worlds) (by Vasily on 2022-02-14 21:42:22 GMT from United States)
We have distributions like Linux From Scratch. Why exactly is this the case? Because some people prefer to know how their operating system works, not know in theory but know. With Slackware, the distro provided tools are easy to read and easy to audit, easy to edit shell scripts. There is an old saying that goes something like this:
"There is more UNIX culture in one line of shell, than many lines of C"
Slackware exists in a unique place that is it exists between the two extremes. In every case Slackware is either easy enough, or many cases the easiest option. Slackware is easy to automate, and Slackware is easy to do things manual. Anyone who has tried to mix manual and automated approaches with automated centered distros will know the pain; however Slackware users do not experience that pain on Slackware. It is not just an easy solution its a time tested quality solution. Its obvious that the author of this sham review either does not know what he is talking about (unfit to write a serious review -- everyone is entitled to their opinion); or that the negativity, the choice of how he characterized Slackware, is done for personal issues, non technical ones.
66 • Slackware again (by Jesse on 2022-02-14 21:56:51 GMT from Canada)
@64: >> "surprised you failed to play a video. The step you have to perform is: right click, open with dragon. How you miss that?"
I didn't miss that. Please read the review. As I pointed out, the default media player is QtAV which opens the video and plays audio, but not video. I didn't say other players couldn't play video, just the default one.
>> "And btw, you were failed to exclude games during the setup, it's not system's fault."
I'm not sure what you mean by that. I explicitly wrote in the review that I unmarked Games from the list of software categories. Then, once the system was installed, my menu was full of games. I didn't "failed to exclude games", I very specifically did exclude games, that's why I was highlighting that there were a lot of games installed by default.
Now I know why this is. Technically the Slackware "Games" category is for generic games and command line games. The games included on the system are part of the separate KDE suite. There is a sort of logic at work here. I installed KDE, therefore I get the KDE Games packages.
But while I _understand_ why it works this way, that doesn't make it any less of a bad design. If the user explicitly marks a box saying they don't want games, then games shouldn't be installed on the system.
It's these types of hoops Slackware makes people jump through that make it unappealing to someone like me.
Someone else mentioned earlier that to use "slackpkg" first the user needs to run "slackpkg update gpg" to update the security information before installing packages. But "slackpkg update gpg" just gives an error because the security certificate is out of date. Which means manual work is needed before the package manager even works. This is not appropriate for a modern operating system or package manager.
67 • slackpkg (by Vasily on 2022-02-14 22:06:08 GMT from United States)
^ But "slackpkg update gpg" just gives an error because the security certificate is out of date. Which means manual work is needed before the package manager even works. This is not appropriate for a modern operating system or package manager.
A security certificate error will only take place, if you selected a bad mirror, or, you are trying to test Slackware inside of a chroot and didn't prepare the chroot properly. In short, your characterization of slackpkg is disingenuous.
68 • Flatpak slackbuild (by random_linux_user on 2022-02-14 22:11:23 GMT from India)
@56 @Jesse
Here is the Flatpak (working) slackbuild, just in case someone was interested, https://github.com/Ponce/slackbuilds/tree/master/desktop/flatpak
69 • slackpkg (by Jesse on 2022-02-14 22:20:46 GMT from Canada)
@67: "A security certificate error will only take place, if you selected a bad mirror, or, you are trying to test Slackware inside of a chroot and didn't prepare the chroot properly. In short, your characterization of slackpkg is disingenuous."
Obviously this isn't true. Did you read the review? As I stated in the review I tried three separate mirrors with slackpkg, in different regions. All three fail with the same error. None of my tests took place in a chroot. Just look at the screenshot of the error, I obviously have an Internet connection, the mirror clearly responds, the slackpkg tool still fails.
Pretending I'm being disingenuous isn't helping anyone. There is a clear problem there and pretending there isn't is pointless. The slackpkg tool failed, it failed with multiple mirrors in a normal (non-chroot) environment. Those are facts. You may not like them, but that doesn't make them any less true.
70 • slackpkg (by Vasily on 2022-02-14 22:24:28 GMT from United States)
^Obviously this isn't true.
You are partially correct, if there was an edit button I would have selected it, there might be some other edge case issues... like issues with your network that are not Slackware related... like you have a bad internet connection. However, the facts are your characterization of slackpkg is in fact disingenuous.
71 • slackpkg (by Vasily on 2022-02-14 22:32:05 GMT from United States)
slackpkg simple does not work the way you described it in your "review" / are claiming it does.
72 • slack again (by thim on 2022-02-14 22:49:06 GMT from Greece)
quoting: " When trying to play video files the distribution would open the file in QtAV. Audio could be heard in the background, but QtAV was unable to display the visual components of the videos I tested. "
Follows a brief mention to sysvinit, then the phrase "QtAV & Dragon Player applications are used instead of VLC" no further iinfo provided.
And finally "But then I try to get something done - like installing a game I want ,,,,viewing a video....and I am reminded why I use more modern tools.
So you had any success trying to watch videos?
(PS:my installation defaults to dragon player, videos are also playing fine in qtav qml player)
Final note: a better way to judge a distro is by examining first if it is achieving it's goals regardless if you agree with these goals or not.
73 • slackpkg (by Jesse on 2022-02-14 23:15:41 GMT from Canada)
@71: >> "slackpkg simple does not work the way you described it in your "review" / are claiming it does."
Clearly it does, hence the screenshot of it behaving that way. Now you could claim it doesn't _usually_ behave that way. Or you could claim it doesn't behave that way in _your experience_. However, slackpkg does indeed behave the way I described on multiple machines. I even took my laptop to another location and tried another mirror just to confirm it's not a mirror or network issue. Your claim, as stated, is demonstrably false.
74 • slackpkg (by Vasily on 2022-02-14 23:21:15 GMT from United States)
>clearly it does, hence the screenshot of it behaving that way.
I've used slackpkg on many different machines, and I've never encountered this issue (except in situations I already covered), now I could take your word for it, but considering the rest of the so called "review", I'm certainly not inclined to.
75 • slackpkg (by Vasily on 2022-02-14 23:26:31 GMT from United States)
in either case, you haven't shared what exactly the issue is, because, clearly slackpkg is not designed to behave that way. under normal conditions.
76 • slackware, switched to debian (by gelu on 2022-02-15 02:19:32 GMT from Moldova)
switched from slackware to debian when they released dpkg as a shell script. cause slackware guys were stubborn not to include package management into slackware, since then never look back,
and since then good things happened to linux: debian invented modern package management (apt) mandrake arch ubuntu manjaro
nowadays arch people seem to me as slackware dinosaurs, they neglect innovations from manjaro or community like pamac & yay...
77 • Slackware (by Ale on 2022-02-15 04:00:33 GMT from Venezuela)
I used Slackware for about a year as my main desktop around 2015 and i have to say it was the most peaceful/stable system i've used and i'm using linux since 2008. Never a crash, never a freeze. I finally went for the comfort of debian package management but i only have good memories of my time with Slackware.
Slackware is more than just "another distro", it's the venerable longest living linux distro, being maintained by one man helped by a bunch of people with no other income than donations. No evil corporations involved here. This deserves nothing more than respect and admiration, so yes, i love Slackware for what it is and what it represents and i wish it continue many more years. Cheers to Pat and all the Slackware team. Keep the good work.
78 • Slackware review (by Dr.Hu on 2022-02-15 04:21:13 GMT from Philippines)
Enjoyed the review, never mind the critics.. Problems probably arose because Jesse forgot to waddle like a penguin and bow three times in the direction of Minnesota prior to installing.
https://mirror.uncyc.org/wiki/Slackware
79 • Imaging a partition (by Andy Figueroa on 2022-02-15 04:26:53 GMT from United States)
Imaging a partition with dd for the purpose of backing it up or moving it to another computer is so archaic. Modern linux backup origrans will do this for you. From the commandline, the clasic way to backup a full-system is to user rsync, i.e. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/rsync#Full_system_backup
The following thread on the Gentoo forums is a meaningful discussion of different approaches to making a full-system backup, and includes my script for creating what in Gentoo we call a stage4 archive. My stage4 script is generic and will run on any Linux, and is easily adaptable to other disk layouts. https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1132899-highlight-stage4.html
Finally, MX-Linux includes a program, MX-Snapshot, which creates a "snapshot" ISO of an installed and running system, can be burned to a DVD or USB and then installed on any other computer or back to the original computer. MX-Snapshot is a compiled program and specific to MX-Linux (based on Debian stable) that is a model that in my opinion should be duplicated by other Linux distributions.
80 • SLS, "Gentle Touchdowns for DOS Bailouts" (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2022-02-15 04:33:22 GMT from United States)
Whoa, that stretched so far back it almost hurt - but such a fine vibe. A desire to improve on Softlanding Linux System brought so many so much. Sharing and Caring.
81 • Slackware (by Andy Figueroa on 2022-02-15 04:42:55 GMT from United States)
I was an early adopter and made those 24 720K 3.5 floppy disks late in 1993 downloaded over a slow dial-up modem connection. Installed first on a 486 which I used from the console to access the Unix computer at work (military logistics) by dial-up modem in order to work from home, writing scripts, and running long database queries from those scripts which would have the results for me in files the next morning. Subsequent upgrades were made from purchased CDs and Slackware boxed sets. I never did run any kind of GUI in those days. Around 1999, I moved to Red Hat and later to Mandrake. By 2003 I had deployed a computer lab running Zenwalk (Slackware based), then finally Gentoo in 2004 where I have stayed. But later did use ZipSlack of some version productively on on very small sub notebook PCs like the Toshiba Libretto.
82 • slackware (by Imis on 2022-02-15 07:53:09 GMT from Ireland)
I don't understend why everyone complains about slackware that it does not change in decades or whatever. For me it is the best thing because if you know something about system it stays like that. Yes, it comes with lot of packages nobody (most users) uses anymore, but it's easy to remove and put them in blacklist of slackpkg. Anyway Slackware is for lazy users, that want their systems just work, not to fiddle with it all the time. Set it up and forget. Using since version 8.x tried many "modern" linux distros, but they all brake easily. Maybe it's just me.
83 • Slackware 15.0 (by Joe Beer on 2022-02-15 10:47:58 GMT from United States)
I switched to Slackware after Mandriva folded. What I really don't like about Slackware is that it takes too long to customize your environment. At least the installer could give you the option of creating a user after the installation. After installation and reboot, being welcomed with a text based login instead of a graphical login. The last pain point is the bloatware that is installed to satisfy dependencies. You spend hours uninstalling a lot of that bloatware and then more hours spent trying to install "modern" applications. sbopkg and slackpkg satisfy package management, but there are better managers being used by other distros. You feel like your going back in time running Slackware these days compared to the more popular distros.
84 • Slackware (by penguinx86 on 2022-02-15 11:51:01 GMT from United States)
I tried Slackware in 2008-2010, when I first started distrohopping. I was desperately looking for alternatives to Vista. The Slackware download I tried didn't come with a GUI. Or maybe I was too Noob to figure out the GUI? I appreciated how slimmed down and unbloated it was, unlike Vista. I used that Slackware DVD for many years as a rescue disc. But I eventually settled on Linux Mint due to hardware compatibility, especially Wifi adapter compatibility, and alternatives to Ubuntu's Gnome 3 and horible Unity GUI. But that was years ago. Maybe it's time to give Slackware another try.
85 • Read It! (by Bent Spoon on 2022-02-15 13:33:10 GMT from United States)
I would just like to second Jesse regarding the comments. It seems that some people just want to spout off about something but either haven’t even taken the time to read the reviews (@ Vasily), or just don’t have the reading comprehension needed to process the information. I can imagine how frustrating it is for the reviewer, but it’s also really irritating for people like me who do read the reviews. Whoever approves these comments, please don’t allow this kind of foolishness. It’s wasting everyone’s time and it happens every f’n week.
86 • #83 What you said (by grindstone on 2022-02-15 13:54:07 GMT from United States)
Yeah that's what I disliked most about it--it was a great deal of work is work to identify "default bloat" of Slackware and that's why ZW, Absolute etc provide a great service. It used to be possible to sort of follow-along and just edit/modify tagfiles when a new rev came out but I do not know if such is possible any longer. Like I said, if a person has time to follow LQ and do all that--great--I'm increasingly with Jesse's view that these things we welcomed in the 90's might evolve a touch with regard to installation defaults. I know those guys bust their tails, though, and voluntary is still voluntary, so that's that. We are all free to create and submit improvements (or free to shut our pieholes).
87 • Appreciate you Jesse (by Luke on 2022-02-15 14:31:34 GMT from United States)
I read DWW every week and don't often comment, but I just wanted to say I appreciate the heck out of all the work you and the other reviewers do to try things out and write up your experiences, Jesse. I tend to skim past a couple of the smaller sections (e.g. Torrent Corner, Upcoming releases, Website News), but I never miss the Feature, Q&A, and Opinion Poll sections. Great stuff as always!
88 • Slackware review, fair but... (by joe f. on 2022-02-15 15:40:15 GMT from United States)
Overall, your review was fair, but when you say nobody has come into Slackware in 20 years, you miss the possibility that Slackware attracts a DIY crowd that values simplicity, control and a system that installs vanilla packages and stays out of your way. That community might not be going online to talk about their distro, but Slackware fits their needs. But it's also good for a newbie coming over to Linux who doesn't already have habits and favorite programs, or who just wants to make an old machine useful again because, as you noted, it has a piece of software for everything. But if there is something you want, there's a large community around it with packages to download or build easily. Slack may not be for the Ubuntu-derivative crowd or the Arch btw, crowd, but it's a versatile distro that is a great choice for a couple of different kinds of Linux users. In an ecosystem of hundreds of distros, isn't that all it needs to be?
89 • Slackware review (by Jesse on 2022-02-15 15:55:50 GMT from Canada)
@87: Thank you, I appreciate that. I'm glad you find the Weekly useful.
@88: Yes, I think that's fair. It's entirely possible (even probable?) that there is a strong community of silent Slackers that have come along in the past 20 years. I hope so. Despite what some people seem to assume here, I am fond of Slackware, I like that it continues to exist. I don't think it's practical for most people these days, but I'm sure there are lots of folks finding ways to make use of it.
90 • Slackware again (wow) (by Simon on 2022-02-15 17:36:55 GMT from New Zealand)
As a Slackware fan myself I'm disappointed to see so many comments from other Slackware fans reacting to Jesse's interesting, reasonable and often useful observations with so much hostility. Slackware, like LFS and Gentoo and other "do it yourself" distros, has a relatively small user base (next to the likes of Debian and its derivatives like Ubuntu and Mint) precisely because it *doesn't* meet most modern Linux users' needs and priorities. Some comments read as though they expect Jesse to be writing reviews just for a small minority rather than the majority of readers who aren't Slackers and are likely to have much worse experiences than Jesse (who was already familiar with Slackware) did. Many Distrowatch readers are looking for advice re good distros to try: for most of those readers, Slackware would suck. I think the review acknowledges enough of Slackware's advantages that the relatively small proportion of readers who don't already know it and yet would discover that they prefer it to other distros are already going to think "oo, that sounds good" and give it a go. In that sense the review is nicely balanced. Whether you agree or not with some of the criticisms (e.g. the criticism of Slackware's typically "slack", in their positive sense of the term, decision to use simple http for a site where they see no need for https) it's a straightforward uncontroversial fact that Slackware has out of date information on its site (or did at the time of Jesse's review) so it's not only "not for everyone", it ain't perfect either. Deal with it: it's a beautiful distro and a personal favourite of mine, but it's still flawed and definitely not for everyone so a Distrowatch review that points this out is just doing its job well.
91 • @90: (by dragonmouth on 2022-02-15 18:14:15 GMT from United States)
No matter what the users of various distros might think of them, there is no perfect distro. They all are "flawed" in one way or another. There even are perceived "flaws" in a distro like LFS where the user is in total control of creating it.
92 • In response to comment 90 and comment 85 (by Vasily on 2022-02-15 19:11:04 GMT from United States)
@90
If Jesse wrote an actual fair review, and didn't make distrowatch a platform for misinformation; in short if had actually been an honest reviewer, he wouldn't get many of the negative comments. Many of us understand not everyone is going to like Slackware, and that is just fine.
However, I'm disappointed in your assertion, that Slackware doesn't meet the needs the need of most Linux users; that's simple untrue. Slackware may not meet the *tastes* of most Linux users; but I wouldn't know.
@85
If anyone has reading comprehension issues, its you. If you actually read through my comments , you'll see I quoted much of the so called review. Everyone of my comments still stands. Jessie might not like that fact that so one called him on his BS; but that's not my problem.
93 • Slackware (by Martin on 2022-02-15 20:15:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks Jesse for a great review of a distro I have very fond memories of as it was the first distro that I managed to connect to the internet with after many attempts in the '90s with other distros.
Please keep up the good work.
94 • Slackware (by guest on 2022-02-15 20:44:57 GMT from Austria)
It's nice to see this release finally happen but it's a bit worrying for me that the GPG key used for signing ISOs and packages is still the same 1024 DSA key issued in early 2003. It is rather weak by modern standards, and it is definitely not a good practice to use an online key for 19 years without rotation. They should adopt a scheme where there is an off-line long-term master key and release keys.
95 • Slackware (by guest on 2022-02-15 20:46:22 GMT from Norway)
It's nice to see this release finally happen but it's a bit worrying for me that the GPG key used for signing ISOs and packages is still the same 1024 DSA key issued in early 2003. It is rather weak by modern standards, and it is definitely not a good practice to use an online key for 19 years without rotation. They should adopt a scheme where there is an off-line long-term master key and release keys.
96 • Slackware (by Bent Spoon on 2022-02-15 20:49:43 GMT from United States)
Wolvix was really nice until it was discontinued. I would most likely go with Salix now if I wanted to use a Slackware based distro, which I don't. I'm happy it's still out there!
97 • Re slackpkg update error (by random_linux_user on 2022-02-15 23:54:24 GMT from India)
@Jesse I'm 110% sure that the slackpkg update error you encountered during your review was because of incorrect date-time on your Slackware install. If you still have the Slackware 15 installed, you can definitely test this. I'm sure your clock on Slackware will show you incorrect time. Try changing the time and run slackpkg update and I'm 110% sure, it'll be a success.
98 • Re slackpkg update error (by random_linux_user on 2022-02-15 23:57:39 GMT from India)
@Jesse This error is not limited to slackpkg. You can read more about clock synchronization and SSL here, https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/72866/what-role-does-clock-synchronization-play-in-ssl-communcation
99 • slackpkg (by Jesse on 2022-02-16 01:09:38 GMT from Canada)
@97, @98: >> "I'm 110% sure that the slackpkg update error you encountered during your review was because of incorrect date-time on your Slackware install. If you still have the Slackware 15 installed, you can definitely test this. I'm sure your clock on Slackware will show you incorrect time. Try changing the time and run slackpkg update and I'm 110% sure, it'll be a success."
This is an interesting idea and one which I think makes a lot of sense. Clocks being offset are often a problem when dealing with encryption verification and SSL connections.
As it happens, I do still have Slackware installed on my laptop so I decided to check out your theory. You were partially right. The clock was offset. The timezone was right, but the clock was inaccurate (by a few hours). I reset the clock to the proper time (actually set up NTP and confirmed it was working).
However, the theory didn't hold for the second part. Attempting a fresh package sync (with both a previous and new mirror) using "slackpkg update" still resulted in the same checksum verification error shown in the screenshot of the review.
So your idea about the clock falling out of alignment was spot on and clever. However, it does not fix the package manager issue. I wish it did, that would have been quite the diagnosis.
100 • Distro's based on Slackware | distro hopping (by Lola Borg on 2022-02-16 03:05:36 GMT from Netherlands)
Ages ago my first Linux distro was ZenWalk, based on Slackware. Coming from DOS and Windows 98 that was a pleasant experience. Later I moved to Xubuntu 11 and I am using Xub20 now.
Some distro's are old and conservative - others are more modern, don't forget Debian, Fedora or OpenSuse. Another distro based on Slackware is Slax.
The Linux ecosystem does evolve ... at home I just want something simple, without SNAP packages. Software management is done through Synaptic. Most of my desktop computers were/are 2nd hand, so the lightweight desktop XFCE is great.
In my opinion (X)ubuntu has become a bit bloated ... have tried MX Linux recently.
Whatever, I may try Slackware with XFCE soon.
101 • Slackware review (by Amit on 2022-02-16 09:06:04 GMT from France)
Totally biased review against Slackware. Re-review it on actual physical machine and also perhaps debian host + slackware in VBox as guest.
102 • Slax (by kc1di on 2022-02-16 11:52:57 GMT from United States)
I've notice several have commented about using Slax verses Slackware. You should know that Slax is no longer based on Slackware. But is now based on Debian stable. Just to clear any confusion about this. https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slax
103 • Test environments (by Jesse on 2022-02-16 11:58:07 GMT from Canada)
@101: "Totally biased review against Slackware. Re-review it on actual physical machine and also perhaps debian host + slackware in VBox as guest. "
Funny, those are exactly the two test environments I used. As I said in the review, I ran Slackware on my laptop and in VirtualBox, running on Debian Stable. Why would you ask me to re-review using the exact test environments I already used?
104 • Review (by dick on 2022-02-16 15:42:26 GMT from Canada)
@92 "If Jesse wrote an actual fair review, and didn't make distrowatch a platform for misinformation;"
Reviewers report >>>their<<< experience and >>>their<<< plus/minus actual events.
Though some people may not like what they read most people... appreciate... and do heed.
105 • Slackware experience (by slackware user on 2022-02-16 15:42:33 GMT from Canada)
Hello to all,
I used Slackware for the first time in 96,98! I don't remember exactly. But I started to use on a regular basis on Desktop around 2002. Then I tried several other distributions but always with a Slackware not too far away or in dualbook. The best Slackware based distribution is SalixOS. I don't know if it will be back in service. For those who like it easy. Zenwalk is experimental oriented.
At home, I'm not alone so on the multimedia desktop the family is on Manjaro. But my personal laptop is on Slackware-current since several years. I like the simplicity. You know about slackpkg update - slackpkg install-new - slackpkg upgrade-all is not difficult to learn. The older I get, the more I want simplicity and no unnecessary overload graphical app at the end.
Thank Pat for Slackware long life !
106 • Re slackpkg update error (by random_linux_user on 2022-02-16 17:11:06 GMT from India)
@99 @Jesse Don't want to feel like a troll or a critic but my curious nature is getting better of me here. So pardon me if I'm coming across like that. I know this particular review has attracted many critical comments cause Slackware is like that idealist underdog that most people like to back for a win. After correcting clock/date/time on your Slackware, first you needed to do was, slackpkg update gpg
And only after that, slackpkg update
I know you tried these both earlier but that was before correcting the clock on Slackware install.
And a few words to readers, "Jesse Smith reviews distributions cause he most likely love GNU/Linux systems and he is not pointing to the shortcomings or glitches that he discovers during the review process because of some sort of malice against a distribution but because that is part of the job, part of the process. And discovery of glitches only make the distribution better in future."
107 • slackpkg and time (by Jesse on 2022-02-16 17:51:03 GMT from Canada)
@106: >> "Don't want to feel like a troll or a critic but my curious nature is getting better of me here. So pardon me if I'm coming across like that. I know this particular review has attracted many critical comments cause Slackware is like that idealist underdog that most people like to back for a win."
No problem, I appreciate a curious mind.
>> "After correcting clock/date/time on your Slackware, first you needed to do was, "slackpkg update gpg" And only after that, "slackpkg update". I know you tried these both earlier but that was before correcting the clock on Slackware install."
I'm game. I tried this again. I ran "date" to confirm the time was right under Slackware on my laptop. Then ran "slackpkg update gpg" which appeared to complete successfully, reporting it had fetched the appropriate information from Slackware's server. So far, so good.
Then I ran "slackpkg update". Information is fetched and, as before, fails its checksum. To be sporting about it, this time I made sure to not only try multiple mirrors, but also test separate HTTP and FTP mirrors, just to weed out any possible protocol/corruption issues. The checksum on the repository data still fails.
Since slackpkg is a script, I also checked to confirm my omission of development tools during the install process hadn't precluded items like GPG and md5sum, etc from being installed as those are likely dependencies. If I had to guess I'd wager some helper program/script is missing, though if one is there is no corresponding error. At this point I've tried around six or seven mirrors after confirming the clock is right and "slackpkg update gpg" has been successfully run. Still no luck getting slackpkg to work.
108 • @92 Vasily: (by dragonmouth on 2022-02-16 18:11:27 GMT from United States)
Over the past few years trhe word "misinformation" has become abuse and misused. "Misinformation" has come to mean any facts that we do not like or disagree with, no matter how correct they are. As disck has pointed out, REVIEWS are the impressions and/or experiences of the reviewer. Since I do not agree with your opinions, YOU are the one that is spreading misinformation with your posts.
109 • Re slackpkg update error (by random_linux_user on 2022-02-16 18:16:53 GMT from India)
@107 @Jesse Thanks for bearing with me and my curiosity. I don't think it has anything to do with any missing dependency If running "gpg --help" goes well as it should without any error then I'm beyond hope here. It is beyond my knowledge and expertise.
110 • Trolls (by TH in Minnesota on 2022-02-16 18:27:03 GMT from United States)
"Fools and Jerks attack what others say that doesn't agree with what the fool or jerk thinks." - TH, 10-16-22, formulated in response to the petty ad hominem "arguments" that attacked our popular and very knowledgeable linux website host & presenter
[There should be consequences for these dark, chaos-minded people - people should put a spotlight on them and shame the attacker into silence, if the attacker has the sense/awareness and decency and possibly brains, to shut up.
Hey Trolls! Does trashing someone somehow, in your dark twisted mind, make you feel better - and more important?! Mr. V. and others Grow up!]
111 • slackpkg and the poll (by TheTKS on 2022-02-16 19:01:18 GMT from Canada)
@99 "As it happens, I do still have Slackware installed on my laptop so I decided to check out your theory. You were partially right. The clock was offset. The timezone was right, but the clock was inaccurate (by a few hours). I reset the clock to the proper time (actually set up NTP and confirmed it was working).
However, the theory didn't hold for the second part. Attempting a fresh package sync (with both a previous and new mirror) using "slackpkg update" still resulted in the same checksum verification error shown in the screenshot of the review.
So your idea about the clock falling out of alignment was spot on and clever. However, it does not fix the package manager issue."
Jesse, can I suggest something? How about redownloading the iso and reinstalling, and then see if you still have the problem?
I'm sure you're busy but leaving that hanging in your review feels so unsatisfying (although I have seen your other tries to get it to work in the comments) when my Slackware experience is different, although I have had occasional download or update problems with Waterloo's mirrors (including but not just Slackware.)
As for the poll: I'm relatively new to Linux, first installing in 2016, and a Slackware user since 2017. I started with "easy" Linuxes like Ubuntu and at first was intimidated by Slackware's reputation, but after a few months using easy Linuxes, RTFM and then jumped into trying Slackware without installation problems. I use regularly use Xubuntu, elementaryOS, OpenBSD, and occasionally a couple of others - each for their own purposes - so I have no nostalgia for how Linux was in the '90s, but of the Linuxes I use, I enjoy using Slackware the most, partly for the features you've pointed out as being from the '90s.
TKS
112 • Slackware and slackpkg (by Jesse on 2022-02-16 19:12:01 GMT from Canada)
@111: "Jesse, can I suggest something? How about redownloading the iso and reinstalling, and then see if you still have the problem?"
I'm not sure what re-downloading the ISO will do to help. I've already confirmed the checksum is correct (I do this before starting a review) so any new ISO I download will be identical to the one I used. I've also done the install multiple times and the result is the same.
113 • O_o (by LP on 2022-02-16 20:15:23 GMT from United States)
Wow, the angry systemd(eath) hoardes will be jealous!
People, read the review. Agree or disagree but stop attacking. Link your review articles as well (I know you don't have any). Jesse knows what he's doing. He doesn't have to like everything. Did you read at the top that DWW is "A weekly opinion column and a summary of events from the distribution world"? Opinion column. "It sucks" is a perfectly valid opinion. When you have your weekly column (you never will), you can say the same thing about anything you want... Debian, systemd, ALSA/Pulse/Pipewire, X11/Wayland, GNOME 3+, on and on... No one else has to like your opinion but no one is right making personal attacks either.
I've been curious about Slackware ever since a hater bashed Windows users as idiots and that they should "install Slackware on their machines and learn something." No dependency resolution has kept me away. Installing the kitchen sink just isn't for me. I love the low memory usage, but that's typical for no GUI. New kernels seem to want lots of memory, not really a Slackware thing. Devuan used to be 29MB in early versions with an older kernel. XP runs with ~64MB with graphics, and that's "bloated" compared to Win9x. To each his own.
One day I may try Slackware, but I still see no compelling reason. I fall into the camp of "just do work." I probably would have loved it 30 years ago.
114 • Slackware and slackpkg (by TheTKS on 2022-02-16 20:16:11 GMT from Canada)
@112 Yeah, it would be a reach. More than once, though, I’ve seen that upon going back to the start and doing something over, a problem gets cleared.
It’s also really unsatisfying to clear a problem without understanding what the root cause was and what fixed it, but at least the problem is cleared.
TKS
115 • misinformation (by Vasily on 2022-02-16 20:19:09 GMT from United States)
@108
I'm sorry I don't follow the trends on how the word misinformation is being used by others. Your obvious misuse of this word, is the only current example I know of. Everything I wrote still stands, whether you agree with it or not.
116 • misinformation (by Vasily on 2022-02-16 20:35:53 GMT from United States)
@108
The main objection I have is the overt dishonesty of the reviewer. I wouldn't call this so called review a review, but that is just me. Whether he likes Slackware or not, I could care less. Whether he would recommend Slackware or not, I could care less. What irks me, is the dishonesty. When the so called opinion is expressed / built upon dishonesty / non factual, bases, then your assertion that " REVIEWS are the impressions and/or experiences of the reviewer" is not the whole story.
117 • Mr. V. and others Grow up (by Vasily on 2022-02-16 20:39:06 GMT from United States)
@ 110
I'm curious, did "Mr. V" make a comment here? If so I missed it; and would appreciate being directed to the post(s); if not then why are you dragging his name through the mud?
118 • vasily, it's you (by Ted H in Minnesota on 2022-02-16 21:07:21 GMT from United States)
sarcastic vasily, it's you.
vasily, Jesse is classy and a gentleman. You've shown us you aren't.
119 • @118 (by Vasily on 2022-02-16 21:12:17 GMT from United States)
Classy? maybe you could make an argument that he did a classy job of disseminating his FUD and dishonest "review", sure?
Do I care if I'm classy?
I'm not Pat thank you, and the insinuation on any level / shade is totally absurd / unwarranted. Are you really trying to insult Pat? What exactly are you trying to get at with the sarcasm?
120 • @112 (by guest on 2022-02-16 22:22:08 GMT from Austria)
I'm really curious about the cause of this slackpkg behavior. Could you please compare the downloaded (by slackpkg) repository metadata with a known good version of these files (downloaded by a browser from another OS)? If they are identical then I guess it's a slackpkg bug exposed by something unusual in your setup like locale settings, umask value, non-default shell, environment variables, paths with spaces or other unusual characters.
121 • Review (by John on 2022-02-17 02:46:37 GMT from Canada)
I kind of agree with "90", no need for attacks. As a Slackware user I have a different opinion about the review, but it is a review. If I were to review say Red Hat, I am sure people would not like what I say.
What people do not remember, but I do, a few years ago distrowatch donated to Slackware when it ran into hard times. To me that shows there is no hostility towards Slackware.
122 • slackpkg (by Jesse on 2022-02-17 02:57:23 GMT from Canada)
@120: >> "I'm really curious about the cause of this slackpkg behavior. Could you please compare the downloaded (by slackpkg) repository metadata with a known good version of these files (downloaded by a browser from another OS)?"
I think it's time to put the issue to rest. I've got other projects which need attention and I've provided all the steps I used to produce the bug in the review and comments here if someone is motivated to take it further.
I will add though that I've tried Zenwalk this week (may write about that later) and slackpkg does work as expected on Zenwalk 15.0. So there is a difference between how slackpkg is behaving on Zenwalk versus Slackware, even though they should be identical and (I believe) are using the same mirror at this point. Which I think supports my idea that there is probably a component/program missing from the Slackware install that is included in Zenwalk.
I mean the same repository, the same script, the same checksums, on the same network are in play here, but it works on one OS and not the other. To me that suggests missing support file/dependency.
123 • Take a breath Vasily (by CS on 2022-02-17 15:48:58 GMT from United States)
Your meltdown is pointless. If you want to run Slack nobody is stopping you, and you won't feel better iff I started using Slack again after ditching it 23 years ago. At this point Slack is a passion project for Linux enthusiasts. People considering it should know it's a rough ride relative to mainstream distros, the review reflects that fairly.
124 • reviews (by Tad Strange on 2022-02-17 17:05:06 GMT from Canada)
I think that some might be expecting a bit much from the "test drive" types of reviews done here.
Personally I like them - it gives me a very quick Go/No-Go gauge for deciding whether to invest my time in trying something out, based on what I myself, as a user, values in my software and experience.
125 • Reviews, the weekly, and the rest of the website (by TheTKS on 2022-02-17 18:01:42 GMT from Canada)
I have my opinions about the review, not all positive, but it’s Jesse’s review and distrowatch’s website. Criticize his review all you like, but if you think something else should be said about Slackware 15.0, we’re all free to write our own reviews, even put up a website. Distrowatch will even let you do it here by following the link to Slackware’s profile and giving it a rating, where you can say your piece - even if you disagree with Jesse.
TBH, I don’t get that much out of the distro reviews, despite them getting the most prominence in the weekly, although Slackware’s review got my attention. Sometimes it seems to me they overshadow the features I get the most out of on the website: I’ve found Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers to be good sources of information, as are the headlines once in awhile. I also find the page hit rankings and weekly poll questions fun, as long as you take them for what they - I don’t think distrowatch is aiming to be Ipsos or Gallup, but rather to get comments rolling, and the comments section does get some vigorous and sometimes even informative action some weeks.
TKS
126 • @123 (by Take a breath Vasily on 2022-02-17 19:38:09 GMT from United States)
I don't think you comprehended what I wrote at all, or you wouldn't feel the need to offer your irrelevant advice.
127 • Slackware recent user (by keithB on 2022-02-18 12:25:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
I started using Linux around 2007 with Ubuntu. Changed to Slackware around 2014 with 14.1 because I found myself fighting apt (and apt was winning). Slackware has a less tightly bound dependency graph in my (limited) experience and allows experimentation a bit more. Comes with a good base of libraries and build tools &c.
It is half term so I just wiped and installed Slackware64 15.0 on this Thinkpad X220 with UEFI and default BIOS settings. All good, updated from local mirror, added Zoom/MS Teams/Office and a handful of other slackbuilds (Lyx / Texmacs, R, RStudio).
Perhaps Slackware is not for everyone? I think there is a niche though. Artisanal Linux? Slow Software?
128 • Slackware (by Otis on 2022-02-18 17:41:57 GMT from United States)
@127 (and others).. I posted my take on that distro and the post was removed. Perhaps it was because my take was a bit hollow in that it's about how useless a distro is for me if it's not kept up to date by the developers. That is not to say anything negative about the Slackware devs at all, but saying it can come across that way of course. ALL linux and BSD developers are quite the heroes in my view, the 5 year (or so) release schema of Slackware devs included (I've often visited their website and thought that the distro was abandoned, not knowing their way of doing things.. reminded me of Blag and others).
Anyway, as pointed out in the review, it's a great legacy distro and of course its place in the importance and pedigree of linux itself is well established and honored by us all. My "however" is that it scares me to try to use something like that for work and not have it intentionally kept up to snuff by the developers themselves on at least an annual basis and that I'd still shy away from.
Number of Comments: 128
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• Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
• Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
• Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
• Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
• Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
• Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
• Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
• Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
• Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
• Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
• Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
• Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
• Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
• Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
• Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
• Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
• Full list of all issues |
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WinBi
WinBi was an Indonesian Linux distribution based on Trustix.
Status: Discontinued
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Star Labs |
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View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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