 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 955, 14 February 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 7th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Just over a week ago the Linux community celebrated the release of Slackware Linux 15.0. This new version of the world's oldest surviving Linux distribution is the first to come out of the Slackware project in over five years. What has changed, what has stayed the same, and how does Slackware compare to other distributions these days? Our Feature Story shares observations on setting up, using, and maintaining Slackware's new release. The Slackware Linux distribution has been around for a long time. When did you first get to run Slackware? Let us know when you got your first taste of Slackware in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we talk about a solution being worked on which helps Raspberry Pi owners overcome the necessity of having another computer to help install operating systems to a new Pi. Then we share a tool which can be used to gather system information for debugging purposes. We also talk about the differences between Fedora's Flatpak repository and the Flathub repository and the goals of both projects. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we talk about making clones of a disk and compressing the disk images. Read on to learn which tools are helpful when imaging storage disks. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (19MB) and MP3 (14MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Slackware Linux 15.0
Slackware Linux is the world's oldest surviving Linux distribution. The distribution is a slow moving project, often with several years between releases. The gap between Slackware 14.2 and the latest 15.0 release was about five and a half years, for example.
Slackware has a well deserved reputation for stability and for having a simple technical design. A design which frequently ignores modern approaches to system management. Slackware still uses a text-based system installer, has 90s-era approaches to package management, and prefers editing text files over graphical tools when it comes time to adjust most configuration settings. The distribution's official media does not offer a live desktop environment, though there is a community branch which provides live media for people who wish to test the distribution on their hardware. The project's official release announcement acknowledges this slow-to-change style, noting Slackware is just now adopting PAM authentication (something most other Linux distributions have used since the 1990s) and continues to use the classic SysV init software instead of systemd: "We adopted PAM (finally) as projects we needed dropped support for pure shadow passwords. We switched from ConsoleKit2 to elogind, making it much easier to support software that targets that Other Init System and bringing us up-to-date with the XDG standards. We added support for PipeWire as an alternate to PulseAudio, and for Wayland sessions in addition to X11."
In other words, while Slackware runs a lot of modern software such as KDE Plasma 5.15, version 5.15 of the Linux kernel, and PipeWire the underlying style and approach are still very much the same as they were 25 years ago.
Slackware 15.0 is available for 32-bit and 64-bit builds of the x86 architecture. There is also an ARM branch of the project, though install media for it was not available on release day. The 64-bit (x86_64) build is a 3.6GB download.
The Slackware media boots to a text screen where we can select kernel options. This is followed by a second text screen where we are given the chance to select a keyboard map. The install media then drops us at a console login prompt where we can sign in as root without a password. Above the login prompt is a helpful message letting us know we will need to format the disk and set up at least one partition, then run the setup command in order to get started.
Installing
Before running setup we may wish to run either fdisk or cfdisk to begin partitioning the hard drive. These console partition managers provide simplistic, yet functional tools for formatting the drive. We can then dive into the installer.
Slackware's installer uses a series of text-based menus and prompts which guide us through the process of selecting our keyboard layout, picking a swap partition, and choosing source media. Typically the source media will be the local DVD/USB drive. We are given the chance to select which partition to use as the root filesystem and we can select how to format this partition. Most Linux filesystems are supported, including ext2/3/4, Btrfs, Reiserfs, F2FS, and XFS.
The installer will ask us which categories of software we wish to install. The categories range widely from the base system, basic networking functionality, a graphical environment, and games. The KDE Plasma and Xfce desktops are available and I decided to keep the former. By default all categories are selected. I kept most things I figured I would need, excluding only the Xfce desktop, games, development tools, and Emacs. We are then given the chance to further select which specific packages to install or simply install everything in the chosen categories. Taking the automated selection of everything which can take up around 15GB of disk space. I went with the "terse" option which basically installs everything in the selected categories with minimum output. I then waited as package names scrolled across the screen and files copied to my hard drive.
The installer finishes copying its files and then offers to make a USB stick to boot from. The installer next offers to set up the LILO boot loader, a technology that has largely been replaced elsewhere in the Linux ecosystem by GRUB. We are then asked to set up a hostname and choose to use a static IP, DHCP, NetworkManager, or SLAAC to configure the network.
The next installer screen offers us the chance to enable certain services, such as Samba, syslog, network time, e-mail services, CUPS printing, and OpenSSH. Most services, apart from cron (for scheduling tasks) and OpenSSH (for remote access) are disabled. We then pick our timezone from a list. We're then asked which vi-like editor we would like to use: elvis, nvi, or vim. We can then choose which window manager to run when we're not using KDE Plasma and set a root password. We're then told we can reboot the system to start using Slackware. It's a long install process and it defaults to placing a lot of software on the hard drive.
Early impressions
Slackware's boot menu pauses for two minutes to give us time to set boot parameters and then prints out status messages while the system starts up. We're then presented with a text console and a login prompt. When we sign in as the root user we are shown the kernel's version number (5.15.19) and left to do whatever we want. The system is text-only, using about 100MB of RAM. With my mostly-default collection of software installed the system used an unusually large amount of disk space: 11GB, plus swap space. So Slackware is, when using the default settings, unusually large on the disk - in part because so many dependencies are installed - and quite small in RAM.
There is no welcome message, no first-run wizard. Slackware expects us to know what we're doing, or to have an alternative method to accessing documentation. We can make use of locally installed manual pages and GNU command line utilities.
As a veteran of Slackware I knew the first thing I'd want to do was create a new user account. I did this by running adduser. Things went well at first with me providing my name, default shell, and groups. But then the terminal went into an endless loop, asking me for my new password and immediately declaring I hadn't typed anything. This happened over and over, soon taking up 100% of my CPU and forcing me to kill the session from another terminal as my main one had locked up.
I discovered the new account had been created, just the password had not been applied. I logged in as root again and set the password using the passwd command. My next step was to get a graphical environment. There are a few ways to do this. One of the better approaches is to set Slackware to boot into a graphical mode instead of a terminal. We can do this by editing the /etc/inittab file and switching the default runlevel from 3 to 4. The next time we boot, a colourful login screen appears.
Slackware Linux 15.0 -- Running KDE Plasma with a dark theme
(full image size: 825kB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
The login screen offers a number of session options. The default is Plasma running on X11, but Xsession, Plasma Failsafe, Plasma Wayland, and Plasma Full Wayland are offered. I was not sure what the difference was between Wayland and Full Wayland, but it looks like Wayland enables the XWayland display server for compatibility with X11 applications while Full Wayland forces an exclusive Wayland environment.
Hardware
I experimented with both the Slackware live image and the install ISO. The live disc was able to run in VirtualBox (when using BIOS mode) and provided a KDE Plasma session which worked without any serious problems. The live session was unable to operate in EFI mode. The live ISO was unable to run on my laptop and would get only as far as the GRUB boot prompt.
The official Slackware media worked both in VirtualBox and on my laptop. The official media appeared to have no trouble navigating the classic BIOS mode or UEFI mode.
Slackware Linux 15.0 -- The KDE System Settings panel
(full image size: 957kB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
As I mentioned before, when Slackware was sitting at the command line it used about 100MB of RAM. When signed into the KDE Plasma desktop memory consumption rose to around 350MB. This makes Slackware's Plasma session one of the lightest in memory I've run. The system ran quickly on the laptop and detected my all my hardware. The distribution was a little sluggish to respond in the virtual machine when running the Plasma desktop, though not to the point it became a problem while operating the distribution.
Included software
Slackware ships with a lot of software. Even after I had removed items like games, development tools, and the Xfce desktop the application menu was still unusually crowded. Virtually every KDE application is included, ranging from the Falkon web browser to the Marble globe application, painting tools, image viewers, the KTorrent client, the K3b disc burning software, multiple audio players, and the Calligra productivity suite. The list goes on, covering printer settings, multiple text editors (there are at least three in the application menu), multiple web browsers (I counted at least four), and there are a few dozen games included despite my explicitly removing them as a category.
The distribution ships with so many applications it's difficult to find anything in the menus because each category in the twin-pane menu holds pages of launchers. Many of these programs I haven't used before, or have not used in a long time.
Slackware ships with media codecs for playing video and audio files. When I tried to open audio files they would play in the distribution's copy of XMMS 1.2.11 (which was released about 15 years ago). 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.
Slackware Linux 15.0 -- Playing music and writing a document in Calligra
(full image size: 779kB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
In the background we find the SysV init software (version 3.01) running along with version 5.15 of the Linux kernel.
Most of the included software, at least the items I got around to using as there were a lot, worked well for me. Some of the selections were odd - for instance Calligra is offered in place of LibreOffice and the QtAV & Dragon Player applications are used instead of VLC). However, I suspect this was at least in part due to the focus placed on KDE software. Slackware officially just has two desktop environments (KDE Plasma and Xfce) and so it seems wherever KDE can provide functionality it replaces other, more popular options.
Slackware Linux 15.0 -- Trying to play a video
(full image size: 800kB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
When it comes to managing the system, we can use the su command or login as the root user directly. The sudo utility is included in the base system, however it is not set up to allow any users to authenticate by default. We can adjust the sudo configuration as needed.
Software management
Managing packages on Slackware is a tricky subject and one that the project's website seems to go out of its way to avoid addressing. Visiting the Packages section of the website simply provides web access to a repository of packages, but no instructions for accessing them with a package manager. The Slackware Book offers some basic tips on adding, removing and upgrading local packages (ones we have already downloaded), but does not talk about gaining access to new packages or repositories.
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. I was sorry to note that the Slack Builds website hasn't been updated to support Slackware 15.0 at the time of writing.
There is a page on the Slackware documentation site which talks about package management and briefly talks about repository-aware tools like slackpkg which is included in the distribution and third-party package managers like slapt-get which are intended to work more like the package managers in mainstream distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu. Of these, slackpkg is probably the one available which will be most familiar to people coming from other Linux projects.
There are still hurdles to overcome when using the default slackpkg utility. As an example, slackpkg is only available in the root user's path, regular users won't even see its executable by default. Trying to run slackpkg as the root user produces an error saying we first need to select a package mirror. We can do this by editing the /etc/slackpkg/mirrors file. I went with the default Slackware server to start.
When trying to fetch package information from the main Slackware repository, slackpkg failed, reporting the server's security certificate was not recognized. I was advised to use the "--no-check-certificate" flag to get around this. I attempted this workaround and it failed, reporting the error again, that the Let's Encrypt certificate was not recognized.
Slackware Linux 15.0 -- Trying to fetch update with slackpkg
(full image size: 934kB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
I tried two other mirrors, one in Canada and one in Europe. Both of these passed the certificate test, but then failed the checksum for the repository information slackpkg downloaded. In both cases the error from slackpkg reported the checksum failing meant either the repository data was out of date or had been tampered with. In short, slackpkg failed to even fetch repository data and could not update or install new packages.
Slackware does not ship with support for portable package formats such as Flatpak or Snap by default. To summarize my experience: portable packages aren't available, the default binary package tool fails to fetch repository data successfully, and Slack Builds hasn't been brought up to date with the new 15.0 version yet, effectively blocking most attempts to update or install new software.
Conclusions
One of the curious - some might say comforting - things about using Slackware is that the underlying approach doesn't change. If you set up Slackware 20 years ago, the process is virtually the same today as it was then. The service management is the same, the package management has some more options now, but the classic tools are still there. A lot of the documentation looks to have been left unchanged for at least a decade.
Slackware has updated packages mixed in with its blasts from the past. It runs a modern kernel with modern versions of two popular desktop environments; it provides access to modern web browsers. However, these modern packages are mixed in with ancient versions of software like XMMS and less popular applications like Calligra. Meanwhile the design, the underpinnings, the approach Slackware takes to accomplishing tasks has remained almost unchanged during the entire time I've been running Linux distributions.
This can be either a welcome comfort, if you came into the Linux community by way of Slackware. It can also be a regular source of frustration, or ever increasing puzzlement, if you're more accustomed to the way other distributions work.
There were things about Slackware which really stood out during my trial, not just with the operating system itself and its classic approach to software management and its text-based installer. The project's main website still uses HTTP instead of the more commonly used secure flavour of HTTPS. The main download servers and the release announcement offer FTP links, despite the fact most modern web browsers no longer support fetching files over FTP. The live media failed to run in UEFI mode and the Slackware documentation refers to Freshmeat as a popular third-party website for finding new software. Freshmeat changed its name in 2011 and stopped being updated in 2014. When we add in the broken repository information and failing Let's Encrypt certificate it seems as though Slackware's infrastructure has been left to rot for years.
The point I'm trying to make is that Slackware has remained stubbornly, firmly in the past. Even the new changes available in this release, like PAM, have been available to most other distributions for around 25 years. It's a distribution which, for better or worse, still regards things like portable packages, automatic software dependency resolution, secure websites, downloads over HTTPS, and graphical installers as being unnecessary. And, if you're a die-hard Slackware fan, I suppose this focus on 1990s era computing has an appeal. There is a simplicity in Slackware's design, a hail back to a time before systemd timers, Flatpaks, and web-based administration tools. Slackware invites us to get our hands dirty doing things "the old way", ignoring both the unpleasant complexity and the modern conveniences of the past 25 years.
While I was working on this review I spent some time on social platforms like SlashDot and the Slackware Reddit forum where people were talking about the new 15.0 release. One thing which I kept noticing was people celebrating the new release kept talking about how they got their first start with Linux by installing Slackware from floppy disks. People remembered fondly running Slackware in school back in 1997 or seeing a boxed copy of Slackware for sale in 1995. Something eventually occurred to me: no one in any of these discussions mentioned having their first start with Slackware after the year 2001. It suggests to me not many new people have wandered into the Slackware community in the past 20 years and, given the project's apparent intent to avoid evolution, I suspect not many newcomers are going to try out Slackware and stick with it.
Slackware appeals to me in some aspects. I did a lot of my early computing with DOS and a Slackware-based distribution in the 1990s. It feels familiar. I like the classic init software, the intention to keep the foundation of the operating system simple. There are times when Slackware's classic approach certainly appeals when I compare it next to GNOME's heavy resource usage or Anaconda's complexity. I like how stable and familiar Slackware can be. But then I try to get something done - like installing a game I want, setting up video conferencing software, removing unnecessary packages and their dependencies, building a utility that's only available through source via Slack Builds, viewing a video, or installing a library using slackpkg and I am reminded why I use more modern tools.
There is an appeal to Slackware for use on servers where the desire is for everything to be stable, static, predictable. Especially when running classic network services. But for modern desktop use, or even modern server usage, Slackware has long since fallen behind to the point where I find it too much effort to get common tasks done with this distribution. There is a lot of manual work involved and very little, if any, benefit to being forced to do this extra work.
I know some people in the Slackware community will argue that not all change is progress. And I agree. However, I would also argue there can be no progress without change. Slackware refuses to accept almost all change and, while it side-steps a few problems this way, it also misses out on all the progress made in the past two decades.
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Visitor supplied rating
Slackware Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.1/10 from 122 review(s).
Have you used Slackware Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Installing OS on Raspberry Pi without another computer, what sets Fedora Flatpaks apart from Flathub, gathering system information
Fans of the Raspberry Pi single board computer received some good news this week. To date, setting up a Raspberry Pi computer has typically required the owner to either purchase a microSD card with a stock operating system on it or, more commonly, to download an operating system using another computer and use the second computer to write the operating system to the Pi's microSD card. In short, most people needed a second computer in order to use their Raspberry Pi. This is changing as work is going into the Raspberry Pi boot loader which will allow the device to download new operating systems and write them directly to the Pi's storage drive without requiring another computer to be part of the process. "Until today you've always needed to use another computer to run Raspberry Pi Imager, or to run something similar, to let you flash your operating system onto an SD card when you get a new Raspberry Pi. But how do you get the operating system onto an SD card if you don't have another computer in the first place? It's the classic chicken and egg problem, and we've just solved it." This should allow people to download operating system images, like those for Raspberry Pi OS, directly to the Pi. A post from Peter Harper shares the details on this work in progress.
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The Fedora project maintains its own repository of Flatpak packages. In an overview of how Flatpak packages are used on Fedora, Fedora Magazine explores what sets Fedora Flatpaks apart from other repositories such as Flathub. "Fedora Flatpaks and Flathub share the same goals but differ in motivation. The goal is to make applications accessible in their respective field, maximize convenience and minimize maintenance. Fedora Flatpaks's motivation is to push RPMs that come directly from the Fedora Project and make them accessible throughout Fedora Linux regardless of the versions, spin, etc. So, in theory, it would be possible to get the latest and greatest applications from the Fedora Project without needing to upgrade to the latest version of Fedora Linux. Of course, it's always advisable to keep everything up-to-date. Flathub's motivation is to simply make applications and tools as accessible as possible regardless of the distribution in use." The article highlights some differences between the repositories and what makes them both useful for Fedora users.
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One of the hardest aspects of reporting a bug (and helping people who have reported problems) is knowing what information is relevant. Trying to figure out why a computer is slow or why an operating system is crashing can take people working on the problem down a series of paths. One tool which is designed to help this process is the UbuntuForums system-info script. This script gathers system information from a variety of sources and offers to upload the results to Pastebin as well as saving the results in the user's home directory. While the script is designed to work on Ubuntu, it can also function on most other mainstream distributions, such as Fedora, with only a few gaps appearing in the information.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Imaging a drive and compressing it
Creating-clones asks: I've set up my computer the way I want. Now I want to image the disk so I can restore it or copy it to another machine. My issue is only a few GB of space are used, but if I use dd to image the drive the image will be the whole 256GB. Is there a way to shrink the image so it's only as big as the data used?
DistroWatch answers: You're correct that if you use the dd command to make a straight copy of the disk then the resulting image will be just as large as the disk itself. There are two fairly straight forward ways to avoid this.
The first, and probably easiest, way to work around this limitation is to use a tool like Clonezilla Live. With Clonezilla you can compress the image of a disk as the image is being created. Clonezilla will then give you the chance to transfer the image to another local drive, network share, or OpenSSH-capable machine. The resulting image file will be around the same size as the amount of data you've stored on the disk.
Another approach would be to read and compress the data from the drive with your preferred compression tool. This might not be quite as effective, but will probably be nearly as good. This operation should be performed from an operating system or disk which is separate from the one you are archiving. In other words, run this process from a live disc if you are making an image of your operating system. In the following example I read the contents of a disk called sda, compress it using gzip, and save the result as my-image.img.gz:
dd if=/dev/sda | gzip --best > my-image.img.gz
The "--best" flag tells the gzip compression tool to use its best (slowest) compression method.
Later, when we want to restore the compressed image or write it to a new disk we can perform the same operation in reverse. The following command decompresses the image archive and writes it to the sda hard drive.
gunzip -c my-image.img.gz | dd of=/dev/sda
Using common tools such as cat, dd, and gzip has the benefit of being portable, and it works in a variety of environments, including single board computers and phones, where running Clonezilla Live may not be practical.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
OpenMandriva Lx 4.3
Cristina Sgubbi has announced the release of OpenMandriva Lx 4.3, the latest stable version from the project's independently-developed desktop Linux distribution featuring the latest KDE Plasma desktop: "We are pleased to announce the latest release of the OpenMandriva distribution, OMLx 4.3. This release comes with the very latest KDE applications. Included in this release are: LibreOffice suite 7.3.0, Krita 5.0.2, Digikam 7.5, SMPlayer 21.10.0, VLC 3.0.16, Falkon browser 3.2, SimpleScreenRecorder 0.4.3. PipeWire has become our default sound server in the current system release, thus replacing PulseAudio. However, PulseAudio is still in our repository and you can return to it at any time. A port to RISC-V - an open-source processor architecture - is in the works, but not yet included in the 4.3 release. For more technically adept, you may find interesting that this version also includes Linux kernel 5.16.7, KDE Frameworks 5.90, Plasma Desktop 5.23.5, Applications 21.12.2, Qt 5.15.3, LLVM/Clang 13.0.0, systemd 249, Java 17 (and 18 beta, 19 dev), Calamares 3.2.39, Binutils 2.37, GCC 11.2." Continue to the release announcement for more information and screenshots.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 -- Running the kDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 864kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,681
- Total data uploaded: 41.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
When did you become a Slackware user?
In this week's review of Slackware Linux Jesse Smith made the observation that many people celebrating the release of 15.0 are people who got their start with Slackware prior to 2002 - over 20 years ago. Are you a Slackware user? If so, we'd love to hear when you first began using the world's longest lived distribution.
You can see the results of our previous poll on reviewing operating systems for the PinePhone in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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I first tried Slackware around...
| 1993-1995: | 169 (7%) |
| 1996-1998: | 558 (24%) |
| 1999-2001: | 135 (6%) |
| 2002-2004: | 155 (7%) |
| 2005-2007: | 81 (3%) |
| 2008-2010: | 82 (3%) |
| 2011-2013: | 54 (2%) |
| 2014-2016: | 62 (3%) |
| 2017-2019: | 46 (2%) |
| 2020-Now: | 54 (2%) |
| I have not tried Slackware: | 947 (40%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Nobara Project. Nobara Project is a Fedora-based spin which is customized with third-party software to improve gaming and graphical performance.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 21 February 2022. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
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 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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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| Random Distribution | 
Pop!_OS
Pop!_OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution featuring a custom GNOME desktop. Pop!_OS is designed to have a minimal amount of clutter on the desktop without distractions in order to allow the user to focus on work. The distribution is developed by Linux computer retailer System76.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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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