How does Slackware compare to ArchLinux? They both seem to be very barebones and force you to learn more about Linux, but ArchLinux seems much more popular from what I gather.
Slackware Live Edition
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Re: Slackware Live Edition
#12How does Slackware compare to ArchLinux? They both seem to be very barebones and force you to learn more about Linux, but ArchLinux seems much more popular from what I gather.
Slackware only took me 8 installs vs 15 for Arch.
Re: Slackware Live Edition
#13How does Slackware compare to ArchLinux? They both seem to be very barebones and force you to learn more about Linux, but ArchLinux seems much more popular from what I gather.
The Arch docs are superior (best that I've encountered in the Linux world) but Slackware is worth it to me to stay away from systemd.
Re: Slackware Live Edition
#14How does Slackware compare to ArchLinux? They both seem to be very barebones and force you to learn more about Linux, but ArchLinux seems much more popular from what I gather.
The Arch docs are superior (best that I've encountered in the Linux world) but Slackware is worth it to me to stay away from systemd.
Out of curiosity, why don't you like systemd?
Re: Slackware Live Edition
#15Eric Hameleers is a awesome. As a Slackware user his blogs and tips have been helping me for years. "we are well equipped to keep systemd out of our distro for a while" Win! This certainly isn't the first live Slackware though. Slax is how I first came to really experiment with Linux internals. It was a cool little tiny distro on a live USB. I was able to take stuff apart and build my own kernel etc without borking m…
Ahh you beat me to it (it being praising Eric Hameleers) :P Slackware is a better operating system thanks to Eric. Native Steam, multilib, leave it to Eric to make these things simple for others to use. I owe the man more beers than I can afford. :)
Re: Slackware Live Edition
#16Does Slackware have notable practical applications?
It's simple so it's somewhat easy to take apart and re-purpose. I was able to use it to build an internet enabled kiosk for instance without a lot of extra weight. It's super stable also so it make a good server. Lack of package management means you won't find it in the standard VM distro line up though. As for other uses... using it to reply to this comment right now.
Slack has package management. It doesn't do automatic dependency management. That said, Slack's packages are built in such a way to make dependency resolution relatively painless to the point where it's almost a non-issue.
Re: Slackware Live Edition
#17Does Slackware have notable practical applications?
Anything you want from a GNU/Linux-based operating system. Slackware is a great base operating system and its simplicity is its strength. For me it was very easy to get familiar with and feel at home in.
One thing that it has over probably all other distributions is its stability in terms of software selection. It still defaults to Lilo over Grub, it didn't switch to systemd, and installing Slackware 15 or 14.2 when it comes out will be exactly the same experience as installing slackware 14.1, or just about any version preceding it, I'm sure of it. :)
It has one thing to make it genuinely notable: it's the oldest surviving Linux distribution out there.
Re: Slackware Live Edition
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's simple so it's somewhat easy to take apart and re-purpose. I was able to use it to build an internet enabled kiosk for instance without a lot of extra weight. It's super stable also so it make a good server. Lack of package management means you won't find it in the standard VM distro line up though. As for other uses... using it to reply to this comment right now.
Lack of package management There is no lack of package management. There is a lack of automatic dependency resolution without third-party additions. This is nowhere near as debilitating as often presented by outside observers who have never tried the distribution. YMMV, but I've ran into circular dependencies and conflicts in addition to configuration updates rendering systems unbootable multiple times on distros lik…
> I have never used a more convenient package manager than sbopkg before. Dependencies can be cleanly recorded and built with queuefiles.
Re: Slackware Live Edition
#19How does Slackware compare to ArchLinux? They both seem to be very barebones and force you to learn more about Linux, but ArchLinux seems much more popular from what I gather.
Arch isn't at all bare bones, that's more of an outdated humblebrag than anything else. Actually, neither is Slackware.
I find sbopkg and SlackBuilds.org to be better than yaourt and AUR. sbopkg's UI is just top notch (ncurses-based).
Slackware uses sysvinit with flat rc scripts as opposed to the traditional System V setup of numbered symlink farms. Much cleaner. Arch uses systemd.
Slackware's pkgtools are much more minimalistic than pacman. They're shell functions that manage local tarballs. In addition, you have slackpkg for fetching remote updates.
Slackware actually double-functions as both a rolling and stable release distribution. You can either set slackpkg to track -current, which is often bleeding edge yet surprisingly robust, or stick to official versions like 14.1.
Slackware's installer and setup utilities are all ncurses-driven rather than pure CLI as in Arch. I actually find them much more capable. The only pure CLI part of installing Slackware is disk partitioning, the rest is a highly detailed TUI menu installer (similar to FreeBSD if you've tried that).
Slackware has a very strict devotion to not patching upstream packages at all, with exceptions only in the most critical circumstances. This means that you're pretty much always using vanilla Linux userland as it is, and so if there's bugs, you report to upstream rather than to the distribution tracker. If you're a developer, this is great.
Slackware's package management can alternate between binary and source-based.
As such, I'd recommend Slack. It's venerable and rock solid.
Re: Slackware Live Edition
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's simple so it's somewhat easy to take apart and re-purpose. I was able to use it to build an internet enabled kiosk for instance without a lot of extra weight. It's super stable also so it make a good server. Lack of package management means you won't find it in the standard VM distro line up though. As for other uses... using it to reply to this comment right now.
Lack of package management There is no lack of package management. There is a lack of automatic dependency resolution without third-party additions. This is nowhere near as debilitating as often presented by outside observers who have never tried the distribution. YMMV, but I've ran into circular dependencies and conflicts in addition to configuration updates rendering systems unbootable multiple times on distros lik…
Let whoever wants downvote me, but I'd just like to bring people's attention to what your 2nd paraghraph says.
...to me it often is Ubuntu's apt breaking itself (and even reporting this back with cheerfullness I cannot understand) just in time for a save-home-dir-then-wipe-and-install-latest-ubuntu action sequence :)