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Slackware 15.0

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Re: Slackware 15.0

#71

Post by freedomben »

dangrossman wrote: post #16

Slackware was my first Linux too. I remember making the installation floppy disk set. And then it was my first introduction to running a computer others could remotely control. After learning how to dial up AOL from Linux then join an IRC chat room, I was immediately "pwned" by someone in that chat room who guessed my root password and rm -rf /'d my entire hard drive. I was probably 8 or 9 at the time and cried.

it's remarkable how dumb kids are (compared to adults). most people understand intuitively when talking to a child that they are going to be dumb and we need to treat them differently (or have a different standard), but the internet's anonymity shields you quite a bit and it's easy to think you're talking to a really dumb adult when really you're being a horrible person. If that person knew you were an 8 or 9 year old child I would guess they would have praised you for your curiosity, tenacity, etc.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#72

Post by SkeuomorphicBee »

Wow, that is a name that brings back memories.

Now I'm curious, anyone knows how good is the package management in modern Slackware? I ask because back in the late 90s it was quite far behind Debian.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#73

Post by bachmeier »

I'll be trying this when I get a chance. I coincidentally checked the Slackware website this morning and was disappointed that the last release was 6 years ago. I thought for sure it was dead.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#74

Post by mirchiseth »

kelp wrote: post #30

I remember staying up all night downloading Slackware 96 (version 3.0) floppy sets over my 28.8kbps modem. I think I used it for my first 6+ months of home Linux use. In retrospect it was probably a good thing to learn on because Slackware was so simple but did so little for you. I remember having to read a long HOWTO from the Linux Documentation Project about how to get XFree86 working. Hand crafting /etc/X11/XF86Co…

Handcrafting XF86Config is how I spent my summer of 95. I was in engineering school in India and we have these 486s in the lab running Win 3.1. I took permission from the lab dude to install Linux/X Windows on it. Monitor I had with the 486 was some noname OEM. So naturally the frequencies or whatever in the XF86Config didn't match. For many many weeks I would randomly change numbers in a line and restart. I think it was Ctrl+Fn7 to get to X screen or terminal. Still remember the joy when I got the login screen to show up.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#75

Post by buescher »

The first distribution I downloaded to floppies at work and installed on a beater 386 at home. I am pretty sure the first one I installed still used a pre-1.0 kernel that I immediately upgraded to 1.0, so it must have been spring or summer 1994 and Slackware 1.1. I turned into a computer bum for the next five years or so, but I got over it.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#76

Post by twh270 »

40four wrote: post #45

I’ve already seen countless comments about Slackware being a lot of folks first Linux distro. For someone like me who didn’t get into programming until the last 5 years or so, can you guys explain what was it about Slackware, that was so appealing or inviting to new users? As a primarily Ubuntu user in my time, was part of it that the Linux landscape was much less mature back then? Was it the principals/ ethos that t…

> what was ... so appealing or inviting to new users?

Back in the early '90s, if you had an "IBM-compatible personal computer" in your home, it almost certainly was running either DOS or Windows as its operating system. And that was fine for most people, but some of us were enthusiasts, geeks, and nerds. We liked technology. We enjoyed fine-tuning our systems, learning all about them, and programming. And sure, you could tinker some with DOS/Windows, but it was fundamentally a closed system.

For me, the appeal of Slackware (and Linux in general) was that it opened a door to a whole universe of software and source code that was previously inaccessible, as well as the feeling of belonging to a community of like-minded enthusiasts and geeks that loved and worked on it. A free, open-source Unix-like operating system that ran on your PC at home -- how cool was that!? (Spoiler: very!) I'd heard things about how 'powerful' Unix was -- and now I had my very own, and it even came with source code. I was also a believer in the nascent free software movement.

So that's a longwinded way to say yes, all of the above. Community, geeking out over cool new technology, and as a programmer, getting access to a completely open, hackable machine.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#77

Post by ncmncm »

Koshkin wrote: post #31
ncmncm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very old-school. A more extreme choice in the same vein might be Linux From Scratch.

Actually, there’s nothing “extreme” about Slackware, in fact, I find it easier to use, and more reliable than Ubuntu, for example. It is one of those things that you would say about: it’s perfect just the way it is.

"Extreme" just means farther out on the same radius. I could have said "distal", instead, and not been understood.

Running Linux on a desktop already makes you an outlier.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#78

Post by paisawalla »

freedomben wrote: post #71
dangrossman wrote: post #16

Slackware was my first Linux too. I remember making the installation floppy disk set. And then it was my first introduction to running a computer others could remotely control. After learning how to dial up AOL from Linux then join an IRC chat room, I was immediately "pwned" by someone in that chat room who guessed my root password and rm -rf /'d my entire hard drive. I was probably 8 or 9 at the time and cried.

it's remarkable how dumb kids are (compared to adults). most people understand intuitively when talking to a child that they are going to be dumb and we need to treat them differently (or have a different standard), but the internet's anonymity shields you quite a bit and it's easy to think you're talking to a really dumb adult when really you're being a horrible person. If that person knew you were an 8 or 9 year ol…

The other person could also have been 8 or 9. In fact, I was doing dumb things to strangers on the internet well into my teenage years.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#79

Post by spicymaki »

dangrossman wrote: post #16

Slackware was my first Linux too. I remember making the installation floppy disk set. And then it was my first introduction to running a computer others could remotely control. After learning how to dial up AOL from Linux then join an IRC chat room, I was immediately "pwned" by someone in that chat room who guessed my root password and rm -rf /'d my entire hard drive. I was probably 8 or 9 at the time and cried.

Slackware was my first Linux distro. There was someone with a Linux box in my college dorm at the time and I looked at his desktop and awesome custom terminals, and I was hooked. I asked him how to get started and he handed me a case with Walnut Creek Slackware CDs.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#80

Post by skissane »

kelp wrote: post #30

I remember staying up all night downloading Slackware 96 (version 3.0) floppy sets over my 28.8kbps modem. I think I used it for my first 6+ months of home Linux use. In retrospect it was probably a good thing to learn on because Slackware was so simple but did so little for you. I remember having to read a long HOWTO from the Linux Documentation Project about how to get XFree86 working. Hand crafting /etc/X11/XF86Co…

> including experimenting to find modelines that worked for my CRT monitor.

I remember having to muck around with modelines in X11 in the 1990s - but not this century; and even last century, Windows (both 3.x/9x and NT lineages) and OS/2 (I only ever ran 2.0) never required any such esoteric configuration (I don’t even know whether either exposed any INI/registry settings for it.) Why was this such a big (and painful) part of the 90s Linux GUI experience but not for its contemporary GUI competitors?

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