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Slackware 15.0

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Re: Slackware 15.0

#131

Post by pretext »

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…

I think more precise definition is naive rather than dumb.

Added: 8-9 y.o. who installs Linux is smart, not dumb in my perception.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#132

Post by kdtsh »

oblio wrote: post #130
kdtsh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest one for me is that the mental model for maintaining your system is tiny. As a system it is easy to inspect how it works - you can trace the entire boot process along with a finger, the init system is excruciatingly simple, the package database is a directory with files each containing a brief description the output of a un-tar command, SlackBuild packages are easy to make and modify. The community is also…

Also, how do you patch your system?

slackpkg :-) the OS is considered stable so you don’t generally get new major versions of software, but security and bug fixes are delivered regularly.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#133

Post by hulitu »

icelancer wrote: post #123
girvo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slax was my introduction both to Slackware and Linux. I miss those days. My parents don't: I think I wiped their computer a half dozen times messing with things (usually killing the MBR IIRC)

Haha, I've done that multiple times to the family computer. Just wrecked the MBR like an idiot trying to set up GRUB or something.

Good old times when you used an undocumented "fdisk /mbr" to restore the destroyed MBR.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#134

Post by pjmlp »

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…

It was one of the very first Linux distributions, so if you already an adult in computing around 1994, it was a natural way to dive into Linux.

On my case, it was offered alongside the Linux Unleashed book series, which on the first edition was shipping Slackware 2.0 with it.

Then as Patrick mentions on the annoucement, they got to be available in Walnut Creek CD-ROM collection, which was the way to get FOSS CDs shipped to your from anywhere in the world.

So you had basically FreeBSD, Slackware, Red-Hat, Debian and Yasdrill (which quickly fade away), Mandrake and SuSE came a bit later.

For me Slackware only lost relevance when Linux distributions adopted the package concept from UNIX clones, thus easing the pain to hunt dependencies with tarballs, or having to use alien to convert them.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#135

Post by hulitu »

skissane wrote: post #80
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…

I think monitors were tested by manufacturers on windows. Also you usually had a no name monitor and you either selected something close to what you had or a generic one and then had to play with xvidtune.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#136

Post by hulitu »

na85 wrote: post #109
Gentil wrote: post #83

As someone who is from the era of Ubuntu as their first distro, my natural progression towards maintainable OS made me reach Arch. As an OS for your system, it seems like the perfect abstraction layer and does just enough. The next incremental update to my system could be NixOS, Nix package manager in Arch or Nix package manager in FreeBSD. But I am always happy to see old projects like this kicking. I see many peopl…

I considered Slackware but I'm under the impression it has no analogue to apt or dnf/yum. How on earth do people running Slackware manage their library dependencies and keep everything up to date?

Keeping everything up to date in not usually required. But then comes a program with "bug fixes and performance improvments" which does not work with libxlst-2.67.45.35.77.so.2 and needs libxlst-2.67.45.35.78.so.4. And this lib needs another one and so on. Only if people would think a bit before releasing something the world would be a better place. That's why i like Patrick. He tries hard to make a stable release even during times when "if compiles, ship it" is the mantra.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#137

Post by taubek »

When I was buying my first PC back in mid 90's I had only one requirement: it had to be abele to run Linux. I was picking out the components for which I was sure that they will work with Linux. My first distribution was Slackware. I've moved away from sys admin jobs some 15 years ago but it is nice to see that Slackware is still around.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#138

Post by jdmoreira »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #39
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.

Slack was my second distro with the first one being the original Red Hat, but i discovered them on IRC, through the glorious mIRC Simpson, if any other Italian is around, back then ^^

Same story for me. First Red Hat 5 and then Slackware 7.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#139

Post by yreg »

hyperpl wrote: post #99
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.

Same with me. One of my friend's dad's when I young held out the RedHat CD in his left hand and the Slackware CD in his right and asked me to choose. I chose Slackware and he told me I chose well and that I would be strong.

This reads like a scene from The Office.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#140

Post by Yaggo »

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…

I would rather say it's remarkable how dumb many adults are despite their age (compared to kids).
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