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Slackware 15.0

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Re: Slackware 15.0

#91

Post by shmerl »

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 recently had to look into modelines because of one issue related to high frequency refresh rate display and amdgpu causing some blinking due to VRAM reclocking. Really didn't expect that ever to come up.

In the process I discovered that KWin doesn't yet support setting video modes using modelines in the Wayland session at present.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#93

Post by orbere »

tristor wrote: post #82

Slackware was my first distro, purchased a diskette set by mail from a company in Computer Shopper magazine and installed it on a 386 my parents gave me after buying an IBM PS/1 with a 486DX2 in 1991 (or 1992?). I used it to get Internet access via SLIP dial-up to a mainframe at the University of Missouri and from there to play MUDs which ended up becoming an obsession for years and resulted in me learning C to modif…

Funny, my first computer was an IBM PS/1 that I got for Christmas of 1992. I couldn't figure out how to install linux on it. Googling now I see someone talking about the hard disk controller being on the mobo and unsupported, and someone saying they had to supply hard disk geometry info. That was beyond me as a pre-teen. Didn't get my first box to install slackware on until I traded two BB guns for a tower PC as a teenager.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#94

Post by Underphil »

sam345 wrote: post #66
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…

Speaking for myself only, it was my first linux distro in mid to late 1990s. Computer books, large reference type computer books were a thing back then. You could buy books titled something like "Slackware Bible" in very large print on the cover that promised to tell you how to run your own web server and maybe email server. In the back of the book were cd roms that had the Slackware source ready to build. It was imm…

I only use Linux these days (except when troubleshooting user machines) but I remember my brain was so poisoned by 'the Windows way' back in the 90s I just got frustrated with Slackware. Had I just RTFM or bought a book I could have removed that brainwashing so much sooner.

I think it was SuSE that finally clicked for me.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#96

Post by paisawalla »

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…

Slackware was themed after the Church of the Subgenius, which is a satirical religion and online movement about "slack" as a cosmic force. It came from a time when software projects could be more whimsical and show some character. It's almost impossible to imagine a software project today expressing any kind of off-topic flair, or really be eccentric in that kind of way. There's hardly anything like it today, but the appeal of something so quirky I think is still easily understood.

Edit: I think at one point there was a Linux distro based on My Little Pony, is that right? It was a different time, you had a new space that had just opened up for creative exploration, and it was accessible mostly to nerds and people on the fringe. There were a lot of weird things coming out back then.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#97

Post by girvo »

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.

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)

Re: Slackware 15.0

#98

Post by rcpt »

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 9 was my first Linux. I knew next to nothing about computers at the time but discovered the cheapest way to get one was refurbished office machines with no OS. Another student gave me a CD and then things were difficult. Changed my life.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#99

Post by hyperpl »

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.

Re: Slackware 15.0

#100

Post by joshbaptiste »

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…

Slackware is really a small/bare bones distro, "old schoolers" like it because in it's time (90s era) just having a Unix like system on a PC was amazing and it is considered very stable, now that GNU/Linux is everywhere today's distros are just easier to use.
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