Stop wasting time and use Slackware!

I see distros like Void, Arch and Gentoo get recommended far too much here. Most Zig Forums users are either people who just need a web browser, programmers of small projects or a mix in between. Most people here don't need 90% of the stuff modern distros provide them! The solution?

Slackware!

Reasons for Slackware:
-No dependency management. Normal users don't spend their time installing, uninstalling and generally messing around with package management. This might be helpful for devs but normal users don't need it! KISS
-Simple init. Again, normal users don't need advanced functions like process supervision (advanced at least). Again, useful for devs and sysadmins, not regular users or programmers! (small project devs at least)
-Stable as fuck! Take a look at linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/. Most questions you see aren't people asking help because of a problem with their init or package management, it's things like asking how to manage stuff and get shit done

Recent posts:

linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/building-the-initrd-before-installation-4175630474/

linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/this-is-my-slackware-desktop-725754/

linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/slackware-terminal-server-4175630106/

Then look at the Debian forum! linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/
Recent posts:

linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/home-directory-won't-launch-from-cairo-dock-debian-9-a-4175630325/

linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/init-respawning-too-fast-disabled-for-5-minutes-457370/

linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/can't-mount-partition-4175629923/

These poor souls!
Continuing reasons for Slackware:
-Tons of packages! Niche packages like Qutebrowser are fully supported here :-)
-SIMPLE! Slackware sets out to be SIMPLE and simple it will stay. You never have to worry about it switching to systemd like Debian users did. Slackware does not change if it does not need to.
-All official Slackware tools programmed in pure C
-Knowledgeable and friendly community

If you're using Slackware, you're doing it right. If you aren't using Slackware, you're doing it wrong. (That is if you don't require advanced functions in your init and package manager then use something like Gentoo + systemd or, dare I say it, D*bian!)

What are you waiting for?
slackware.com/
slackware.com/~msimons/slackware/grfx/
docs.slackware.com/
YT tutorial for things like package management:
youtube.com/watch?v=kdPeX13R2H0
More propaganda:
imgur.com/a/4elMq
dotshare.it/public/images/uploads/299.png
imgur.com/a/Qm7Gy
i.imgur.com/c8P8v6k.png
imgur.com/QvzZ1W7
i.imgur.com/pGNdVyT.jpg
imgur.com/a/OiqUz
You can even bloat Slackware!
imgur.com/a/7q4a4/

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Other urls found in this thread:

wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel_Deblobing
docs.slackware.com/slackware:philosophy
slackware.com/ports/
linux.com/learn/intro-slackware-package-management
slackwiki.com/Third_Party_Package_Managers
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Also, does Slack documentation have any mentioning about kernel deblobing?
Gentoo at least has a section on its wiki about it, wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel_Deblobing

You know SBo is not officially part of the Slackware project, right? Slackware technically ends where repositories do, and this is all that is Slackware: ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-14.2/PACKAGES.TXT
The fuck are you talking about? Almost everything is written in portable sh - that includes low level package management tools like installpkg.

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I'm fairly certainly this is a con, and quite a big one.

The reason why Slackware doesn't implement package dependency resolution is because updates work like a snapshot - a set of new versions on the repos is guaranteed to work with each other. It's why repositories have a relatively modest amount of packages available - it's meant to be a self-contained system with all the duties of managing extra software offloaded onto the user.

it's a huge upside. dependency management leaves you helpless if you don't want to install a certain package and replace it for another. it can easily much up your system, I can recall arch having tons of dependency issues last time i tried it.

What if I want to grab the latest software using git? How would I get build dependencies so I could compile the software myself?

slackware isn't good because it aims to support a cause

For external stuff, you'd either use SBo or compile it yourself before making a tgz with makepkg so the system tracks it. Then you'd compile your shit based on that.
Just so you know, Slackware packages are simple tarballs that would unpack on top of /, with minimal metadata and optional scripts executed on install. Technically you don't even need the latter - a simple image of files would track just fine in /var/log/packages.

BUT MUH DEPENDENCIEESSSS

Slackbook 3.0 when? Work on it seems to have stalled long ago. It would be great if a new book edition could be ready for Slackware 15, the previous one is from 2005 and is much outdated for the most part.

Is there any valid reason to stick to 13.37 in some kind of scenario? Or just use 14. no matter what?

Salix is better. Has everything Slackware does + dependency resolution, one application per task (no clutter), additional tools, easy live usb + graphical installer.

Not really, it's no longer supported. 14.2 is the current stable, I'd advise against using current unless you have a habit of reading changelog religiously - Patrick tends to experiment a lot and breakage might happen (usually non-critical but you might leave your system a mess)
On the other hand, I think the pulseaudio-free packages are only available in current's extras...

Yeah I don't give two shits about making packages for Slackware. Debian has apt-get build-dep. Cent has yum-builddep. What would Slackware's solution be for grabbing dependencies so I don't have to go hunt every single one down?

1. slackware has a GUI installer
2. slackware has one application per task (if you choose)
3. dependency resolution is a downside. you don't need it, quit telling yourself you do

"If you choose" means trash is there by default and you have to clean it up.

Slackware sucks.

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How does Slackware compare to PCLinuxOS which seems to share many of its goals (no-bullshit, sane and easy to use desktop OS, no systemd)?

slackware doesn't have anything installed by default lol. that's what i meant boy

Slackware urges the user to "install everything" (to anticipate any possible dependency issues), doesn't it.

no dependency resolution = simplier and gives the user more control. control = power

I actually got into linux proper because of Slackware.
Seeing how I was a noob I did not know of any software I could have even installed on a system that has
DEPENDENCY RESOLUTION

What Slackware gave me was a well behaved, easy to use cornucopia of linux software.
It even came with multiple DEs and WMs.

I could test everything explore everything use everything and it was all running perfectly.
It was amazing.

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I tried Ubuntu before and it always had some thing that broke, but not Slackware.

I tried it on a whim after one of my harddrives was breathing its last and actually saved quite a few of my files.
It was awesome and relieving to see Slackware running perfectly after a night of worry.
I thought my shit was gone but there I was, playing fucking Palapeli (jigsaw puzzle generator) with my pictures.

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So it doesn't have "one application per task" then. Salix is the only relevant distro with that feature.

You can use slapt-get with --no-dep in Salix. Or add the Slackware repository to gslapt. But the Salix repositories all have dependency information, and that in no way takes away control from the user.

Me too. I've used it for many years after switching from Kubuntu (when KDE 3.5 got replaced...) but more and more things started to annoy me about it, and Salix fixed them all. For example:


Clutter to me. I ended up deleting all but one eventually anyway. Different tastes, I guess..


Yeah, until you need some software that isn't included. Then the no dependencies thing screws you up.

Also disk space. Due to having all these DEs installed (as well as a bunch of browsers, media players, etc...seriously, Firefox AND Seamonkey?) it's one of the fattest distros out there. I mean, just the KDE part takes 1.5GB, more than half of Salix full install.

What does that mean? That you install only one media player/text editor/web browser/etc.?

After you found out which graphical environment suits you best, I presume. To do that you need to install more than one first, though.

docs.slackware.com/slackware:philosophy

Yes, Salix includes only one of each of those by default.

Yeah I'd rather have one DE and install others manually if I don't like it. Instead of bundling 1.5GB KDE with 50MB XFCE. Also there's no dependency resolution (again...) in Slack, so removing things is actually hard and will probably leave traces or break shit.

I still have sympathy towards Slack though. Salix wouldn't be there without it. Neither would I. It taught me everything about Linux, but eventually I just had to move on.

Slackware is actually the one distro i've been thinking of switching too ever sinse i finally got my ass hit with retarded dependency management fucking my shit up.
My main problem with slackware is that the installer does include a lot of bloat, and even if it is optional it gets hard for me to decide what to keep and what to throw.
And the recommended setting is absolutely terrible.

So, what is the best way to install slackware?
What settings do you prefer on a fresh install?

What's the problem with having lots of software installed?

Limited hard drive space for one.

;_;

more vulnerabilities (esp. if they connect to net or are a default program for a file type), more RAM+CPU use if they load on startup..

umm mister? That's kind of the point of dependency management, so you don't have to spend as much time messing with it and looking for each and every dependency individually.
Also what happens when theres a bunch of updates that need to be done on a lot of packages? On most distros it's one command to update everything.

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He's talking about pre-included shit
Slackware has dependency handling, it's just in the form of a package you have to install seperate, and even then it's really just a basic script.

No full disk encryption out of the box in the installer.

Nobody forces you to install KDE{,I} or XFCE sets, they're not interdependent with the rest of the system.

This is a good thing? I sure as fuck don't want to install X and have to individually install all the 26 other packages for that program.
AKA a shell script. systemd maybe cancer, but at least you can do shit with it. Use OpenRC.
It uses Linux. It's not stable. Slow releases =/= stability.
Debian has all those issues because:
1. It has a software repository
2. It's still being developed and maintained
3. It has people using it, unlike slackware

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Yeah and what about Fluxbox or whatever that's also included? Or Firefox AND Seamonkey? Or the million mail clients. "Just don't install those packages!". Okay, then it just becomes a "built your own system" game, except you have to clean up someone else's mess first...

From my /var/log/packages, uncompressed sizes:
blackbox - 960K
fluxbox - 3.2M
windowmaker - 5.9M
Nobody prevents you from using removepkg and blacklisting those packages, you know? Or using the install mode where it shows you a list of packages to install per set.

Slackware doesn't come with any packages preinstalled. What are you talking about? No one uses the full image to install Slackware

systemd isn't cancer. It was too advanced for its time.
because it isn't slackware. :)
simplicity = stability
lolwhat

after the initial first setup you don't need the bloated dependency resolution in package managers :)
and it is one command to update everything. of course you need to update the sources like every distro first

This is getting weirder than I thought...what the fuck is used other than full then? I've always used full.

How many floppies you need for the latest Slackware? The last time I tried Slackware it came on only 6 floppies.

Wat. I downloaded Slackware in 1995 and it was about 50 floppies for the whole thing. Granted, you could do a minimal install with just the A and AP sets (IIRC), but you're not going to do much with just that. Maybe the old MINIX (before v3) would fit on 6 floppies. Also, various versions of DOS, including PC-DOS and DR-DOS.

I'd rather use NixOS or GuixSD

I didn't know any software that I could need.
I mean it had even shit like "soma" some sort of terminal radio player, etc.

When I did venture out forth I went to slackbuilds org, etc. It just grew organically for me.
Now I am irrevocably married to it.

13.x is supported until July 5th.

So is CentOS 6 the only way now to stay on 2.6 kernel?

Just use Debian :)

I don't "need" a package manager either, but it's very hard to see having one as anything but an upside. Are you sure you're not just telling yourself that dependency resolution is bad because it makes you feel superior?

...

huh

The 20th anniversary of the SubGenius apocalypse? I actually forgot the "Slack" in Slackware was referring to Slack from the religion, pretty damn clever

I've exclusively used Slackware for my Linux usage. I still mostly use windows but I use Slackware to develop some software, run some programs etc. I was talking to some other Linux users once and, they asked how the package manager works, but I don't really know how it works. I just downloaded everything off the internet and compiled it all from source, whenever I wanted to install new software, since I don't know how package managers work and from a UI perspective this is about the same as installing a windows program- except instead of just running an MSI installer wizard I type the same three or four commands to build from source and install into the system. Does Slackware have a package manager that auto-downloads stuff off the internet for you? I don't know if I would actually use that, but I haven't figured out if it does this or not like my friend's Linux does.

slackpkg handles interaction with Slackware repos, it uses low level tools such as installpkg and upgradepkg to act on package tarballs.
Your system is likely an untracked mess of possibly overriding libraries by now unless you were reasonable and DESTDIR'd your shit into some arbitrary directory (and even that is not a guarantee considering how utterly broken some Makefiles are).

i have nothing against Slackware but I see Arch Linux as a natural evolution past it.

Why do you lie?, slackware comes with KDE and xfce by default, that's literally the ONLY iso they provide.

slackware.com/ports/
Is there a chance for more ports given how pozzed the Intel plaform is now?

Slackware's okay, but Void is much better.

I hear running 32-bit executables on 64-bit Slackware isn't straightforward and requires something called multilib. How complex is this? Is it better to stick to the 32-bit version if there's such programs you need?

I have to say, no dependency handling at all is better than bad dependency handling.

Useful reads:
linux.com/learn/intro-slackware-package-management
slackwiki.com/Third_Party_Package_Managers

slackware isn't good, but at least it is predictable.
sbopkg is decent, but not as good as *bsd ports trees.

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From slackbook:
It's your problem if you're an illiterate nigger who didn't read the manual and doesn't realise most software sets/series are optional.

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If you absolutely need to run 32-bit binaries and you can't compile them yourself, then those programs are most likely proprietary. Find a free software replacement or suck it up and stop using them.

I have not installed any libraries I don't think (I don't know). I have just installed stuff by untarring it, and then doing the "make; make install" commands

The software I've downloaded usually just has a Debian package, some other package, and a source code download, so I download that. Sometimes there is a Slackware package I can find but I don't know how to use those. I haven't installed very many things yet. I think I installed QEMU and Geany and maybe a couple other programs so far.

Ah yes because your normal user is well-known for installing hundreds of packages by hand just to get X working,

The X packages come with slackware, so you don't need to worry about setting up X.

X is actually pretty easy to setup.

Yea, no. Patrick is not a stallmanite and never branded Slackware that way. It's just "Slackware Linux".

It even comes with nonfree software out of the box.

...

I've seen many Slackers recommend installing everything just because.

Just because Patrick is wrong doesn't mean you have to be wrong with him. The operating system as a whole is the GNU operating system. Appending the name of the kernel to the operating system is just a way to be nice to Torvalds, but it gives him more credit than he deserves.

It's pretty good if you do a full install. otherwise you might end up in dependency hell.

I'll be as wrong as I want and you can't stop me.

Slackware IS a waste of time. I recommend Ubuntu, it's literally a no-waste-of-time distro.

systemd nigger
slackware is the only OS worth using. period.

this

Why not debian?

Reminder that NixOS and GuixSD deprecate Slackware, you don't need to go through the pain of neither bad dependency management breaking your system nor manual dependency management consuming years of your precious life.

Because it budged to the Systemd-I-A-Niggers.
Install Devuan if you like Debian but don't like the CIA.

Debian is shit, plain and simple.


Multilib is only nessecary for Wine and Vidya, that's it. Installing multilib itself is straightfoward if you actually read Alienbob's directions and avoid doing stupid shit. The "Not Straightforward" part is the fact that you have to install Alienbob's Wine .SlackBuild if you want multilib Wine to work- and wine is not part of the multilib process.

I respectfully disagree that its express purpose is government exploitation. The practical problem with SystemD it is over-adopted, and could easily be used as a common attack point for far too many distros.

But if the Three-Letter-Government organizations decided to use that for their exploitation, then it is what it is.

Its true though.

slack's too outdated for me

Am I getting memed on or can a Linux shitter like me use this? I've only ever used Mint and installed a few other distros but always came back to Mint. I only really use the internet, I don't do much else with it.

My Slackware wouldn't install properly on a LUKS partition, and after two hours of fiddling around with no result, that's when I knew I would stop trying to use meme distros.


You're getting memed. I used to try obscure and 1337 distros, until I recently switched to Linux Mint, because fuck it, it JustWorks™and I still have my freedom. Don't bother with Slackware.


You mean the distro where you go through hell every time you want to compile and run a binary? The distro that has apparently no multilib support?


This, but these days Mint is a bit better.

Heh, this thread is full of plebs who don't know jack. Not only does Slackware indeed come with X packages, but it even did so back in 1995. All you had to do is run pkgtool and install the x* sets. It's fucking easy. It was always fucking easy.

Arch has systemd though.

This. Slackware is easy. There is a reason it's called "Slackware".

who the FUCK cares you fucking kike

I'm just saiyan.

That's what Artix is for.

Not that nigger but if you install ap you'll need l and n for a lot of programs. d depends on a ap l and n. Of course, xap depends on x, which in turn depends on a ap l and n.
Hell, I'm pretty sure I found some programs in ap that depended on gtk+ which in turn depends on X. Point is, you're really not free with the series selection and I have no idea

At the end of the day that leaves you with a usually required install of at least all of:
a
ap
d
l
n
x
xap
Which is like 70% of slackware, the other 19% being the entirety of KDE+i18n, making e f k kde kdei t tcl xfce and y the only actual "optional" package sets.

If you wanna go the "I do my own package management" way then I recommend you Crux Linux.

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Can't run it on m68k
It's garbage.

What about celebrate the 25th anniversary of Slackware?

Have you even read their source? They're written in bash, sed, and awk. Fun fact, there's the :^) face in the comments of one or more of the pkg tools. I think it might be removepkg. Truly, this is the shitposter's distro.