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First Impressions of Slackware 10 395

Posted by CowboyNeal from the updated-classics dept.
Eugenia writes "Michael Hall wrote an informative article about the first impressions of the recently released Slackware 10, mostly discussing the domain Slack excels: the server. Michael concludes that 'Slackware 10 is a well-rounded distribution that will continue to make a first-class Linux server platform. Changes in the new release are incremental, not radical, and Slackware remains one of the most stable, reliable and flexible distributions available today.' The article also sports 14 screenshots."
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First Impressions of Slackware 10 More

First Impressions of Slackware 10

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  • Yay! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by i love pineapples ( 742841 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:11PM (#9711831) Homepage
    Slackware has always been my favorite distro, so I'm really excited to see what's in store in this release. For a supposedly "hard" distro, I've always found it quite easy and painless to install.

    • Re:Yay! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Neil Blender ( 555885 )
      Slackware has always been my favorite distro, so I'm really excited to see what's in store in this release. For a supposedly "hard" distro, I've always found it quite easy and painless to install.

      Maybe if you installed from the 50 diskettes it used to take 10 years ago, you'd know why it was considered 'hard'.

      • Re:Yay! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by i love pineapples ( 742841 )
        Maybe if you installed from the 50 diskettes it used to take 10 years ago, you'd know why it was considered 'hard'.

        Tedious, yes, but not 'hard'... to me, a hard install would be having to spend hours upon hours configuring/tweaking/swearing at the thing to get it to do even just a basic install. At least I can watch a movie while popping in disk after disk.

        • Re:Yay! (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Shulai ( 34423 )
          Some time ago, when installing a Slackware for a customer, my sister using our main computer, and our second one had its HD broken.

          So, I changed vt, chrooted into /mnt, then configured eth0 and launched lynx to surf a little bit while the installation keeps copying things.

          I dare Windows to allow me to do that!

      • Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by drachen ( 49779 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @07:54PM (#9712516)
        This is funny.

        First of all, it was far less than 50 diskettes to get a running system.

        Second of all, how else would you recommend installing it back then? Did you have a CD burner in 1994?

        Third of all, while there were CDs that you could install slackware from back then (usually attached to books or magazines, that is how I got slackware 3.0, while I had installed a previous version from floppies) not that many people had CD drives back then. I still have a stack of Windows 95 installation floppies (which I'm not going to dig out and count) but there were more of them than the number of disks it took to get slackware working with X and devel tools.

        I realize you probably weren't being serious, but please explain what's so 'hard' about using a floppy disk. If you meant the distro itself was 'hard' then you probably haven't used it.

        /* still uses slack to this day */

        • Re:Yay! (Score:3, Funny)

          by jred ( 111898 )
          I tell you what was hard about installing my first slack system (don't remember what ver, kernel was .89 or .92 or something like that) from floppy... downloading the fuckers on a 14.4 modem. Of course, since I didn't know which sets I needed to get a running system, I also downloaded 50+. Painful.

      • I once installed OS/2 on a 12-meg Toshiba 386-SX laptop using more than 40 diskettes. Didn't last long.

      • hehe, that's how I started using it. I'd always have a disk failure half way through, and have to try again. I hated floppy disks.

        We've been using Slackware on our servers for years, and loving it. Over 100 machines currently deployed. We install it, and re-roll it into a nice tight installer to deploy to our servers. Once we have our deployment package, it takes 5 minutes from the first time a new machine is turned on, to the time it's ready to serve.

        We've installed Slack 10 on a few server

    • Re:Yay! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We have a consultant that's big on trying to push us to SuSe.

      He asked, "why don't you use anything big like RedHat or SuSe or even Mandrake?"

      My response was, "because that's the problem - they're too big with RPM dependency issues that occasionally rise - plus, it costs too much."

      I have been using Slackware 8.1 since it came out for all of our production servers and I've not had a single problem upgrading them from the core distribution base.

      I'm also not fond of the fact that SuSe isn't free, RedHat, fo

  • I love slackware (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeShmoe950 ( 605274 ) <CrazyNorman@gmail.com> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:11PM (#9711834) Homepage
    I loved Slack 10. Its install isn't half as bad as people make it out to be. Its 20x easier than the debian install. Then, its fast, stable, and if your not new to Linux, its not really that hard to use. I wish that it had some Apt-Get sort of thing (besides Swaret/Slapt-get which have a low package base in comparison. They don't have even bzflag if I remember correctly(correct me if I'm wrong)). Ignoring package management, i'd say its one of my favorite distro's. Its just so stinkin fast to install and use.

    • Re:I love slackware (Score:3, Informative)

      by eeg3 ( 785382 )
      I wish that it had some Apt-Get sort of thing (besides Swaret/Slapt-get which have a low package base in comparison.

      Although slackware's 'pkgtool' is rather disappointing tool, you can install NetBSD's pkgsrc [netbsd.org] for slackware, and it can handle and install all your packages. I have found pkgsrc to be very useful, and very eloquent.

      For a walkthrough on getting it working in slackware, Marrti Kuperinen has created an easy guide [piuha.net] that can get you up and running with pkgsrc on Slackware in no time.
      • eloquent? do you mean elegant?

        eloquent: adj.
        1. Characterized by persuasive, powerful discourse: an eloquent speaker; an eloquent sermon.
        2. Vividly or movingly expressive: a look eloquent with compassion. See Synonyms at expressive.

        unless.... does pkgsrc speak to you? am i not the only one? does it tell you too to KILL KILL KILL?
        • eloquent? do you mean elegant?

          It was a typo... or was it? Maybe i'm going to go on a killing spree. You'll know soon when you read the post regarding the Slashdotter whose computers led him to homicide. Then again, slashdot posters would probably lead me to such before pkgsrc.
    • Install from source.

      The thing I really like about Slackware is that I can install anything I want without waiting for someone to wrap it up in whatever packaging scheme my distribution uses. Sure, you can do that in any distribution, but the packager and dependency resolver won't know about it.

      when I have the time, my favorite way of installing Slackware is to install only the bare minimum, and then build things like X and window managers and apps on top.

  • My first impression... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NeoGeo64 ( 672698 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:12PM (#9711836) Homepage Journal
    Slackware 10 did something previous versions did not - it automagically configured my X server (thanks to the new XORG, I think) so after install all I had to type was startx and I was ready to go.

    I'm currently backing up data on my local network fileserver box and going to wipe the HDD (was running Red Hat 7.3) and upgrade to Slackware 10. I've used Slackware before in server enviornments, and thats where it shines the most.
    • Old slackware versions has a default xf86config, just like xorg, the difference is that the xorg version seems to work with more setups [no detection at all] =)

    • Re:My first impression... (Score:5, Informative)

      by pavon ( 30274 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:42PM (#9712070)
      To expand on what a couple of people have said, slackware has had a default XF86Config file for quite some time (always?) However in the past it defalted to using the Framebuffer X driver, and it 10 it defaults to using the Vesa driver. In both cases you need to change the XF86Config (now xorg.conf) to use a specific driver if you want decent performance.

      This change is not (directly at least) related to the change to Xorg - they could have done it with XFree86 as well. Also while I agree that Xorg is the way to go, alot of the technical praise they are getting is misdirected. There is really almost signifcantly different between it and XFree86 4.4, and most of the improvements that people see in Xorg are really improvements in XFree 86 since the 4.3 series.
      • The first release of Xorg was indeed pretty much XFree86 4.4rc + some patches. But technical praise is still merited IMO, take a look at one of the Xorg mailing lists [freedesktop.org]. They've managed to rally all the relevant X developers to their banner, and there's lots of neat stuff going on. Particularly check out the "Next X.Org Foundation release plan" thread. Probably in August we will see the first Xorg release with the much awaited desktop composition manager. In comparison, the XFree86 developer mailing list is a

  • Package management. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Coram ( 4712 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:15PM (#9711864)
    Slack was the first distribution I used when i became a linux devotee. It was great for learning the guts of the system in ways i probably would not have if i had started with something "easier". I don't think i could go back to it without an adequate package management system. Debian and Red Hat are still leaps and jumps ahead in that department.

    • Re:Package management. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BRSloth ( 578824 )
      Well, the package management is what I really love on Slackware. The lack of dependency checking is something that could be scary at first, but you learn a lot with those "error loading shared library".

      That's just what Slackware is: excelent for some, missing parts for others...

  • Ever improving (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mishehu ( 712452 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:16PM (#9711875)
    I have been using Slackware since not long after it officially became Slackware. I have tried out other distros, and while each has its strong points, the part of Slackware that I like so much is:

    1. Simplicity
    2. Customization, and ease with which that you can build your own packages

    Slackware has always cut the fat from the install, and if you *really* want library-foo, you can find it either as a premade package, or build it yourself.

    My clients' servers run on slackware.

    • I also like... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Banner ( 17158 )
      That the security out of the Box is excellent and Patrick checks everything out before releasing it.

      Yes Slackware is never the first out when a new kernal comes along, but how often does Slackware get hacked versus Redhat? Or other versions? Everytime I see a 'vulnerability' published, I go and check and find my Slackware box isn't running that version.

      And it's not like people haven't tried to hack my server (it's been tried a lot over the years), but so far with Slackware I've never had a problem (finger

  • Ouch. Poor Advertisement! (Score:5, Funny)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:17PM (#9711895)
    I sure hope osnews.com isn't running slack as proof of concept ;-)

  • Slackware 10 kicks ass (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:18PM (#9711898)
    I can't believe I wasted so much time running Redhat 8.x, 9.x, and Fedora Core before installing Slackware 10. I will never go back to RPM hell. Slackware 10 rocks on the desktop IMHO. KDE 3.2.3 works and looks great. One minor hiccup moving to kernel 2.6.7 regarding removing ide-scsi emulation and everything is working great. What a dumbass I've been all this time... Thanks Patrick.

  • Nooo... Another OSNews article. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jayminer ( 692836 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:18PM (#9711901) Homepage
    Unfortunately another OSNews article about Slackware Linux. From the article:
    Michael Hall is a freelance Linux consultant and web developer based in Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory. When not hacking Linux in some way, ...
    Is this guy really a Linux guy? No, please don't tell me that.

    Slackware users are generally addicted ones, and (as a long time Slackware user, since 1996) I'm seeing that Patrick (is the main and in many cases the only Slackware developer) is taking Slackware to the modern world without giving up any classical Slackware ideology (Simplicity, security etc.). Many people looking over my desktop (with plain KDE 3.2.3, Noia icons and Plastik theme) is being shocked by the responsiveness (of the 2.6 series with mm patches) and the eye candy. They don't believe that this is Linux. They're used to the ugly (please no flamebait mods) Bluecurve of Red Hat.

    No I'm not against any graphical configuration tools or this and that. I'm just against breaking the rule of changing the default UNIX tradition of configuration files. Any graphical tool should be like Webmin, which leaves the structure as it is.

    Slackware is beautiful with its simplicity, please leave it as it is.

    • Re:Nooo... Another OSNews article. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pavon ( 30274 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @07:19PM (#9712335)
      No I'm not against any graphical configuration tools or this and that. I'm just against breaking the rule of changing the default UNIX tradition of configuration files. Any graphical tool should be like Webmin, which leaves the structure as it is.

      This is what brought me back to slackware. I started with RH 4 but could never get it to work with my hardware. So I tried slackware and really enjoyed it. I learned so much about how Unix works on that slackware version. Anyway since then I have tried a different distro each time I am ready to do a complete OS upgrade. Here is what I learned.

      As far as packaging goes rpm sucks unless you verify or build your own because the majority of 3rd party package builders do it wrong. At that point it's just as easy to go with slackware or gentoo. Apt-get seems really nice. Unfortuneatly, I didn't get much time with Debian (one week to install, then two weeks later my harddrive dies).

      As far as configuration goes, those GUI tools are a pain. I tried 4 releases of RedHat and got to learn 4 ways of setting up PPP, and each of which seemed to get progressively worse. And of course once you use the GUI tools, it creates it's own config files from which the unix ones are generated. So after the easy way fails if you want to do it the manual way, you first have to figure out how to disable the distro provided tools, which is not always easy. The *drake tools are the flakiest things I have ever seen seen. They basically just issue some script commands and don't do any error handling. If something goes wrong, the window just disappears and you are left wondering if it worked or if not why it didn't work, and what state you system is in. Totally lame. Yast is the nicest of the bunch, but again you really need to decide to let Yast do everything, or do everything the manual way, because otherwise you will tromple all over each other.

      As far as I am concerned, you can take your GUI configuration tools and keep them. Slackware may not be the easiest distro, but it is by far the least complicated. Even better, all the time I spend getting things to work on slackware, I am actually learning about how Linux works rather than figuring how to get around some broken config tool. That is the first thing that struck me when I started using slackware again. With the other distros I had gotten frustrated with all the maintainance I was doing that was all related to stuff I would never use again - fixing dependency errors, unbreaking harddrake - and this ended up driving me to Mac OS X for my main computer. With slackware I don't have to think about those kinds of problems, and I actually enjoy the problem-solving and discovering that I do have to deal with. It reminds me why I originally became so absorbed with linux in the first place.
      • Mind explaining to me why you can only 'learn linux' on slackware? I'm really interested in the answer to this because everyone says it but never says why. I can't edit config files with red hat because it has a GUI to do it? I've used red hat for years, I only use one GUI config tool system-config-securitylevel because its faster than throwing in IPtables rules, the others I do by hand, someway, somehow, I've learned linux dispite having GUI software installed.
        To anyone who answers I hope you don't bring
      • Parent poster hit the nail on the head. When I first installed redhat, the number of scripts it had to do anything and everything made me feel afraid to start tinkering for fear that I'd mess everything up with those scripts. Slackware has a minimal number of scripts, and pretty much gives you the reins of the system, instead of giving you a pretty little image with a bright head covering on it.

  • Stable, easy to administer AND a fast install (Score:5, Informative)

    by dhartman ( 635124 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:19PM (#9711912)
    I've been a "Slacker" from way back. (version 3.0) Slackware first appealed to me because it didn't have all the fancy-fandangled configuration utilities which prevented a new user from really understanding the inner workings of a Linux distro. I've learned (through just a _few_ mistakes) all the little details and now am quite comfortable working on almost any distro. (although I rarely use anything other than Slackware, even for desktop boxes).

    I want the same stability that people want in a server on my desktop. If there are a few programs that are missing, usually a trip over to Linux Packages [linuxpackages.net] is enough. If not, take the time to learn about compiling (however use 'checkinstall' rather than just installing the compiled program--makes it much easier to maintain a clean system). Package management tools such as Swaret [swaret.org] and slaptget [jaos.org] have made it easier than ever to maintain an up to date system (with options to update to the latest security fixes in the specified version (say 10.0) or to the -current tree.

    Slack on!

    • Slackware appealed to me in the old days (2.0) because I could install everything I needed from about nine floppy disks, but now I want something that actually has a broad selection of packages since I install from CD. Hell, only one system in my house even has a working floppy drive.

      As far as I can tell, the primary use for Slackware is assembling a minimum install (install the A, N and D sets more or less completely) and then to build everything else you want manually. If you want to fit a complete li

      • Re:Stable, easy to administer AND a fast install (Score:4, Informative)

        by The Conductor ( 758639 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:56PM (#9712151)

        If you want to fit a complete linux system into a small (say 500MB) space then slack is probably your best bet.

        I was able to put Slack on a laptop with 340 MB hard drive. Installed just enough to get Abiword working, plus Pine & Links and just about nothing else. It barely fits. Abiword and its Gnome library dependencies take almost half of the drive space. A smaller but less capable alternative is Ted, a *.rtf editor. I had to use XFree86 version 3.3.6 (from Slack 7.1) because the newer versions don't support the obsolete video chip set.

        The ldd command is your friend when doing a minimal Slack install. It will tell you which *.so files you need to run a particular program. Oh, and rm -r /usr/doc/*, and ln var/log/syslog -> dev/nul; every byte counts!

        • Heh. Weird that 340 MB constitutes a "minimal" install of Linux. I must come from an older school... I installed RH 5.2 on a p60 lappy with a HD about that size over a parallel port connection without incident and space left over. No need to delete docs or anything.

          But then again, I used to run slack on a 486, with a 100 MB ZIP disk as /root. Wasn't cramped then, but like I said, I must be from an older time. :)

  • Slackware !!!! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Mr. Stinky ( 753712 )
    Yes, agreed with the idea that it's best for servers. I use it to power all my web servers, and without all the bells and whistles, I can really keep a firm grasp on the very few things I actually need running. No 5 CD install, just a very narrow footprint perfect for hosting. All my mentors used Slackware too, so how could it be wrong???
  • As to the purpose of these screenshots? I find the article moderately informative- ie if I want a desktop I won't go Slack, if I want a server I probably do, but, what are the screenshots meant to illustrate? They do not illustrate any point of the paper, reminding me instead of the screenshots of yore when men were men and windowmanagers were windowmanagers, showing just a big heap of windows on a screen trying to look cool. In all, IMHO not a very good article with lousy illustrations. If I were interested in Slack I wouldn't waste any time reading beyond the first two paragraphs.

  • Slackware 10 is (Score:5, Informative)

    by mst76 ( 629405 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:24PM (#9711948)
    really not all that much different from Slackware 9.1 as far as I can tell. Just the usual package updates as you would expect. The core of what makes Slackware Slackware (installation, directory layout, config files, pkgtools) is pretty much the same. But maybe for me the difference seems even less, since I've been synching with Slackware-current every few weeks for about a half year now.
    • I personally use the Gnome Desktop and was previously updating Slackware 9.1 with Dropline Gnome to get a Gnome 2.6 Desktop. Call me strange but I feel in love with spatial nautilus almost instantly (after refiling of course). However as Slackware 10 now comes with Gnome 2.6, I don't feel the need to use dropline any more. Is it just me or does Slackware seem to be speeding up??? I would say if anyone has been put off Slackware in the past for it not being as up to date as some other ditributions, take anot

  • Rocks (Score:3, Informative)

    by siskbc ( 598067 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:26PM (#9711965) Homepage
    Same stable slack. My only complaints is that it could be better at recognizing devices - changing kernel config based on detected sound card wouldn't be hard, nor putting the correct 3 lines in XF86Config for a 3-button mouse.

    But that's slack. No bloat. Anywhere. You want it bloated, punk, you put it in your frikking self.

    • Re:Rocks (Score:3, Informative)

      by Nemith ( 114402 )
      Uhh... there is hotplug in 9 and 10. That will detect any pci/usb items and try to modprobe the right kernerl module. This works like a charm!

  • My impression (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lispy ( 136512 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:32PM (#9712007) Homepage
    I have it in use since day one (including the excellent Dropline-Gnome [dropline.net] suite. Pat did a great job as far as it concerns me. One downside is that OpenOffice.org and Evolution are not included due to space restrictions. Another one maybe, that you can't install the 2.6.7 kernel from within the installer. No big deal, though, since all you need to do for an upgrade is a simple installpkg.

    Aside that, it's a lightning fast distro that hasn't failed on me yet. Also, IMHO the greatest distro for starters since learning under Slack is learning it "the right way" and will help you later on with other unixlike systems.
    • OpenOffice.org is excluded due to licensing restrictions. Specifically, OO.o uses a graphics rendering toolkit that has restrictions Patrick believes are incompatible with the GPL.

      At the same time, he has no objections to someone installing it on their own.

  • Slackware devotee (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dlek ( 324832 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:33PM (#9712015)
    I started on with RedHat, which was a good start and introduction to Linux. I used it for a while, ditched the configuration tools because they were at the time buggy as all hell. I can't remember why I switched but it might have had something to do with them shipping beta GCC in a stable release--a colleague recommended I go to Debian.

    Debian was okay but didn't "take". I felt like I was joining a political party by using it. Nothing about it particularly impressed me, and I used it for a short time before I upgraded my machine and decided to try something else.

    Due to my experience with BSD, a friend suggested I try out Slackware. I did and haven't looked back. (At work I've used RedHat and Fedora for the past year on my workstation, but that's to get reacquainted with it now that I'm a sysadmin over a number of RH boxes. I'm going back to Slackware as soon as I get a free lunch hour.)

    Slackware's clean and lean. The configuration files are where I want them, it never installs something I didn't ask for, it's stable, and I basically get good vibes from it.

    I'm such a devotee that a friend bought me a Slackware cap for my birthday last year... :) And I actually wear it sometimes.

    • Re:Slackware devotee (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sunspire ( 784352 )
      I've pretty much gone exactly the opposite way. Started with Slackware 0.96 back in the day. Configured my machine day in day out, messed with X modelines on black and white monitors and 386's, configured everything just because I could.

      These days I run Fedora core. I issue "yum install monodevelop" and the system downloads and configures a whole damn new development toolchain and runtime environment for me, probably downloads a hundred megs of binary software distributed over twenty packages or so. 10 min

  • Not Just for Servers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Xeleema ( 453073 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:35PM (#9712033) Homepage Journal
    I have to admit, I've been using Slackware since 7.1 as my desktop OS. I was a total n00b when it came to linux, and it took me a week or so to get my X display setup and lovable, but it was a head-first dive into linux anyway. Slackware had most of what I needed; Mozilla [mozilla.org] for mail and browsing, KDE [kde.org] for a desktop (even though Steven seems to lean towards GNOME [gnome.org]), and Gimp [gimp.org] for the pictures. I just had to add OpenOffice [openoffice.org] for the wordprocessing and rlpr [truffula.com] to print to our OpenBSD print server. But the thing that saved me the most was the beloved documentation in /usr/doc. Almost every How-To was stuffed in there! I'd recommend it for any newbie that wants to go hard-core fast. I can't wait to try Slackware 10, but I'll probobly wipe out my boxen first (as I've been using the -current branch for so long).
    • I can't wait to try Slackware 10, but I'll probobly wipe out my boxen first (as I've been using the -current branch for so long).


      If you consistently update to -current, you should already be using 10 at present.

      Try this:
      cat /etc/slackware-version

  • Small fanboy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by halftrack ( 454203 ) <jonkje@gmailLION.com minus cat> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:37PM (#9712042) Homepage
    I use Slackware 10 on my laptop and have used all versions since 8.1. It is the best distro for the technically minded people who like to be in control. Sure it's nice to have programs write config files for you, but I often find more mess than hand tuned. Slackware leaves the control (as an exercise) to the user and if you have to tune anything (it works out of the box) you'll only do it once and probably learn a little too.

    Another thing some people seem to dislike is the lack of strongly enforced package management like RPM or apt. However this is absolutely in line with Slackware's no-fuss, user-in-control filosophy. With no dependency checking source and binary packages walk hand in hand and impossible legacy dependacies are a non-issue. Sure the package base could be better, but much can be found at certain repositories (like http://www.linuxpackages.net and some times at the developers site.

    OT: I absolutely hate people who seem to think .tgz is just a substitution for .tar.gz, it's not!
    • OT: I absolutely hate people who seem to think .tgz is just a substitution for .tar.gz, it's not!

      What's this supposed to mean? gzip thinks they're the same:

      dustin2wti:/tmp 531% touch myself
      dustin2wti:/tmp 532% tar cf - myself | gzip -9c > blah.tgz
      dustin2wti:/tmp 533% ls -l blah.*
      -rw------- 1 dustin wheel 116 15 Jul 15:58 blah.tgz
      dustin2wti:/tmp 534% gzip -d blah.tgz
      dustin2wti:/tmp 535% ls -l blah.*
      -rw------- 1 dustin wheel 10240 15 Jul 15:58 blah.tar
  • I always make a point to purchase a copy of the latest Slackware release. It's been a great distribution over the years, for server and desktop for me and my clients.

    Definately my server distro of choice. I still prefer 'djbdns' for my external authoritative and internal caching servers system, and they run great on Slackware.

    Keep up the great work!
  • First thing I noticed which was different was when the setup detected my ntfs partition /dev/hda1 and added it automatically to /etc/fstab to mount at startup. I thought this was a nice feature especially for the newcommers who always need this feature when dualbooting and not knowing much about linux. Overall, the difference is updated packages with the obvious replacement of xfree to xorg which was a great move by Pat. (like he's done any wrong move! pfft).

    Slack 10 is a great solid distro which I recco

  • My favorite (Score:2, Informative)

    by Kilroy_Says ( 794292 )
    I've tried plenty of linux distros(slack, RH, gentoo, deb, mand, suse) and freebsd, out of all of them slackware is by far my favorite. Some peopel complain about a package manager, but ive never been a fan of those anyway, i prefer to do it all by source. i honestly havent noticed too much of a difference between 9.1 and 10 aside from updated software(most of which i had already updated) I, personaly, see slack as a straight-to-the-point distro; which is exactly what i want. Plenty of oportunity to upd

  • a question for any slack users on sparc boxes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by discogravy ( 455376 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:41PM (#9712069) Homepage
    how does it perform on sun sparc boxes? i've had a couple of ultra60's come my way and I'd like to test it out on them. How's the install on it? So far the only thing (besides Solaris) that I've been happy with on an ultra60 has been FreeBSD. Gentoo was Not A Fun Install and debian was equally unimpressive (sadly.) But I'd like to see how slack performs on it -- I started to install slackware 9 on one and something shiny distracted me for a few weeks, but this makes me curious about it.
  • I've been thinking about upgrading my local file server(videos and stuff, nothing important) from Red Hat 9 to a more modern distro. Would Slackware be a good choice, or should I go with Fedora? I've heard that Slackware does not have a good update tool like apt or yum. Does Slack have a good GUI configuration interface, or is it all CLI?

    I'm not a complete newbie, I've tried Debian, Mandrake, and RH before, so I know my way around Linux. I just don't want to go through the pain of another Debian install, a
    • Slackware does not put any fancy GUI hand-holding utilities between the administrator and the system. Pretty much all configuration is done by editing config files. This is a Good Thing(TM), and here's why: Those fancy, pretty, GUI-type configuration utilities introduce unnecessary possibilities for bugs to arise. I've never seen a GUI configuration utility that handled all the options and settings I wanted to modify, and rarely have I seen one correctly handle all the options and settings that it claims t
    • I've heard that Slackware does not have a good update tool like apt or yum.

      Swaret. From 9.1 on, it's in the extras directory. It's not as full of packages as apt is, but then again, if that's a problem, you're likely not a Slacker.
    • If you are putting GUI configuration on your server, you just broke its small-ness.

      The GUI configuration tools on many Linux systems require a slew of other libraries to make them work. Xlib at least, then on to Xm, or GTK+, or Qt, and their requirments.

      At least the old "linuxconf" had a CGI mode for web browsers. I believe "webmin" has a Slackware-compatible configuration.

  • This beginner loves Slackware (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ultranon ( 621942 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:46PM (#9712092)

    I'm fairly new to the Gnu/Linux world and I have to agree with those who say that Slackware is NOT difficult to install and use, especially for geeks who have put in a lot of time on other platforms. I have tried all of the major distros, and have found that Slack posseses the best of all worlds. It is not only simple and stable, but it seems to me to be the most flexible distro.

    I have had the most luck getting things to work in Slack. Sure, I don't have the benefits of something like apt-get or emerge (swaret and slapt-get don't quite measure up) but I'm also not limited by those tools. I installed and configured my Slack in under an hour, everything worked, and I have been able to get, install and use every piece of software that my heart has desired.

    Coupled with Dropline Gnome [dropline.net], I have found Slack to be an excellent, complete and attractive desktop, even for the beginner/intermediate Linux user. I think that many of those who hold outdated, or second-hand impressions of Slack would be impressed by Slack 10.

    To summarize, I love Slackware and want to marry it.

  • The greatest hits of...... (Score:3, Funny)

    by lexsco ( 594799 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:50PM (#9712114)
    Boney M [osnews.com] ! Man, Slack really does have it all.
  • I'd like to know where I could download Pathfinder. You can see Pathfinder in one of the screenshots. [osnews.com]
    Few minutes with Google [google.com] revealed it uses Fox-Toolkit [fox-toolkit.org] and it's being deleloped by Jeroen van der Zijp, but nothing else.

  • Completely not my experience with slackware 10 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RLiegh ( 247921 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:52PM (#9712128) Homepage Journal
    I've been a linux user since 1996 and I downloaded all four cds and installed slackware; and then replaced it with mandrake 10!

    I had two problems with slackware; first, switching from X to console mode (using ctrl-alt-fX) locked up my computer; the other one being that upon exiting X my terminal would be totally borked (meaning that it would be set to a bizarre resolution) which would only be cured by a reboot.

    I didn't have the patience to track this down when I already had a ready, working and viable alternative (several, in fact). I'm rather sad as slackware was what introduced me to linux and got me going with it...but I would recommend XP, mandrake, knoppix, debian or openbsd over slackware at this point (depending on the user, their requirements, etc)
    • I had that problem for a while, happened to me when i was scrtewing around with the screen resolution in lilo.conf. It would boot just fine, but once i started X, if i ctl+alt+Fx then the screen looked all screwy(angry fruit salad!), i just set vga = normal and all worked out great for me.

  • Slackware is Classic UNIX (Score:3, Informative)

    by ceswiedler ( 165311 ) * <chris@swiedler.org> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @07:14PM (#9712309)
    Slackware is for people who want a classic UNIX system. Debian, Red Hat, etc. all have their places, but Slack is for people who grew up on, administer, use, and love UNIX.
  • I was able to whipe my root partition of Slack 9.1, install Slack 10, overlay my old known modified /etc/ configuration files onto the new system, and be ready to go after installing a handful of unofficial desktop packages. Apache w/https, samba, nfs, iptables, courier-imap, and so on. Basically, all server functions were available within less than an hour after install because the infrastructure of Slack 10 remained the same as Slack 9.1. That to me is absolutely critical to my happiness.

    The compile e

  • Slack does not lack in package management (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bender647 ( 705126 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @08:15PM (#9712635)
    Many people don't understand that Slackware does have a package management system: its just so damn simple that you can use common Unix tools to administer it. I can check where any file on my system came from with a simple grep of /var/log/packages, and build or alter a package myself by putting the files in a directory and calling makepkg.

    One week at work using "that enterprise" system with RPM, writing those silly spec files for software I was never going to distribute and I was ready to pull my hair out.

  • Finally a subscriber (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Harald Paulsen ( 621759 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:21PM (#9712972) Homepage
    After using slackware for several years I've finally gotten around to cough up the money for a subscription.

    After all, slackware has proven itself valuable again and again so it's about time I start contributing some money to the slackware team. If you use slackware regularly, I suggest you do the same. Patrik has to eat you know.

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