/tech/ - Technology★

No dependency resolution. enjoy manually installing a hundred packages just to get a web browser installed.

Go with Arch or Gentoo.

Might try redcore linux

>>859403 (OP)

> I'm getting tired of Ubuntu changing things every 6 months.

Like what? Are you using an LTS release, and if not then why? Another thing you could do is disable feature updates and leave security updates only. (((In the GUI.)))

recommended dependency resolution for slackware is literally "just install the whole thing on your hdd"

Slackware is not a bad distribution by any means, but manual dependency resolution is a major pain in the ass.

If what you're tired of is Ubuntu changing every six months (which is the point of non-LTS Ubuntu) you can use Ubuntu LTS, Debian Stable or OpenSUSE Leap.

>>859426

Please don't post low-taste images, thank you

>>859403 (OP)

It's pretty good, especially for a server.

Lack of dependency management gets on my nerves for a desktop system though.

>the twin goals of ease of use and stability as top priorities

I'd hate to see how they treat lower priorities.

>>859403 (OP)

It is shit. Install Gentoo GNU/Linux, Arch GNU/Linux or GuixSD.

>>859473

While I love GuixSD, I haven't been able to get it or a VM up. Maybe someday. I hate using this POS Debian.

>>859473

>Arch

May I recommend Void.

>>859473

> GuixSD

> This distribution is NOT ready for production use.

>>859403 (OP)

I've been running Slackware daily for the past year, and I can say it isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

If you like customizing the packages that run on your machine, and want a distribution that absolutely never breaks, this is a great pick.

>>859491

How many people on /tech/ do you think do anything that deserves the label "production use"?

Autism mostly. Just roll with arch or void.

>>859497

So, you have to build all the packages yourself or what?

At that point, does your distro even matter anymore? Just download the tar balls at build everything from source on whatever distribution...

>>859502

>bitches about autism

>suggests arch

Nani?

>>859514

Arch is for people who think they're autistic, Slackware is for people who actually are autistic.

>>859514

>So, you have to build all the packages yourself or what?

Not really. The point of Slackware is to provide a solid base install with most of the things you're ever going to need. It's huge, but it has absolutely _everything_.

Additional packages can be obtained from a 3rd party repo or be built by yourself using 3rd party scripts (or your own).

>At that point, does your distro even matter anymore? Just download the tar balls at build everything from source on whatever distribution...

Well, you could, but other distributions will nag you with their package managers and constant updates. Maintaining customized packages on other distributions can become a real pain.

Slackware is really hands-off in that regard. The tools are as barebones as they get and as such are really easy to understand on the deepest level, such that you can easily customize them and/or simply work with them.

I often like to compare Slackware to LFS. It's simply a rock-solid base on which you can essentially build your own distro, and I'd argue it isn't really Slackware anymore when you install a 3rd-party add-on (multilib, kde5, mate, etc) or start customizing it in depth.

Used to use it for years. Don't like it anymore - it installs too much shit by default. Salix is the best for me, but Slack is still better than most.

i thought slackware was just a word for if you didnt feel like compiling your own kernel and building it yourself at install?

isnt that what the nigger from mr. robot used in season 3. honestly what is the fuss about distros? you can just get the distro that you need for whatever your working on.

for example, i like battery life and linux lite gives me 8 hours full charge on my laptop. i could use tinyOS sure, but would it be as powerful?

or if i want to use kali i will only have 3 hours on the same batter and lower framerates, but look the performance increase I will get out of my quad core i7...

say i want to start brute forcing passwords, but i dont have a video card...now it will take 5 times as long...optimize for battery life and graphic card performance in that case.

this is how computers should be viewed imo; 90% of consumers aren't getting the most bang for their buck, not to mention the cost eficiency of most modern machines

>>859403 (OP)

In addition to the dependency resolution issue that's already been discussed:

>If you want FDE on Slackware, you'll have to set it up manually.

>There's no MAC or other enhanced security system included in Slackware, so if you want one, you're probably going to have to recompile the kernel, install all of the necessary userland tools, and write your own policies

>Few, if any, of the binaries in the base system are compiled with hardening options (-fstack-protector-?, -pie, RELRO, etc.).

Some of the major distros have made strides in integrating security improvements by default. Fedora ships with SELinux and a sane policy. I believe it's activated by default. I think they also compile daemons and some other programs with hardening flags. Debian and derivatives have AppArmor ready to go (and I think it may be on by default in Ubuntu), along with appropriate policies, and also ship hardened binaries. Installers for the above operating systems include the option to set up FDE (except for /boot) during install.

If those sorts of things don't bother you, or if you have the time and expertise to do them yourself in Slackware, I guess it doesn't matter. Just something else to consider.

Oh, another thing. For all of systemd's flaws, many systemd distros (including Fedora and I think Debian) are able to run the X server as an unprivileged user, and without it being suid root. Unless they've managed to change it, Slackware still runs the shitfest that is Xorg as root.

>>859547

Almost nothing in your post is correct.

I use Slackware for linux and windows 7 for windows. I have never used a distro other than Slackware and I am satisfied with it. I have no other knowledge of linux aside from what I do on Slackware. I like how it doesn't change, but I also don't know how to set up my package manager.

>>859591

Actually reading the posts in this thread, it doesn't have a package manager? I remember that I installed slackware 13 about 4 years ago (I am on 14.2 now though) and then a year later I showed it to someone who likes Linux a lot, before then I did not know very many Linux people, he freaked out because I was on a 2.x kernel and I didn't have a package manager. I just told him that I had been downloading the binaries/source code from the internet and installing it just like windows whenever I wanted a new program and he freaked out even more, does that mean that I was doing it correctly this whole time?

>>859595

It has a package manager. That's what installpkg, upgradepkg, etc. are.

It doesn't have a package manager with automatic dependency resolving and a number of other features that most Linux users consider essential in a package manager.

>>859617

Also worth noting is how absolutely barebones the package manager is. It's written in shell, making it pretty slow, but it's a trade-off with readability. It has no notion of configuration management, simply having each package install the config file as .new, and having their installation scripts rename it if none existed previously, which means that all config files are left behind on uninstall. Symlinks are handled in an awkward way, by having a package's installation script do `rm -rf /path/to/link && ln -s link /path/to/link`, and having `removepkg` _parse_ this installation script to remove the links afterwards. There's also a few shell-related issues such as the fact that `/install` is sacred because that's where the installation scripts are unpacked, and that a file named `/FILE LIST:` wouldn't be removed.

While all of this threw me off when I first started digging into the package manager, I've yet to really get an issue with this system, besides the annoyance of leftover files when you uninstall stuff. There's an alternative called `spkg`, which is a drop-in replacement, used primarily by SalixOS, but that has its own problems and set of assumptions.

>>859547

>isnt that what the nigger from mr. robot used in season 3.

yep, tyrell wellick also used it.

The oldest surviving distro around, even older than Debian and Red Hat. Only around the turn of the century its mainstream (in the Y2K-Linux sense) relevance was declining, and SuSE (which originally was derived from Slackware) took its place in the "big three" (besides Debian and Red Hat) distros.

Still for many years after, the saying "if you know distro xyz you know distro xyz, if you know Slackware you know Linux" was arguably very true. Slackware always was centered around simplicity, an aversion to bullshit and gimmickry, and its learning curve proved a very worthwhile and rewarding investment in becoming thoroughly acquainted in the workings of Linux in general (even though it always used BSD-style init scripts rather than the Sysvinit scripts prevalent anywhere else). Nowadays it has become much more niche due to consistently avoiding systemd, but that makes it an excellent choice to anyone who sees that as a clear advantage rather than a drawback.

Wow, nice thread. Time to test it out on KVM. Thanks anon.

>>859622

It shouldn't be that hard for package manager to remove the old files. All it has to do is log all the files it copied during installation.

>>859837

Except that on a reinstall/upgrade the config files won't be copied because the previous versions already exist, in which case you have nothing to log. It's slightly more complex than that, which is why it hasn't been implemented.

It'd be really nice, but the only thing I can expect from PV is a hack like `grep '^config' /var/log/scripts/$PACKAGE`.

>>859622

doesn't really seem that bad on a desktop system since you can simply merge them by hand

I actually like how simple it is

I'd rather use NixOS

>>859403 (OP)

Consider salix, if you are lazy. It's the mint of slackware.

I was a big fan in the late 90s, early 2000s, however I dropped off when I got broadband. I totally understand the mentality about the bloat and dependency hell, but I felt that Gentoo was just something that was going to be more useful to me with it's ports-like package system.

>>860968

While I do use Slack on some servers, I think that manual dependency resolution is a bad solution to dependency hell.

If you look at Gentoo, all you have to do to remove dependencies is remove the features that use them, it still does everything else for you and you end with a more optimized system.

>"Hello anon, thanks for participating in our job interview. So, what Linux distributions do you have experience with?"

>"To be honest, mainly Slackware"

What would the reaction be?

>>859894

How is it different exactly?

>>859428

other than the kernel and a few packages like Firefox, don't LTS packages never receive feature updates?

>>859403 (OP)

shit package management

>>860968

please stop strawmanning me. i don't care about a "slim system" my hardware can handle a lot. I would rather spend my time working then resolving dependency issues.

>>860975

>brightest among your peers

But the whole point of the Church of the Subgenius is to have below average intelligence. "Bob" is extremely unintelligent but makes up for it by having superhuman luck.

>>861232

"Anon admitted to slacking off in the interview? Throw his application in the trash."

>>861460

>please stop strawmanning me. i don't care about a "slim system" my hardware can handle a lot

Then do a full install and you'll have a billion linux packages to use

>>861061

>If you look at Gentoo, all you have to do to remove dependencies is remove the features that use them,

That's nice, but then you end up using Gentoo and not Slackware.

>>861480

It's a joke.

>>859403 (OP)

Despite all of my distro-hopping for all these years, including regrettably going back to windows 7 for each distro I hop, I keep going back to slack. I've been on slackware for a few years on laptops, but only recently committed to switch my desktop, most vidya works, but have a few things I need to sort out.

I'm gonna make it, I will make it!

>>861354

I'm not the one who made that post, but as far as I know, salix has far less software installed on it from the get-go.

>>861460

https://slackwiki.com/Dependency_Discovery

>>861480

As i understood the church of SG, it seems like it's about being more inteligent than the avarage but not a genius. Bob was and is a salesman. Basicly you subistitute actually knowing stuff and working hard for being clever enough to BS your way through and and maybe a little exploitation of the stupid.

>>859473

gentoo is a fucking mess, arch is the same only even more unstable and guixsd is just another gimmicky distro

>>863634

stfu autist

>>864204

>1488Mib

Heil'd

I honestly wouldn't use it without slackbuild scripts but I love it.

>>859403 (OP)

>tired of six month release cycle

Just use any rolling-release distro like Void, Arch or Gentoo. Hell you can even make Debian rolling if you write your sources.list properly.

>>864386

Slackware has a "current" branch that is the "rolling" transition between stable releases.

ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/slackware64-current/ChangeLog.txt

And it has been ahead in freshness to even Gentoo and Arch at times.

But that doesn't really matter anyway, the quality does.

>>864204

How well does it run with that CPU? I have Asus netbook with same CPU and I've been thinking about installing Linux on it.

>>859486

I've had nothing but issues installing Void, which I honestly didn't expect at all.

I forget what they were as it's been a while now, but I suppose I'll try again today and come back here if it fucks up again

>>864465

This may sound obvious, but remember to run the installer as root. It lets you run it as a regular user but it fucks up if you do. It's caught me a couple of times.

>>864396

Its performance depends on the specific task and can be anything from Pentium III to an early Core CPU. Mostly a bit weaker than a 2-3 GHz Pentium 4 though. It is however sufficient for all basic tasks. Web browsing is still no problem generally, however it often lags on JS-heavy websites, and modern youtube also isn't its forte (you'd probably want to stick to 360p or 480p videos, or even better download them and watch them with a media player program). It is safe from Meltdown (and possibly other variants of Spectre) though, which fact, depending on the situation, may well offset its measly performance.

Isn't Slackware maintained by like... 4 people?

>>861523

>That's nice, but then you end up using Gentoo and not Slackware.

And?

Install Gentoo

>>859403 (OP)

>Installed it

>Realised it was old a shit

>INSTALLED GENTOO

>>859468

>"Bob" was modeled after young Robert Redford

Can't unsee

>>859403 (OP)

It's a great distro, but there's one major flaw - it's absolutely not going to have a future once its "Benevolent Dictator for Life" is gone. I bailed once that hit me.

>>870729

Then again, what future does Linux have once Linus Torvalds is gone?

>>870740

That's different. Linus isn't the only thing holding up Linux; Slackware is basically all Patrick Volkerding.

>>870746

If the reason of this is with Patrick himself then I guess that it cannot be changed.

>>870740

According to some, Linus will live to see vmlinuz becoming a mere symlink to the systemd-krnl module.

>>861355

What's wrong with older software if it works?

>>859403 (OP)

The software in the latest Slackware is old as shit. They're still on Firefox 45 and KDE 4.

>>859520

underrated post

>>859486

buggy ass shit but no worse than arch, use solus

>>870936

You have to go back, Kevin.

slackware with spectrwm and acme is the best imaginable system

>>859413

>What is slapt-get

>>871167

That needs a fair amount of tweaking. I would just suggest using Salix if you need dependency resolution ootb

>>871153

>google wm name

>all riced and whatnot pictures

>install wm

>nothing is as on the pictures, everything is bland

also

>spectrwm

Somewhat of a less fortunate name currently, given the CPU bug debacle and all

>>871153

>acme

A ton of shit is called "acme", what do you mean exactly?

>>859403 (OP)

>im gonna go from the easiest to use distro to the hardest

youre gonna have a bad time, if i were you, id start with debian first...

>>871182

Probably the text editor (see acme.cat-v.org)

>>871213

Debian is fucking awful and APT is retarded.

>>871247

What don't you like, and what is your preferred alternative?

Use Zenwalk. Works out of the box and has a GUI frontend for package management.

>>871916

Forgot to mention. Based on Slackware.

>>871247

Lemme guess...systemd.

Shit, even with that, it still manages to be in my top three distros for certain (other two, mind you, lack it). Sorry, systemdetractors, but that's not enough to single-handedly make it "awful" - it just has too many other things going for it.

>>871247

the whole point is that if he is already using ubuntu then he should already know how to use apt so its the next logical step if he wants a more hardcore distro as skipping straight to slack will be a steep learning curve

>>859553

>BSD-style init scripts and a community filled with people that treat systemd with the vitriol it deserves don't hurt none neither.

But you still get PulseAudio

>>872689

PA is the only tolerable Poetteringware, if only because ALSA sucks so much dicks on its own.

>>872690

IIRC Slackware only installed PulseAudio for the BlueZ 5 support. But there's a BlueALSA now for that shit.

https://github.com/Arkq/bluez-alsa

>>871963

>already using ubuntu then he should already know how to use apt

I figure the majority of ubuntu users don't really know how to use apt and would have no issue switching to using "emerge <package>" or "yum install <package>" instead of "apt install <package>"