Slackware Turns 24 Years Old

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Slackware Turns 24 Years Old

Slackware, the oldest Linux distribution still being maintained, has turned 24 years old...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Slackware-24-Birthday

[kaprikawn]

Slackware has it's fans, and I'm sure they're fine, upstanding people. But I installed it once, it didn't last long before I replaced it. It seemed to me that it was about the same difficulty as Arch, but without all the help you get when you use Arch (the Wiki, the forums, Google searches usually returning useful data etc.).

[Cthulhux]

If I ever had to use Linux again, I'd choose Slackware. What kaprikawn described as "difficult" is actually one of its remaining advantages over more complex Linuces: It doesn't ever get in your way.
Happy birthday, Slackware.

[klapaucius]

If I ever had to use Linux again, I'd choose Slackware. What kaprikawn described as "difficult" is actually one of its remaining advantages over more complex Linuces: It doesn't ever get in your way.
Happy birthday, Slackware.

It just gets in your way of having an immediately functional and useful OS.

[bug77]

Happy birthday, but is it buying a beer or something?

[dungeon]

Happy birthday

Slackware's birthdays only reminds me on same Debian's birthday one month after

[Cthulhux]

It just gets in your way of having an immediately functional and useful OS.

What exactly is missing for you?

[bug77]

What exactly is missing for you?

Eh, if "immediately functional" is not subjective, "useful" surely is. If he doesn't like it, he doesn't like it.

[klapaucius]

What exactly is missing for you?

I've used Slackware for years (as well as other distributions as Ubuntu and Debian and, back in the days, Mandrake) but there's no question that Slackware is far less easy than other distros, starting from the installation and initial configuration process. Eventually I moved to Arch because I wanted an up-to-date, real rolling distro (not a -current), I wanted to switch to Gnome (but not through unofficial third-party packages), a package system with full dependencies resolution. Also, Slackware was lacking a 64bit stable release for a long time and its development was lagging behind.

Sure, Arch is not easier, and its installation process is one of the toughest to manage. In fact I would never say that Arch doesn't get in your way. If you want something which is immediately usable go with Ubuntu instead, or Fedora (or Debian or others which I'm probably not aware of) and you'll almost always end up with a fully functional desktop.

P.S.: I see that it's still using the rc.d-like init system and has not yet included Wayland, not exactly a forward looking distribution.

[sarfarazahmad]

off-topic : i miss Slax