Slackware Turns 24 Years Old

[sbolokanov]

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

A matter of competence.

On topic:
It was my first GNU/Linux distro that I have tried (2012-2013). Since then it has become my favorite distro (in fact I haven't needed to use another distro/OS for as long as years).

Rock-solid!

[kylew77]

Personally, while not my daily driver, I find Slackware to be the most ready to go distro out there. Doing a complete install gives you just about everything but the kitchen sink! Adding anything not in the full install can be difficult because of the package management, etc. To my knowledge Slackware is the ONLY distribution that includes basic compiler tools in the default install, except for Gentoo but it is not a 5 minute setup system. All of the Ubuntu derivatives I have ever tried always lack GCC in the base, sure it is easy to add after the fact but I think it should be included. If you need a quick development station thrown on a usb stick or an old laptop and won't be having an internet connection there isn't much better than Slackware.

[monraaf]

Please remain System(d) free for the next 24 years and I will surely keep using Slack

[starshipeleven]

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.).

Veteran Unix Admins need a safe heaven after all.

Personally, I'm not touching anything that requires me to do all the work that could be off-loaded to the machine itself, and Slack is on that list.

[Nille_kungen]

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

How many years ago was it that you tried Slackware?
It works fine out of the box and if you want many of the latest an greatest libraries and software then Slackware64-current is pretty up to date.

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

Many Slackware users donate equal amount as the years i get, so today i guess Slackware will get some $24 and €24 donations.

[stqn]

When I wanted to try Slackware I was stopped by limited keyboard support (no bépo keymap in the list of the installer) and unclear documentation. But apart from that I’m sure it’s fine…

[Hohlraum]

Slackware was the first distro I'd ever used. Think it was 2.x (yes, I'm old) I had the university purchase a copy of some proprietary X11 server/driver to support the Diamond video card in my system. I remember all the freaking floppy discs and the fear that one was corrupt and you wouldn't find out until really late into the install process. Seemed like the cheaper floppy discs got the lower the quality, towards the end of their usage.

[esac]

When I started with linux back in 1997, I reinstalled redhat like seven times before I hade i running, then I switched to slackware and has been a slacker since 1997 until last year when I switched to Arch, as Im getting old and lazy Still thats 19 yrs of slackware - I still have a disc of -current laying around in case I need to backup some win machine :P

[higuita]

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.).

yes, slackware will not "help" you, the idea is that you control the system, you configure it your own way... when you do not know something, you are forced to read the docs, research and when you configure what you want, you have learned lot more than the other distros (probably the next big one to learn is the "linux from scratch").

and yes, arch may have better wiki, but slack also have good documentation:

https://docs.slackware.com/

http://www.slackbook.org/

and of course, the man pages!!

The "main" slackware forum is https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...stributions-5/ and the irc #slackware channel on freenode

yes, slackware may not be for everyone, windows people that want to quickly load a CD, install and go play steam games may do not want it (but i do play all my games in slackware)... but for those what want to learn about unix, linux how things work, slackware is perfect, even better than arch (as their basic setup is not portable to other distros)

For packages outside the main distro, use slackpkg with alien repot and sbopkg and build what you need

[andreano]

The sixth oldest distro (after MCC Interim, TAMU, SLS, Yggdrasil, DLD), and the oldest distro still alive!