One of the oldest GNU/Linux distibutions, Slackware, is ten years away from it’s v1.00. You could read the announcement here. Slackware has proven to be one of the most stable distros in these 10 years. It has clean design, and by rule avoids unnecessary changes to the prepackaged software. It’s package management is elegant and fault tolerant. Slackware is also known to be the closest cousin to UNIX from all the Linuxes. We wish bright future and tons of new users to Slack!
Happy Birthday! May you hold true to your roots, and your other users. Hehe. =)
I loved the comment in there about how there is 2 versions, one that is 11 floppies and one that is 13 floppies. So nice those days are gone. I installed either win3.1 or 95 (can’t remember which) far to many times with the 29 floppies.
Part of me is truely scared to think what the first linux experiances where like. And did people then say it was ready for the desktop?
I installed Slackware 9.0 in April 2003, after fussing with SuSE, Mandrake,etc. Slackware has remained stable on my computer and the -current branch updates have been installed with no fuss.
I am and shall always be a Slack user.
Go Slackware – it’s your birthday!
I would like to congratulate Patrick on his continued success with slackware and thank him for the best distro available. I hope it never changes. As for the person who said Patrick should give up and become a Debian (i think) developer a couple of weeks ago (after the article about the slackware package system) – you couldn’t be more wrong. If you have read about Slackware and think it to be archaic – then actually give it a try. The majority of opinions expressed by fans of other distributions are often totally unfounded.
It’s simply a case of a myth getting out of hand – to the point that people believe they can comment with authority on something they haven’t even tried. Sure it’s got a text based installer still, but it’s got the BEST installer of all the distributions I’ve tried, and I would hate to see it made graphical (although as long as there’s a text option it wouldn’t be a problem cos i’d just used that!).
Delian Krustev said: “We wish bright future and tons of new users to Slack!”
If you are reading this and haven’t tried Slack then I don’t know what you’re waiting for.
Somewhere I have read “Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux”. I would like to expand on this further – put the fun back into Linux – use Slackware
Couldn’t agree more.
I’ve been using slackware since version 2.1.
I’ve tried Redhat, Mandrake, Caldera, and FreeBSD, but always end up going back to Slackware.
Slackware – it just works the way you want it to.
Are you kidding? I wouldn’t even call it package management.
Slackware was definitely nice when I started using GNU/Linux, but today it simply can’t stand up against apt.
Slackware was definitely nice when I started using GNU/Linux, but today it simply can’t stand up against apt.
Swaret ( http://freshmeat.net/projects/swaret/?topic_id=147%2C253 ) claims to offer similar functionality.
“I’ve tried Redhat, Mandrake, Caldera, and FreeBSD, but always end up going back to Slackware.”
I use Linux for a hobby, and for my home computing.
I love Slackware too, but unfortunately I don’t have the time to tailor it. I’ve been wanting to get back into details again lately, so I’ve just put up Debian because of the package manager. I’m tired of Mandrake and RedHat, because they have different tailoring issues (taylor something and the rest of the install starts to wobble.)
I think when I retire from my job, I’ll probably ditch everything else for Slackware.
Or Gentoo.
Or do a “Linux from Scratch.”
🙂
it was windows 95. windows 3.1 was 6-8 floppies.
and I think win95 was more like 30-45 floppies.
First distribution I ever installed.
I wish I could get to my Linux # to
find out when.
End of ’93, I believe. On a 5 MB notebook (couldn’t run X.)
Wound up using the ones from InfoMagic (which, I believe, has been “murdered” by greedy people. I miss them dearly.)
Good story: When I tried it the first time, the screen kept going black. Got out my trusty MS-DOS diskeete, fired up Debug, and found out that the yoyo’s who made my cheapy notebook were using network IO port areas for switching screens from LCD to external. Read thru the Howtos looking for the word “probe.” Found out the correct parameter to skip probing that I/O area, got it running great.
It took me some 50 hours to download the whole thing from Compuserve the first time, but then I started subscribing to InfoMagic. Anyway, I downloaded the kernel sources, re-compiled for the limited feature set of the laptop (too over 13 hours!) and I was clean & green.
As for pkgtool, I know that you can find a lot of packages on linuxpackages.net and the slackware-current FTP. But if the package you’re looking for isn’t there, then what? I find that once you’re in a position where you have to do configure/make/make install, it works maybe half the time.
Just because the package manager doesnt actually fetch the packages for you, doesn’t mean that it has a “poor” package management system.
Slackware is ruined by it’s user community. They think that since Patrick doesn’t include a lot of fluff in order to keep it a 1-CD distro, that what he really wants is for no users to help eachother. So you have a bunch of rapid Slack experts who sit around and say “RTFM” while slapping eachother on the back. The newsgroup is a good place for pirated e-books and antiviral software, just ask +Chiron+.
> Slackware is ruined by it’s user community
There are plenty of other Slackware user communities aside from the Slackware newsgroups. Here’s a list of few, Google will give you more:
http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/faqomatic/cache/75.html
PJV as mentioned the 1.0 anniversary in the slackware-current ChangeLog:
Thu Jul 17 15:14:18 PDT 2003
…
d/clisp-2.30-i486-1.tgz: Added clisp-2.30.
I’m happy to bring this back, as it was something that was included in the
Slackware 1.00 release. It was because I needed a LISP interpreter for an AI
class that I first got involved with Linux, and CLISP was the implementation
I used. Speaking of which, it is now ten years to the day since the Slackware
1.00 release was announced on comp.os.linux. 🙂
If Slackware has helped you out over the years, it has been my pleasure.
Thanks for a great decade!
http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=i386
http://www.linuxpackages.net
http://www.userlocal.com
http://www.slackware.com
http://www.linuxdoc.org
irc.freenode.net – #slackware
need i say more?
Remembers first using it. Back in 1995 after by Amiga stopped working, I purchased a PC. What a disappointment Windows 95 was in comparision to Workbench.
I searched hi and low for a better solution and then suddenly I came across “linux” and some people saying it as a “low cost UNIX”. Having heard of UNIX and its reputation, I went down the road and purchased a copy. Slackware was available for around $20.
8 years later Windows has improved immensely, however, Slackware still still hold a special place in my heart 😉
Even though I am on SuSE now, I have always like Slackware, congrats guys. When youy turn 20 I may then buy a T-Shirt
Slackware is simply the finest distro available. Of course that’s my opinion.
Happy Birthday Slackware!! :o)
My first linux experience was Redhat 6.2
After a power failure the filesystem was screwed and I never got it back online again (fortunately it was only an experimental installation, nothing serious)
Some friends recommended using Slackware. Because of it’s simplicity it’s much more educational than other distro’s that try keep you away from the ‘real’ stuff.
I never use the package manager except for removing packages from the original installation, and then upgrading those from source. I like it plain & neat.
Patrick, thanks for a wonderful distro. You’ve made the world a little more pleasant for all of us.
> Even though I am on SuSE now, I have always like Slackware,
You might like to know that SuSE was based on Slackware. They’re pretty diferent from each other now of course.
“There are plenty of other Slackware user communities aside from the Slackware newsgroups. Here’s a list of few, Google will give you more:
http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/faqomatic/cache/75.html ”
The maintainer of “wombat” is(was) one of the folks that used spout “RTFM”, as did +Chiron+.
+Chiron+ has mellowed somewhat from the way he used to be.
“As for pkgtool, I know that you can find a lot of packages on linuxpackages.net and the slackware-current FTP. But if the package you’re looking for isn’t there, then what? I find that once you’re in a position where you have to do configure/make/make install, it works maybe half the time. ”
Take a look at CheckInstall http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/index.php
It is a great tool to make “slack packs”.
Also, you can take a look in the source trees for the *.Slackbuild and config.layout.slack files to see how to make your own packages install in a similar fashion to what Patrick does.
“Slackware is ruined by it’s user community”
Slackware requires some work and reading to get the best out of.
Posters in the NG try to encourage independant thought and to increase a posters problem solving and research skills. Once posters have worked out independant thought and research skills they become far more valuable members of the user community, able to help other users solve their problems as well as solving there own.
I really don’t see a “help yourself” attitude as being a problem.
Slackware is ruined by it’s user community.
Always take a potshot on a Slackware thread to bash a.o.l.s., don’t ya? What are you, on some kind of crusade or something?
Kaptain Krunch said:
+Chiron+ has mellowed somewhat from the way he used to be.
True enough – but I’m still an Asshole. =)
‘So you have a bunch of rapid Slack experts who sit around and say “RTFM”‘
You could always try MS Windows if you want your hand holding.
I find that once you’re in a position where you have to do configure/make/make install, it works maybe half the time.
That’s why READMEs exist…
“Anonymous” replied:
Always take a potshot on a Slackware thread to bash a.o.l.s., don’t ya? What are you, on some kind of crusade or something?
“Jerik”‘s pitiful attempts at trolling AOSLS can be easily found on Google Groups.
He never found the “audience” he was looking for on Usenet, so apparently he has now resorted to using these commentary threads to do his complaining.
It’s really sort of sad when you think about it.
What Jerik (and anyone else who whines about the lack of hand-holding in Slackware) seem to conveniently forget is that Slackware would *never* have grown to the status that it enjoys today if it *wasn’t* for the so-called “Slackware Community” being there to provide support and assitance when needed. Slackware is *the* oldest, living, maintained distro bar for two reasons alone:
1.) The overall quality of the distro itself.
2.) The Slackware user community.
The history of Slackware, itself, discredits any other complaints about it. It’s not _meant_ to be for everyone.
If “Joe user” doesn’t like it, they are more than free to go and use one of the other distros that are geared towards keeping the users dumb and entertained with little pictures.
The rest of us will still be here to help them when/if they finally realize that there *are* better alternatives.
Although I have replaced Slackware with Gentoo, it still has a special place in my heart
“Just because the package manager doesnt actually fetch the packages for you, doesn’t mean that it has a “poor” package management system.”
That’s purely subjective matter. I personnaly think that a PMS that doesn’t fetch the packages for you IS poor.
I’ve never tried usenet, but the community is great on #slackware on freenode – i’ve never once seen an RTFM, or seen people just ignored. I tried gentoo, I got a hell of a lot of RTFM’s, because i had problems compiling the kernel with support for my network card, but debian, i asked “how to i get the unstable kde package?” RTFM x 3, no real answer. The slackware community is great IMO.