To paraphrase one of the best “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episodes, “Best of Both Worlds“, both Arch Linux and Slackware represent the best of all the OS worlds: the power of traditional Unix, the elegance of BSD and the ease of mind of Mac OS X. This is an article outlining the differences between –what I believe– are the two best Linux distros around today. Mind you though, “best” doesn’t always mean “easy”.
Installation & Fist Steps
Both distros feature text-based installation that are quite equivalent in terms of features and ease of use. However, I will give Slackware a slight preference here because of all the networking/package installation that’s done by the installer, while Arch requires the user to use a text editor to edit the /etc/rc.conf to its liking, as this requires some extra knowledge.
Winner: Slackware (by a slim margin)
Configuration & Usage
While the installation of Arch by editing rc.conf might baffle some, the same rc.conf makes the system configuration of Arch a breeze, after you finally get it installed. Having a single central point where you can edit daemons, modules, networking, hostname etc, it’s just convenient and easy to remember. Adding/removing daemons especially, is really easy, much easier than in Slackware, (the Slack book has… forgotten to mention those).
Slackware comes with better defaults though. /dev/dvd nodes (when applicable) and Alsa sound restoration, gstreamer’s plugin registration, right permissions for /proc/acpi/event (for laptop users) etc, all happen automatically, while with Arch you need to go tweak those yourself. It’s convenience that makes Arch lose points here. For the sake of calling itself a “distro for advanced users”, it’s missing some no-brainer conveniences that should have been there by default.
Another problem with Arch is the fact that Gnome, KDE and especially Mozilla are installed in /opt/. I had a fair share of applications that just couldn’t find the Mozilla SDK to compile against in /opt, even if the /etc/profile.d/ was updated. Monodevelop, Blam! was some of them. I believe that not having to dump everything on /usr is a good thing, however the Arch implementation doesn’t always work as expected. Instead of basically replicating /usr on /opt/, some innovation would be welcome, just like Apple does with its /Applications folder.
Despite all this, Arch wins this configuration and usage category shootout, because despite some of its initial troubles, after you get it up and running, it is much, much easier to change and configure things in it than it is with Slackware. In my experience with both, messing around with things on /etc/ for configuration, it’s just easier to get by with Arch than with Slackware overall.
Winner: Arch
Package management
Slackware’s original package management system doesn’t support dependencies, but the great thing is that within the Slackware community, you don’t really need the feature. Just like with the Windows or Mac or Be developers, the Slack third party packagers make sure that either everything is included in the package, or that the needed extra dependencies are available to download from the same web page. That’s truly zero hassle, and this was one of the reasons that I became hooked to Slackware last year.
Personally, I use Swaret with Slackware. Without it, installing new packages from Slackware-Current was just painful. Thank God for Swaret!
On the other hand, Arch’s package management, Pacman, supports dependencies and it’s as easy to install new packages as is with Swaret, if not even easier. Pacman works well; however, in my opinion, its main problem has to do with the creation of new packages. I found that using “CheckInstall” with Slackware (or even Ubuntu and Debian) would install and create the package automatically for me. It would be awesome if the Arch guys added Pacman support to checkinstall and made the creation of Pacman packages automatic. Both Swaret and Checkinstall ship with Slackware, but on its /extra tree.
Winner: Without Swaret/Checkinstall, Arch Linux is the big winner because it has a larger package selection & dep support. With Swaret/Checkinstall in place, Slackware is slightly ahead because of the convenience these bring.
Stability, Bugs & Recognition
Slackware (along with Debian) represent the ultimate form of stability in Linux regarding all their shipped packages. Nothing enters the -Current tree if it’s not proven to work well. Stability in Slackware happens because of the no-patch policy: very, very few apps are getting patched. If something needs patching for this or the other reason, it’s just not considered stable, and so it doesn’t enter not even the /testing branch! Saves hassle for both the users and the Slack developer!
Arch is also good regarding bugs and stability, but not to the level of Slackware. Many packages from /extra or /current (trees that people use daily to enrich their Linux experience) are just not well thought or well-put together in terms of the way they interact with the rest of the distribution or other packages. I also had Arch die on me twice while using udev (devfs was rock solid).
Another thing with Slackware is that it is a more popular distro, and so third party application writers are more likely to have ready packages for it, or even have support for its system backend, like in the cases of CheckInstall and NetworkManager.
I also found Slackware much more proactive and fast in delivering security updates than the Arch developers. In fact, Pat is very careful to provide new packages that fix security issues almost immediately, while Arch can lag several days for these, because some of these packages are maintained by less active Arch packagers. This is a decision-making point for those who want to run servers.
Winner: Slackware (clear win)
Speed & Optimizations
Arch wins this one. It is an i686 optimized distro, and the fact that comes with kernel 2.6.x by default gives it an edge. I have personally seen a much better sound latency with Arch than with Slackware. With Slackware (on the same machine), there were times that I would do something heavy and it would disrupt my audio playback, while doing the same with Arch results in no disruption, just as I experience with BeOS, XP and OSX: like nothing has happened. Arch also turns off my machine automatically too, while with Slackware I have to manually turn off using the power button. Little things like that make a difference.
Winner: Arch
User Support
Slackware has more users, and this results in much more documentation available, more Google results, more users on IRC/forums to help you out if you are stuck. Arch is still a small distro with its main developers working on it for fun. Slackware has an established business around it, so professional, fee-based help is available too.
Winner: Slackware
Developer Activity & Vision
Arch wins this one easily. It’s a very actively developed distro. Application packages are updated daily and Judd Vinet takes care of the system part of the distro fast and nicely. Sure, not all security holes are updated in time, but the user can have more than enough new packages daily to toy with. This makes Arch a better desktop solution than Slackware.
Slackware hasn’t seen any major change/innovation in its subsystem for years. This is a let down for me, because while I love stability, I also want to see new things that fix existing usage problems instead of just lying to ourselves “that’s how unix works” and leave the things unchanged just because we are afraid to think outside of the box. Being conservative is a has its merits, but if you overdo it, you are risking that your project will be left behind in many areas. And Slackware is close to this classification.
Winner: Arch
Conclusion
Overall, both distros are great. In my opinion, overall, these are the two best distros around today. They are not the easiest to use and configure, but after the average user would go through the initial “week of pain”, he/she should be happy with the result, as speed, stability and package support is adequate.
I would pick Slackware if the machine I were running were an older one (like my brother’s AMD K6 300 Mhz laptop) and if I wanted super-stability on all the supplied packages and the system. I would go with Slackware if I wanted a server or if I needed a distro that’s somewhat recognized and supported by third parties.
I would pick Arch if I were running on newer hardware, and if my internet connection were faster than dual ISDN (because updates happen more often, you will find yourself in the situation of upgrading almost daily). I would pick Arch if I needed a desktop and new apps to toy with.
So, overall, it’s a tie. Depending on your needs, it’s either Slack or Arch. But in no case –at least for me– would I choose the bloatware that is in other distros. Sure, these well-known ultra-popular distros provide some user-level conveniences, but the price you pay afterwards (because of their crazy bugs and overall slowness), doesn’t make them worthwhile. Ubuntu and Debian are interesting choices, but also not as fast or flexible as Arch or Slack, while I personally keep away of the likes of Gentoo (used it, got the t-shirt and hated its long compilations and “let’s patch everything” nature).
So, try Arch or Slack, or both, and then decide which one to keep. They are actually pretty similar in terms of philosophy anyway.
Distros were tested over a period of 10 months using three machines: an AMD Duron 1.2 GHz LinarePC, an AthlonXP 1.4 GHz MicroTel PC and a 2.8 GHz P4 laptop: Special Thanks to LinuxCertified for providing the laptop to try out the distros.
> How can the most primitive distro with the least amount of
> packages and one of the worst package management systems
> be the best? Distros like Slackware are holding Linux
> back, keeping it in the realm of the eggheads. Honestly,
> super geeks, the 90s want their distro back. Patrick is
> wasting his time. He ought to work on one of the BSD
> flavors instead…
Slackware is in my oppinion the very best Linux distribution out there because of its simplicity, its powerful (yes, I mean that) package management, its rock solid stability, its speed and its ease of administration.
Let me address those points in a little more detail.
Simplicity) The installer is very simple and easy to use, and the fact that it’s text based means that it always works on any box. Also, there are no extra layers that try to hide from you how the system works or tools that edit config files behind your back in surprising ways, and everything is in the location you expect it to be.
Package management) The package management tools are all very simple, a script to install a package (installpkg), a tool to remove packages (removepkg), a tool to upgrade a package (upgradepkg) and a few more. The tools all do exactely what you expect them to do and nothing else. The fact that there is no dependency tracking is actually a blessing since it is usually not needed with Slackware and the few times where some package needs some other one, the dependency can usually be resolved by hand in a minute or two (good old ldd is very nice for that). You also don’t have any nasty surprises with dependencies being automagically installed to make NewFancyPackage work but then blowing up OlderPackageThatNeededOldVersionOfSomething. You are in control of what goes on with your packages. Slackware packages are also extremely easy to create, and if you need to pull out a single file or two from one, then tar does the job (or you can use explodepkg). In short, package management is simple, solid and does the job well.
Stability) Compared to other distributions I’ve tried, the software included with slackware has always been rock-solid for me. With other distributions I find that often software has little annoying bugs because core libraries have been patched or the application has been patched or something else has been patched. Slackware ships the software as written by its author and furthermore always build it with conservative optimizations. The result is a rock solid distribution you can depend on. This, to me, is very important.
Speed) Although Slackware is build to run on 486 it still includes what 686 optimizations it can. The result is speed that is comparable in most cases to 100% 686 optimized distributions (and in some cases it even beats even gentoo speedwise, don’t ask me why, but it does). And you still retain the abillity to run the latest version of the distribution on older hardware.
Ease of administration) No tools that make changes behind your back or get confused when you edit settings by hand. A simple init system with everything you need in one place (/etc/rc.d/) and in easy to read and modify scripts. No trouble when building software unpatched from source. No need for anything but a remote ssh connection and a text editor to be able to do *any* administration task remotely. Now *that* is ease of administration/use to me.
Please don’t put a good distribution down just because you don’t know how to take advantage of it or don’t have the skill to appreciate the power and control it gives you.
Distributions like RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE etc have their place, but so does Slackware for the experienced power user that wants a powerful, fast, stable and easy to manage distro.
PS. Have you even tried slackware as your main OS for more than a day? Have you ever tried spending a little bit of time to learn how it works?
Mono for example won’t work on Gentoo or LFS because its GC is broken and the upstream developers where using optimizations that breaks Mono on NTPL systems. So you need a patch to use Mono on Gentoo or LFS.
I’d dispute that – I can’t speak for Gentoo, but current Mono releases work just fine on a recent NTPL-based LFS system, no patches required. I’ve run Blam, Tomboy, Muine and a few others, no problems.
I’m not bashing Mandrake. If you think I am lying fine. I have used Mandrake, and compared to other distros I’ve used, its support for GNOME is horrible. I will continue to maintain that stand. I’m not going to install cooker to run official stable packages. It has broken my system in the past. If you have had a great time with it, cool.
I find many of your statements contradictory, you claim you run cooker, your packages are up to date, and you run GNOME. Yet, you conclude that GNOME 2.8 isn’t in cooker yet and of course not in the stable mirrors. If you are a GNOME user, your packages aren’t up to date if you don’t have GNOME 2.8. Go figure. I’m too busy to respond to all of your nitpicks. Needless to say, I’m glad you are having a great time on your up to date GNOME on Mandrake.
http://bugs.ximian.com/show_bug.cgi?id=60576
Quote below:
“As our bug (61602) was marked as a duplicate i’d like to add that this
problem has nothing todo with gentoo.
This probelm occurs on all pure nptl systems (meaning systems with
only nptl enabled libc). I don’t know any bigger bin distro wich
shipps only nptl libc (thats the reson why this wasen’t tracked
earlier). But sooner or later this will be the case. Today maninly
source distros as gentoo and LFS to have a pure nptl libc.
The threading test fails on my machine at 70-80. I don’t think
versions are important because all test failed till now on all nptl
systems i used and succeeded on all linuxthreads or hybrid syste”
Eugenia,
I am a die-hard Slacker, and proud of it. I have been considering Arch for a long time because some people told me it does some things I wish Slack was doing.
Since I run Slackware primarily as my server, I will stick with your advice.
By the way, I had some problems with swaret and switched to slapt-get, and the developer for that is VERY responsive and VERY quick to personally answer forum posts. From the user’s point of view, slapt-get and swaret are almost identical. From the support point of view, I’d have to go with slapt-get.
Anyone tried MiniSlack yet? It’s a “one CD” version of Slackware that I haven’t personally had time to try/compare, but looks promising as a desktop OS.
http://shweps.free.fr/minislack.html
http://distrowatch.rospot.com/table.php?distribution=minislack
Thanks again, Eugenia.
How can the most primitive distro with the least amount of packages and one of the worst package management systems be the best? Distros like Slackware are holding Linux back, keeping it in the realm of the eggheads.
Dude, Slack is more like Debian than some egghead distro. (i admit Debian’s apt-get is intrisically better than installpkg/swaret.) but a true minimalist distro is something like LFS, Crux, Core, or Arch. (yes Arch has advanced package manager like Deb.) those 4 distros take one hell of a lot of configuring. when i was a newbie i would have been lost in Crux without the man pages. Slack is WAY easier. most everything is auto-configured by Slack or just requires minor tweaks. perhaps i just don’t have enough peripherals to have trouble with it.
Honestly, super geeks, the 90s want their distro back.
now that’s a good troll. +5 Funny.
My view on operating systems is that you should be able to install them easily and then they just work. The reason I don’t use Slackware is that, apparently, I can look forward to a week of pain if I do so. I have never heard of Arch.
For me, an OS is a means to an end. I need one to get stuff done. If it crashes a lot and attracts spyware and viruses, then its goodbye Windows, hello Linux. But I don’t feel the need to become a computer scientist in order to make the switch.
For surfing, emailing, office-style work and playing with pictures any distro will do as long as you like the way it looks and feels. Beyond that, you need a distro that allows you to do whatever it is you want to do. If that happens to be tweaking operating systems then obviously Gentoo, Slack or this Arch thing are for you. Otherwise, one of the mainstream distributions will suffice, even if it is designed for newbies, very slow and absolutely riddled with bugs. It seems my distribution offers all of this, but it has never let me down, so I am happy.
Someone mentioned Mono. I have tried to install this on a couple of distributions, but got bored reading the lists of missing packages. On Ubuntu it installed easily. But Ubuntu, being Debian based, is very fussy about Java. I know, it can be done, but I prefer just to go back to my mainstream Linux for Dummies. It’s easier.
So my quest for the perfect OS for me has lead so far to dual-booting. No doubt syntheses will emerge; TooSlack for the tweakers and Novell Mandora for the rest of us. In the meantime I hope to get things done without too much pain.
I don’t see how what I say is contradictory. I said I run Cooker and my packages are up to date except during freeze periods for stable releases, of which now is one. As soon as Cooker unfreezes, I’ll get GNOME 2.8. In the meantime I’m happy to wait and use the excellent implementation of GNOME 2.6 that is in MDK 10.1 (including most of the 2.8 improvements that people blather on about, such as the gnome-volume-manager automounting stuff), but if I really wanted I could get Goetz Waschk’s 2.8 packages (which will probably form the basis for the official packages anyway).
You still haven’t explained exactly *what* about MDK’s GNOME support is horrible. Please do give some details.
If you don’t run GNOME 2.8, I’m sorry your packages aren’t up to date. As of today, the official latest stable release of GNOME is version 2.8. Anything prior to that is dated.
I don’t use MDK today, but you mentioned part of the problem. Mandrake has a horrible habbit of over patching their packages. I have had problems with their gedit, gnome-session, gdm, nautilus crashing randomly and incessantly I think during the 2.4 – 2.6 releases. I also remember bonobo conflict issues and gnome preferences not launching among several others.
I can’t remember how I broke Mandrake exactly, but I’m sure it had to do with me installing a package not available in the repository, Mono if my memory serves me right. Either way, it was a horrible experience. You can’t seriously tell me that distro stable especially with regards GNOME. Things may have changed now, but my experience has stuck with me.
And you don’t expect me to install Mandrake’s unstable branch, Cooker, just so I can use GNOME 2.6 when I have been using 2.8 peacefully for weeks now, do you? I just couldn’t stand Mandrake specific bugs in GNOME. They irritated me to no extent.
Oh, I also clearly remember Totem freezing for no freaking reason on Mandrake. I had to recompile Totem from source with another backend which of course broke other stuff. A bitch to maintain that system is. Maybe I was just an ignorant user. Or may be not, because I don’t experience all that anymore.
Please re-read the statement:
“I said I run Cooker and my packages are up to date except during freeze periods for stable releases, of which now is one.”
It does not imply that my packages are currently up to date. In fact, it implies the opposite. It also implies that this is a temporary situation.
“I have had problems with their gedit, gnome-session, gdm, nautilus crashing randomly and incessantly I think during the 2.4 – 2.6 releases.”
I…well…didn’t. Admittedly I don’t use Nautilus much, but I use all the others and I haven’t had one of them crash on me since we had GNOME 2.1 in Cooker. Certainly not in any stable release, for the month or so I run each (while Cooker is frozen).
“I can’t remember how I broke Mandrake exactly, but I’m sure it had to do with me installing a package not available in the repository, Mono if my memory serves me right.”
That’s pretty vague, but it’s unusual – it’s not best practice to install things from source that you can get packaged (as I mentioned, Mono has in fact been in Mandrake since v0.26 in early 2003, so unless you wanted to play with a *very* early version it must have been in Mandrake when you wanted to play with it, you probably just didn’t find it), but it shouldn’t break anything. I twiddle with stuff quite frequently and it tends to work, or if it breaks, when I do a make uninstall all is well again. Certainly not something as small and peripheral as mono. Pity you don’t remember the details, I’d have been interested.
Totem was pretty unstable when an ill-advised attempt was made to use the gstreamer backend, yes. However, IIRC at that point there was a good working version of sinek in the distro, so it wasn’t really a great loss. For the last two releases, Totem has used the xine backend, and it works perfectly (including auto-playing DVDs on insert via gnome-volume-manager).
“You can’t seriously tell me that distro stable especially with regards GNOME.”
As far as I’m concerned, I can. I have an MDK 10.1 box sitting in my front room running GNOME, which I use every day, and it works perfectly. Nautilus (which I use a lot more now it’s fast and has the awesome nautilus-cd-burner) is great, Rhythmbox is great, Totem is great, Evolution is great, Firefox…er…well, the Firefox in MDK contrib actually sucks, because it’s 1.0RC1, which had *tiny* bugs like tabs not working. Upstream bugs, but still. So I use a nightly build. Score one for the Mandrake sucks brigade, OK. To be fair, though, it’s not MDK’s default browser, that’s Epiphany (in GNOME) and it works great. Evolution is fine, xchat is fine, gaim is fine…the entire system is a paradigm of hunky-doriness. It doesn’t crash, it’s fast (though I’ve not used any other OS on the system so I can’t compare speeds), it does everything I ask it to.
Of course I don’t expect you to install Mandrake – it sounds to me like you, just like me, have a very nicely working system that does what you need. Installing something else would be craziness. No, I just want you to appreciate that a lot of what you think about Mandrake is completely wrong, and a lot of the rest of what you think certainly doesn’t match my experience.
Thanks for the comparison, Eugenia. I’m personally trying out both and trying to make a decision between them for a laptop and home server (though DragonflyBSD and FreeBSD also are tempting). Too bad it drew you so much ire from some folks. Ignore the Zoloft-deficient and keep up the good work.
I used to deploy servers using Slackware and Mandrake. Then I was obsessed about source based distros. My favourite was Lunar. Although I like source-based distro, it’s not possible to deploy servers rapidly with it. I wanted a lean, mean binary distro, but easily customised. Then Crux came along, and then Arch. I did try out Vector and Slackware, but I must say I prefer Arch. I use it on my servers, my client servers, my desktop and my centrino notebook. For servers without X, I never face any major bug problems, but I thinks it’s a bad decision for pacman to overwrite certain configuration file on upgrades (although pacman do back it up and allow you to protect certain files in it’s configuration). If I come across binaries that doesn’t fit me, I just use ABS. Like what others saying, do wait a while (a week or two) before upgrading packages that has major changes (it still be more update then most of the distros). Yes, pacman -Syu did break my gnome once (the careless ghex bug), but overall, with highly optimized and updated binaries, and an easy to use build-from-source system, Arch is a winner for me.
I couldn’t resist. I have tried Arch Linux and it is like many others plagued by package management – thats right I mean RPM/DEB etc etc. When will they learn? I have NEVER had a problem with “ports” based management like Gentoo etc. Arch like many others are great until you have to install or update a package then arm up for dependency wars again. No way not ever again.
Well that’s the point I have been trying to make all day, especially to Eu. He loves Mandrake and SUSE, I don’t. I’m not the only one who doesn’t. And we all have our reasons for disliking or liking a particular distro. It is however wrong and sometimes annoying to think that because a distro works great for you, it is perfect for everyone else, because it may not be.
While your experiences with Mandrake have been great mine hasn’t been. I just didn’t like it because it felt bloated, slow and too GUIish. It didn’t have the lean and mean feel or responsiveness of Gentoo or Slack. I know this because I have used them all. Based on my experience with it, I am very convinced that the distro is biased towards KDE.
Of course you have every right to disagree with me, but that doesn’t change my sentiment towards it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Eugenia promoting Slackware or Arch to users as opposed to Mandrake or SUSE. It is well known that she has used and tested these distros and she has reasons for not selecting them as the best distros on Linux.
Now I don’t think they are the best distros on Linux, but I acknowledge that she must have very informed reasons and strong convictions for saying so and she has every right to share her opinion and promote a distro that fits her needs. That’s all.
I had tried Redhat and Debian before Arch and it wasn’t until Arch Linux that I pissed Windows off my system. Ok not perfect but on the whole it is a great desktop which has taught me a lot about Linux.
Keep it simple and elegant and you can’t go wrong. Pacman is great as is APS.
Slackware is a one man distribution with no long-term support. How many slackware servers are there on netcraft? How long does Patrick provide security udpates for each release?
Once you answer these questions, you realize that Slackware is not what you want on a server.
I doubt you’re still checking responses at this point, but I wanted to post this for general information. You can defend Mandrake all you like (I certainly have no ill will toward the distribution, although I don’t use it anymore), but you clearly don’t know enough about Slackware to criticise it. Security updates are still provided for Slackware 8.1 (as well as 9.0, 9.1, 10.0 and -current of course), which was released in June of 2002 (for comparison Mandrake is apparently still supporting only back to 9.2 which was released in October of 2003). Security updates are one of Slackware’s strongest points, so if you want to criticise it, you’d best look elsewhere.
By the way, where does netcraft break down servers by distribution? In the statistics I’m familiar with they just list the OS as “Linux” no matter which distribution it might be.
And anyone who says that Slackware makes a better desktop than Mandrake, Suse, ArkLinux, PCLinuxOS, Mepis or Ubuntu, is certainly delusional.
This is an incredibly presumptuous statement. Slackware makes my favorite desktop of the distributions I have tried so far. It provides exactly what I want it to, no more and no less. I also can compile and install software on it that may not have a package available more reliably than on any other distribution that I’ve used (this was always a very, very “iffy” proposition on Mandrake when I was using it). This is not to say that Slackware is hands down the best Linux desktop for everyone; no distribution is; but which distribution makes the best desktop is a very subjective question. The distributions you mention probably all have their place.
Geez, stop all the comments about Mandrake. MDK isn’t mentioned in the article.
If you want to compare slack and MDK, write an article. Then we can argue about Gnome support, bloat, etc.
Personally, I like slack, it does what i want quickly and easily. I could do the same with MDK, but I don’t want to.
The best desktop, IMO.
I agree with the article. Slackware and Arch are my 2 favourite Linux distros, too (I also use and like NetBSD). Slackware is more reliable, Arch sometimes a bit quirky, but its package management makes it a winner for me currently, it’s also maybe a bit more simple, although the slimplicity and cleanness is great in both. I think the docs on their website is quite sufficient for the basic things, and there are some nice people on their forums when you need help. I also agree that the big distros have many things which are useless for more experienced users – with Slackware, you don’t learn how to use some particular config tools in distro XYZ version 9876, how to deal with their specific ways of doing things, bugs etc. You just use Linux. Which is not too hard, it’s actually very straightforward.
>One thing you touched on that has always bothered me about >Slackware:
>
>Arch also turns off my machine automatically too, while >with Slackware I have to manually turn off the power
>button. Little things like that make a difference.
1. install a/apmd
2. in rc.modules, uncomment /sbin/modprobe apm
3. As root:
# /usr/sbin/apmd
4. Again as root:
# halt
Voila!
As for me, I prefer to push the button ;^)
Sorry, I did not read back all comments till now, but if somebody likes Arch’s package management, but dislikes that you have nothing automated, then try out Frugalware Linux. No, this is not the place of a “marketing sentence”, but Frugalware is a Hungarian linux distribution (of course, it is in english
) which uses Pacman as package manager.
This must have been the most boring discussion ever on OSNEWS.
hey, I don’t remember putting a gun to your head and making you read it…
You don’t remember? I remember it like it was yesterday…
Yes, I don’t like how half of this discussion was about MDK and whatever being shitty. To me, desktop/newbie made distros always seem to be the same. Slow, bloated and very difficult to upgrade to the next best version when it is release.
Arch is great, but still young and has its problems, which distro doesn’t?
I for one will continue to use my Slackware/Gentoo combination but I will also continue to watch Arch.
Just a little treat for some: Version 0.7 may not be offically release until kernel 2.6.10 because reiser4 is (possibly) due to be merged into it and Judd (the arch creator) will modify the installer for reiser4 if it is merged as rumoured.
“PS. Have you even tried slackware as your main OS for more than a day? Have you ever tried spending a little bit of time to learn how it works? ”
Oh yes, right after I installed it (not a simple process but another example of being primitive)I considered that. Until I realized how few apps actually come with Slackware out of the box, and so spending a day with it would largely entail going out and gathering packages for it.
Now listen up closely folks, I didn’t say Slackware sucks, I said it wasn’t the best. I said it was primitive, which it is. Configuring things by hand and writing scripts is primitive. It’s 2004, isn’t it? At what point in the future will we be allowed to use a GUI to edit settings, etc? Or would you Slackware folks always have us remain old school forever? Managing a server like that is one thing, but on the desktop? Give us a break. Not that I mind that for now, but if I’m going to go that much trouble I’ll be using a BSD, not Linux. To me that’s Linux’s greatest strength is that it’s packaged up for the common man. Where would Linux be if it wasn’t? Not nearly where it is now. Without distros like Red Hat,MDK, Suse, all the ones you folks claim are bloated, Linux would only be an ubergeek thing. You know that.
Also, people, a wise man (or woman, who knows) is this very forum once said one man’s bloat is another man’s features. Me, personally, I like the distro to come with as many apps as possible. I can always get rid of what I don’t want. But going out and finding the packages is not always fun. Of course, so many of you are so used to your T-2 lines or whatever that you can’t conceive that some people have slower connections and don’t feel like spending a whole day downloading something like KDE 3.3.
Ok, maybe Arch is better, but I’ll never change my OS. I prefer slack.
this was the main motive, because i leave slackware and choose debian and next archlinux.
pacman + makepkg(+abs) is a powerfull team
I will agree with one point made earlier, Slackware is uber-geeky, and difficult to setup and stuff. I wish, they would have some nicer tools and some more apps included with the distro. But I suppose that’s how Slac stays the most stable.
.:: my 2 cents ::.