Very Computer

by **PDoc** » Sat, 24 Nov 2001 22:21:30

Hi
This really is a serious question. I have been trying to and/or using linux
for about 2 yrs. And somehow settled into Slackware. Well using Slackware
has caused me to do a lot of learning about Linux that I might not
otherwise have had to do. However I really don't known what is unique to
Slackware as opposed to other distributions.

Some of the obvious I understand:
1. Has a package tool that does not do dependancy checking and loads
precompiled source packages based on a i386 kernel.
2. Utilizies bsd style init scripts which are slowing including start/stop
command line hooks

But other than that what makes Patrick's work unique. It seems that prior
to Slack7 he was doing modifications to compiliers but I think that stopped
with glibc2.(now)2.3. So when I download a new kernel or gcc or some other
application package and compile from source am I unknowingly
undoing/breaking something that makes Slackware the stable distribution it
is.

Serious replies appreciated; flame war unwanted/ignored but half expected.
ppd

by **Petri Kaukasoi** » Sat, 24 Nov 2001 23:05:54

>So when I download a new kernel or gcc or some other application package and
>compile from source am I unknowingly undoing/breaking something that makes
>Slackware the stable distribution it is.

No. Some other distributors add lots of internal patches, often of
questionable quality, sometimes on an antiquated version of the program
package. Slackware has typically used recent versions of program packages
with no or few patches. So, it is easy to keep packages up-to-date by
compiling new releases from the source.

You can check yourself how packages are configured and what patches have
been used in the source directory of your cdrom or the ftp site.

by **Mark H. Woo** » Thu, 29 Nov 2001 00:59:58

> Hi
> This really is a serious question. I have been trying to and/or using linux
> for about 2 yrs. And somehow settled into Slackware. Well using Slackware
> has caused me to do a lot of learning about Linux that I might not
> otherwise have had to do. However I really don't known what is unique to
> Slackware as opposed to other distributions.

See previous sentence. Slackware seems to me to be aimed at someone
who wants to get a system up and running, and then maintain it
himself.

I'm running a number of boxes which all are descended from a single
set of Slackware 1.2 diskettes. There's probably not 5kb left of the
original distro files; I've upgraded everything piecemeal as needed.

All the others I've seen try to coddle you with fancy ongoing support
stuff. I prefer Slackware's "here you go, now learn" approach.

--

Our lives are forever changed. But *that* is exactly as it always was.

Very Computer

What makes Slackware well Slackware

What makes Slackware well Slackware

What makes Slackware well Slackware

What makes Slackware well Slackware