Hacker News Reader

Comment by unixhero | Hacker News Reader

I really want the best for Slackware. I used to be a slacker 1996-2006 and grinded my Linux teeth on it. It escapes me why they don't want to innovate at all with a proper modern package manager. Also they need to remake their website and with that create a decent forum and a decent wiki just like Arch has perfectly done.

Nowadays I don't care at all about knowing every corner of my system. I have applications to manage, languages to learn, money to make and a life to live - so I lazily run Ubuntu on everything.

View on HN

I still run Slackware on my home/work machines. I find that setting it up once every couple of years and moving my home directory is about all I need.

On the rare occasion software needs to be installed yes, it has to be built from source and it takes a few extra minutes. But you know what? Ubuntu package managers have failed me more than a couple of times. Slackbuilds.org has never once failed to produce a working package for me.

I know people don't want to have to know about every corner of their system. But you don't necessarily need to. Set it up and it works. But if you ever need to you can with Slackware. All the way down without a lot of cruft on top. And that's worth a lot when it's needed.

I guess the point is... I don't spend a lot of time screwing around with my Slackware systems. They are stable, simple and they work. Not dissimilar to the Slackware web site. Lacking over-engineered cruft.

I'm a bit skeptical about the word "modern" these days. slackpkg is a good package manager and does everything you need to keep your system up-to-date. From the slackware website:

"Slackware is designed around the idea that the system should be a complete installation kept updated with any official patches. This avoids the mess of dependencies that some other Linux based GNU systems face."

Why remake the website? The website is clear enough, has links to the Slackware Book and to a mailing list.

It's not adequate sorry. I am not happy with mailing lists for community building. And I know of Linuxquestions.com forums, but that's not adequate either. Seriously, it would take 60 minutes to get this sorted, and 30 bucks yearly of hosting these forums.

What are mailing lists and forums missing for you? What killer features do you think that the Slackware team need to implement beyond what they currently have? I ask in all sincerity because you haven't mentioned it in your post.

The community. As a user and potential contributor, I need that.

Also I am sounding like a downer... I'm sorry about that. My strong opinions can often be too much, and I get that because they might sound negative. I am saying the things as a long time Slack user that gave up.

But what is 'the community' to you? To many Slackware users it's precisely the mailing list, the LinuxQuestions forum, the subreddit (/r/slackware), things like slackbuilds.org and docs.slackware.com.

So what is missing from what Slackware currently offers that would make have 'the community' to you?

Based on what I have seen elsewhere (other distros and other major software projects), I am saying it would benefit greatly from a better approach.

Okay, you're talking in circles.

What would you like them to do differently in their approach? What could they do differently that would engage you better?

Yeah I am going to end the philology here. My advice and concerns above is more than enough.

So do it.

No way. The NIH is strong.

So I go down the thread from above, asking you what you would do, and your response is "nothing, don't bother trying to bring me into the fold, I'm just going to complain"?

I'd appreciate it if next time just you would just say "I'm just complaining" so I know not to waste my time.

Using Slackware and expecting modern frills is a bit like buying an old hot rod or turbo import from the old Soviet Union and then complaining it doesn't have a factory warranty or a customer support line. You don't buy it because it's going to be easy to drive and maintain.

There is an owner's manual and a community of other enthusiasts. If you want more convenience, your best bet is to try a different make and model.

But... slackpkg is not part of Slackware, its a third party tool.

So? Large majority code running in any distro was developed by third parties. This means nothing. It's a part of Slackware.

It was announced in Tue Sep 16 11:20:30 PDT 2003 that it's a part of 'extra' repository. So, not installed by default, but it's there.

Announcent on Fri Nov 21 13:51:57 CST 2008 says it was moved from extra/ to ap/, meaning installed by default on all except the most stripped down installs.

Also, there's nothing special in using third party tools as package managers, they all use slackwares pkg tools under the hood. Think (apt<->slackpkg, dpkg -i <-> installpkg, dpkg -r <-> removepkg, etc etc etc).

slackpkg ships as part of the default slackware installation. Are you thinking of sbopkg which is used to build packages from slackbuilds.org?

I can't tell if "grinded my... teeth" is an accidental error, or an intentional mixed metaphor as a joke. But if it's not intentional then it should be, because I laughed.

I certainly ground my teeth while using Slackware in the 90s too, which is why I switched to Mandrake and then FreeBSD. :P

Grinding teeth, the proverbial milling of stone... Also as in learning the ropes, or training oneself, learning the hard way, et cetera.

I think the desired term is "to cut one's teeth on." It refers to how babies' teeth are aided in erupting from the gums by chewing on something tough. "Grinding one's teeth" is used to indicate being under an unpleasant level of stress.

Here is the wiki you are looking for: http://docs.slackware.com/

Didn't see that one before. Good stuff they have one!

25 days ago you said Linux Mint solved all of your problems... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11150556

I'm not the commentator, but Mint is Ubuntu, except they've already done all of the grunt work to make it useful (like making codecs available and prettifying it up).

At least 2 years ago when I ran it exclusively, it was accurately described as Ubuntu-based, not Ubuntu, just like Ubuntu is Debian-based, not Debian. But the similarities are (or at least were) much closer between it and Ubuntu than Ubuntu and Debian.

I often said I ran Ubuntu when I ran Mint, because there was basically no difference worth making.

Thank you. No difference worth making is precisely why I didn't make it.

What I said was un-supportive and deconstructive, i sincerely apologize. I will try to contribute more positively in the open source community, of which I am a big fan, and meant to disrespect towards.

edit: I have spent a lot of time bouncing between debian, mint and ubuntu as my main distros. To me the differences are huge, and if I could go back and re-write my original comment. I might ask why you switched from mint to ubuntu. I recently moved from mint xfce to xubuntu, and now i am happily using debian xfce.

Yeah, I don't know either. I went as far as to write spkg (spkg.megous.com) in 2006, just to replace the funcionality of pkgtools bash scripts without adding new features. (imporving robustness and speed) I never got any response from the Slackware team. I guess they're just very very conservative.

I loved my Slackware times for the learning experience. But it was hell of a lot of work to use it.

Patrick still doesn't use PAM. I think it's safe to say he's conservative. ;-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com