Making the Case for Slackware in 2018

>Frustration Free Packaging

>If you’ve heard anything bad about Slackware, it’s almost certainly been about the software packages. Or more specifically, the lack of intelligent dependency management. In other distributions, the package manager understands what software each package relies on to function, and will prompt you to install them as well to make sure everything works as expected. There is no such system in Slackware, but that is also by design.

>In an effort to make things as simple as possible, the expectation is that you install everything. Slackware is developed and tested with the assumption that you have a full installation of every package in the repository. In fact, this is the default mode for the Slackware installer; you have to switch into “Expert” mode if you don’t want everything.

>If you don’t want a full install and would rather pick and chose packages, you are free to do so, but you’ll need to manually handle dependencies. If you get an error about a missing library when you try to start a program, it’s up to you to find out what it depends on and install it. You’ll quickly develop a feel for just what is and isn’t required in a Linux system by going through and manually solving your own dependencies, which again comes in handy if you are trying to tailor-fit an OS to your specific requirements.

I realise this is worded pretty unambiguously, but can somebody confirm this means what it in fact seems to mean? I find that extraordinary, and though having heard mention of Slackware's packaging system before, I never heard this detail about every package being installed. How does that even work? The repositories must be tiny?!

Not quite slackware but I use Gentoo and have since I was 14 or so. In later years, I never was really continued to use it for leet reasons, it was merely being used to it and it being familiar. I tried to use Ubuntu for a few years but I just got tired of how it would behave when things broke. while gentoo required more time to get to work, I always knew how to fix things.

It's okay, the good thing about Linux, at least for non-production systems, is you have choice. I imagine for some of those who use slackware, it's similar. It's not for leet points or whatever, it's just what they are comfortable with.

> So while I might not be able to claim the same Linux Greybeard status as the folks who installed via floppies on an i386

Hmm... I guess I get to claim 'greybeard' status then. I installed both SLS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System) and later Slackware from floppies on an i386 (and later a Pentium).