Slackware had always seemed both mysterious and masochistic to me.
this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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You certainly learn a lot about paths, environment variables and compile options.
Slackware was my first and I didn't know that package managers existed (or maybe they didn't at the time) to resolve dependencies and even if they did, they probably lagged on versions. I learned true dependency hell when trying to build my own apache, sendmail, etc from source while missing a ton of dependency libraries (or I needed newer versions) and then keeping things relatively up to date. Masochistic? Definitely for me, but idk how much of that was self inflicted by not using the package tool. Amazing learning at the time. This would have been mainly Slackware 3.x and 4.x. I switched to Debian (not arch BTW).
Its what was before red hat. Then red hat became IBM and it was all there was.
Meanwhile NixOS users
alone and very far away from the real world?
yes but also superior beings who cannot connect to their erstwhile siblings anymore
I like nixos because it means my computer is objectively better than anyone else's because I'm very smart.
This isn't a joke, more commentary on how I compensate for my insecurities that is both a criticism and a brag.
There's dozens of us! DOZENS!
Good idea, awful execution.
Β―\_(γ)_/Β―
Where is the upper one from? I feel I could read something like that now
Cover of Utopia Zukunftsroman #299, 1961 by Karl Stephan. I'd never heard of it but it reminded me of the cover art for Truckfighters' album "Gravity X" (which itself is from the cover of an issue of Space:1999). Turns out he didn't do that cover but he did actually do some work for Space:1999.
Thanks!
Sure thing. I got on a fuzz rock and stoner metal kick for a while and that album cover stuck with me. Then the usual compulsion took over and I ended up on a deep dive through old sci-fi, pulp comics, etc.
Looks familiar, like every second book from sci-fi golden age. You can read Sargasso of Space.
Thanks for the recommendation
Here is what I don't understand about Slackware. Why does the installer recommend on installing everything. Not just a few applications most people might need. It recommends everything. Of course you can do a more minimalist installation but the installer recommends against it. Every application possible.
Because Slackware doesn't have dependency resolution in the base system.
Additional software you install from slackbuilds includes dependency info, but dependencies that are in the base system aren't considered.
The maintainers test against a full installation and anyone giving support assumes you have a full system.
You can do a more minimal install but then you're on your own. Similar to installing Arch without following the wiki.
Thank you for the great reply. I am not saying one way is better but coming from Debian that was very foreign to me. I have a lot of respect for Slackware and people who use it.
It is very foreign today and stems from a time without wide-spread internet access.
A distribution was a set of software on physical media. You bought it, you installed it, and your system stayed like that until the next release. So it made sense to include the kitchen sink. That way, the same distribution was useful to everyone, regardless of use case or personal preference.
What's the point of slakware, what exactly does it offer? When I was new arch user 15 years ago it was exactly the same, sparse updates, no package manager, limited support.
It's a unique combination of extreme stability and extreme KISS philosophy.
Sparse updates are a selling point for some people. You do get timely security updates, but you don't get "version number must go up".
For installing additional software there are 5 package managers that I know of, 4 of which resolve dependencies.
The base system doesn't need a fancy one because the installer already resolves all dependencies.
And as for support, there's well-written documentation installed with the system, and linuxquestions.org has a very active community where the main dev and the maintainers post regularly.
It's certainly not a good distro for most people, but it's the perfect one for roughly 10000 users worldwide.
Patrick VolkerdingΒ
Slackware users love the fact that precious Patrick builds the entire thing himself. They also really like the fact that it uses no modern Linux technologies, if it ain't broke don't fix it.Β
Slack be upon Him, and may his code ever compile without errors!
I mean, if you're an arch user you probably should get it, given it's kinda the same train if thought that brings most arch users to choose that.
The point is being a barebones system you can do what you want on top of, it tries to avoid making any choice for you.
I've kinda often thought of it as the step between LFS and Gentoo/Arch for users who want the most control over their system.
Then what makes Debian its only a month younger than Slackware?
Maybe the only time the words Dick and Dyke appear together.
The annoying younger sibling?
After a run of RedHat - Fedora - OpenBSD - OSX to about 2007, I gave Debian more of a try in the form of #! Linux. That was a great minimalist distro. Ever since then it's just one Debian variant or another. It does the job with minimal fuss.
It really helps that I don't push the hardware with shiny new equipment or need much in 3D drivers. Linux Mint on desktops, Debian servers, Ubuntu only for driver issues, Raspian/Armbian on SBCs.
I'm partial to installing vanilla, headless Debian and then frankensteining everything together myself from there.
Nothing but the basics that way!
The hardest core version I saw someone do that was long ago. My best friend and I were using OpenBSD back in early 2000's. He installed a minimal install. From there he pulled the source tree makefiles. Then he started running make on Mozilla (pre firefox days). He just kept building, patching, fixing, and hammering away. Eventually he built the whole GUI environment, dependencies, and Mozilla which took that computer months to complete it all.
Today, he's the lead engineer for a massive tech company.
Same. There's a lot of options in open source software, and so I try different applications until I figure out which I like best. Then apt sorts out how to make it all work.
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We are indeed still alive.
Are they waiting for Slackware 5.0 to release finally?
good one!
I used to Slackware that time when RedHat's package system constantly broke, and no internet so I couldn't use Debian.
Good times.
Hell i still run it. Apache server with no M or P. Uptime measured in decades
Where's the AIX and Solaris bros?
Caption appropriately
Someone currently developing the next mainstream distro, writing the kernel as we speak.
You mean the kernel config?
Caption Appropriately
Ummm...
"Arch users about to update without reading the news page"
How'd I do? Lol
Anybody got a good resource set for getting into slackware or should I just stick with going to freebsd
Here's a good up-to-date installation guide which mentions the most common pitfalls:
https://ratfactor.com/slackware/new-computer
Note that the author uses Slackware's default elilo bootloader. I prefer installing grub, which will be the default in the next release.
To install grub during installation:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/howto-install-grub-on-slackware-with-efi-4175727510-print/
Afterwards, you'll probably want to:
- change to default runlevel 4 in /etc/inittab, to boot into a graphical desktop
- install and setup slackpkgplus, a plugin to Slackware's package manager that lets you use additional repositories, especially the alienbob repo
- install flatpak from that repo to make your life easier
But I can't stress enough that if you're just looking for a good, functional Linux distro that works as you'd expect, this isn't the right one.
It's a museum piece. You'll face issues that other distro's maintainers have solved or hidden away long ago.
It takes a special kind of curiosity and interest in the history of Linux to enjoy this as a new user.
And the only reward is an operating system so simple in design you'll soon know every part of it inside and out, and which then won't change on you or do anything unexpected.
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Slackware was the first Linux distro I ever tried in the mid 90s. I only recently learned that it also was one of the first to exist.
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