Blog post alert
Let me start off by saying: If you just want to have a working system to do your thing with minimal effort, Slackware isn’t for you (anymore).
Running Slackware today is like being gifted a Ford Model T by a weird, bearded museum curator, and then finding out that after some minor modifications and learning how to drive it, you can keep up with any modern car on the road. Only it has no ABS, AC, power steering, starter motor, crumple zones, airbags or seatbelts.
Most people who still run it (by any realistic estimate, fewer than 10000 people in the world now) have been running it since the 90’s and follow the advice not to change a running system to the letter. So why should anyone who hasn’t studied CompSci in Berkeley in the 90’s try it today?
First of all, the most widely known criticism (it has no dependency resolution) is a bit of a misunderstanding. Slackware is different. The recommended installation method is a full installation, which means you install everything in the repository up front. That way, all dependencies are already resolved. And you have a system you can use equally well on a desktop or server. It uses 20GB but disk space is essentially free now.
What if you need something that isn’t in the repo? Well, do whatever the fuck you want. Use Slackbuilds, which aren’t officially supported but endorsed by Slackware’s dev. Use Sbopkg, a helper script with dependency resolution very much like Arch’s AUR helpers. Use the repos of sister distros like SalixOS that include dependency resolution. Install RPM packages. Install Flatpaks. Unpack tarballs wherever you want them. Go the old school way of compiling from source and administering your own system yourself. Slackware doesn’t get in the way of whatever you want to do, cause there’s nothing there to get in the way.
It’s the most KISS distro that exists. It’s the most stable one, too. Any distro-specific knowledge you acquire will stay valid for decades cause the distro hardly ever changes. It’s also the closest to “Vanilla Linux” you can get. Cause there really isn’t anything there except for patched, stable upstream software and a couple of bash scripts.
Just be mindful of the fact that Slackware is different (because the Linux ecosystem as a whole has moved on from its roots).
One example:
Up-to-date Slackware documentation isn’t on Google, it’s in text files written by the guy who maintained the distro for 31 years, which come preinstalled with your system. Or on linuxquestions.org, where the same guy posts, asks for input from users, and answers questions regularly.
It’s still a competent system, if you have the time and inclination to make it work. And it’s a blast from the past, where computing was about collaborating with like-minded freaks on a personal level. And I love that.
“If you want to know how Linux works, ask a Slackware user.”
I’ve mentioned this a lot lately, but I used Slackware from the late 90s (3.x days) until about 2009 on my desktop and laptop, and about 2017 on my server. I just got tired of dealing with dependencies and switched to Debian (all three run Debian now). I had the CD subscription and would automatically receive the latest version about twice a year.
Patrick Volkerding (if my memory is accurate) has my utmost respect, and I do feel a little bad about abandoning it, but I just didn’t have the time to deal with it any more.
apparently Linux works like this:
./configure missing x download x.tar.gzip tar -xf x.tar.gzip cd x ./configure missing y download y ... something something... make make installWell, yes. That is how it works!
As someone who started with slack in '97 these modern distros function so “automagically” that I sometimes distrust them. They’ve hidden so much of the complexity of Linux and whatever Desktop Environment is running on it that most users have very little idea what’s actually happening or how it works.
That’s been GREAT for getting more people to use Linux but it’s creating the same problem that Microsoft did with Windows. The old DOS users often knew quite a lot about their PC and how it worked because they had to but as the technical barriers went down so too did the knowledge of the users. You no longer had to juggle IRQs, Memory Maps, or DLLs because Windows just did it for you.
That’s not a bash (lol) on Linux or users of modern distros either, I myself am on Linux Mint as I type this, because it was always going to work out like this. A lot of very smart people put a lot of their time into MAKING it work out like this.
Yeah but now I can install what I need in second and start working, instead of spending an hour finding out dependencies
Wow, that brings back memories. Slackware 3.x was my into to Linux in the '90s.
Pretty much. Oh but the updated dependency required for your new program breaks an old program you’ve been relying on for years!