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| Slackware 14.0 released |
| By Thom Holwerda, submitted by Beket_ on 2012-09-30 19:13:03 |
| "Slackware 14.0 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.10.0, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 4.8.5, a recent stable release of the 4.8.x series of the award-winning KDE desktop environment. [...] Slackware uses the 3.2.29 kernel bringing you advanced performance features such as journaling filesystems, SCSI and ATA RAID volume support, SATA support, Software RAID, LVM (the Logical Volume Manager), and encrypted filesystems. Kernel support for X DRI (the Direct Rendering Interface) brings high-speed hardware accelerated 3D graphics to Linux." |
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| Slackware 14.0 released |
| By bradley on 2012-09-30 19:45:21 |
|
Congrats to the Slackware Team! Glad to see she still exists today since her beginnings. I've been a long time supporter and user... Slack On. Edited 2012-09-30 19:49 UTC |
 - Score: 6 |
| Comment by Sodki |
| By Sodki on 2012-09-30 19:48:36 |
|
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not against the existence of Slackware and I truly appreciate all the work that has been put in it. I was a Slackware user for a number of years and I've just installed Slackware 14 on a test machine. I'm also knowledgeable in many other GNU/Linux distros, which is why I make the following question: Why use Slackware at all? I can accept the answer "because I can", but I would prefer something a bit longer than that. To be fair, I can't think of any answer which couldn't be refuted with "distro X does it better", where X could be replaced by more than one name. Help me understant Slackware in this day and age. Thank you. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Comment by Sodki |
| By bradley on 2012-09-30 19:51:49 |
| So after being a former user... what made you install it today? |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Comment by Sodki |
| By Sodki on 2012-09-30 20:07:38 |
|
> So after being a former user... what made you install it today? I like tinkering. It's the same reason I like to test new versions of KDE, even though I completely dislike KDE; or installing every new version of Fedora, even though I completely dislike it's package management. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[3]: Comment by Sodki |
| By JoshuaS on 2012-09-30 20:14:35 |
| You're right. Slackware does not offer any benefits over other distro's. But maintaining and trying new things out on a Slackware machine is so great as a hobby and you learn a lot from it ( it's about as close as you can get to a pure form of Linux, with no distro-specific things, without going the insanely time consuming LFS route ) |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[4]: Comment by Sodki |
| By VenomousGecko on 2012-09-30 20:19:16 |
|
> You're right. Slackware does not offer any benefits over other distro's. But maintaining and trying new things out on a Slackware machine is so great as a hobby and you learn a lot from it ( it's about as close as you can get to a pure form of Linux, with no distro-specific things, without going the insanely time consuming LFS route ) In my opinion, you had the right idea with the second part of your comment. I think that using Slackware to learn Linux IS a great benefit over other distros. Also, as a Slackware user on a server, I find I am able to strip it down to the bare essentials easier than other distributions. The ability to install only what you need without much worry about having to fulfill dependencies is refreshing. It all depends on what you are looking for, however, to determine if the above should be viewed as benefits. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: Comment by Sodki |
| By Sodki on 2012-09-30 22:09:37 |
|
> You're right. Slackware does not offer any benefits over other distro's. But maintaining and trying new things out on a Slackware machine is so great as a hobby and you learn a lot from it ( it's about as close as you can get to a pure form of Linux, with no distro-specific things, without going the insanely time consuming LFS route ) You're right, you can learn a lot of things. I did, especially when trying stuff that clearly wasn't designed for Slackware. But I (cautiously) disagree with the "pure Linux" statement. As far as I recall, Slackware had it's own file system hierarchy, which made things funkier to deal at times. Feel free to slap me if I'm wrong. :-) |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[5]: Comment by Sodki |
| By Sodki on 2012-09-30 22:29:06 |
|
> I think that using Slackware to learn Linux IS a great benefit over other distros. All distros are good for learning and depending on what you want to do, you have to get your hands dirty sometimes. I love Gentoo, I like Debian and I don't enjoy Fedora and it's derivatives, but as a sysadmin I have to know how to configure and maintain a CentOS system, for example, because it's a professional advantage. The same goes for Ubuntu, since Ubuntu server LTS has a really nice support timeline. > Also, as a Slackware user on a server, I find I am able to strip it down to the bare essentials easier than other distributions. The ability to install only what you need without much worry about having to fulfill dependencies is refreshing. The same can be said of Gentoo, Debian and Fedora, with the added bonus of having a really mature package manager that is "Internet aware" and "update ready". I understand that nowadays slackpkg comes with Slackware by default, but still it feels clunky. Like I said before, I'm glad that Slackware is still around and I'm glad that there are people still using it, but unfortunately I can only see it as a somewhat broken toy that will never go beyond that. Sure, we can play with it, sure it can be fun, but you're better off spending your time with a proper (this is very subjective) operating system. Edited 2012-09-30 22:29 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: Comment by Sodki |
| By bradley on 2012-09-30 22:29:24 |
| No argument there... BSD? :-P |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Comment by Sodki |
| By WorknMan on 2012-09-30 22:29:57 |
|
> Why use Slackware at all? I can accept the answer "because I can", but I would prefer something a bit longer than that. To be fair, I can't think of any answer which couldn't be refuted with "distro X does it better", where X could be replaced by more than one name. I haven't tried Slackware in several years, but as I recall, it never really changed much. So if I put it down for a couple of years and then picked it back up again, getting it up and running was pretty much exactly as I remembered it from last time :) That, IMHO, was its greatest strength. Plus, there is a certain elegance to it that I liked. |
| - Score: 2 |
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