[ale] Slackware questions for Slackware users

[Mark Angeli]

Greg wrote:

>I should preface this to say that I honestly hope that this does not devolve
>into some distro religious war or a thread hi-jacking into religion,
>politics, or any other discussion.  I would like to find out more about
>*this exact* distro before going to the trouble of downloading an ISO and
>playing with it.
>
>I have only tried Mandrake (3 yrs ago), RH 7.3, and Suse 8.2 and OpenBSD -
>so I have some questions about the Slackware Linux distro.  I am looking for
>some type of Linux distro that is less commercial than RH, Suse, etc.. to
>run on servers.
>
>1.  What do you think are the main differences between Slackware and the
>rest ?
>  
>
The system scripts are different. They way Slack handles alot of stuff 
is different as well. Its not bleeding edge. There is no package manager 
(apt, urpmi) and no dependancy checking.
You have total control over your system. If you want to learn how to do 
something in linux, with out doing an LFS or gentoo install, then slack 
is a good way to do it.

>2.  How do you update ? is this the one that uses the apt-get stuff or is it
>via rpm's ?  The website only had a package/port  installer that looked
>similar to the BSD type system - which is fine by me.
>
You compile from source. :-) Apt is a debian thing. There are apps out 
there that bring apt to slackware, but why mess with perfection?
Slackware uses tarballs. You can get them at http://linuxpackages.net 
(used to be linuxmafia). And they install with a simple command.
You have to know what packages you need to DL in order for something to 
work (Evolution for instance, needs like 20 other things...).
There are ways to update the whole system in one go, I always back up my 
personal stuff and do a whole new install (even on my mandrake box). It 
seems to be safer...

>
>3. Can a base install of only the kernel be achieved, without all of the
>unneeded (by me) crap of Sendmail, bind, mutt, etc., etc, .... ?
>  
>
Yes. You can select each package you install by hand. Or you can tell it 
to install only the required packages.

>4.  What is it about Slackware that you prefer to run it over other distros
>?
>  
>
I'm used to the way they do things. When I started with linux, I 
downloaded mandrake (7.1 I think). With in two weeks, I had downloaded, 
and installed slackware 7.1 (I later went out and
bought the boxed set at Best Buys). I had a working webserver with in a 
day on slackware. It challenged me to know my system. Ran well on the 
hardware I had and I could make it do what I wanted by following most of 
the stuff out there. So, yea... now its a comfort thing. At home, for my 
wife's sake, I'm using Mandrake (mostly).If I want a small install, I'll 
go slackware. I'd wait until the middle of October, Slackware 9.2 will 
probably be out soon...

Hope that helped,

Mark

>Thanks to all that reply,
>
>Greg
>
>
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