[ale] Slackware questions for Slackware users

[Jonathan Rickman]

On Saturday 27 September 2003 23:10, Greg wrote:

> 1.  What do you think are the main differences between Slackware and
> the rest ?

Purity. Very few modifications are performed on the packages before the 
distribution is built. That means that if you choose to build things from 
source, they will just work. With other distributions, packages are often 
heavily modified (think RH KDE) and more often than not, installed 
somewhere other than where the original author intended. While this has 
some advantages, it does tend to break things. Most users of RPM based 
distributions are effectively slaves to the distributor. Sure, they 
_could_ maintain their own systems from source, but they could also build 
their own distro. So much for RPMs being convenient. If an update is 
released for a core component and it is essential that you install it, it 
makes more sense to wait for the distro to release it's update due to the 
difficulty of building the package and installing it correctly, making 
sure to include the distro's modifications, etc, etc. At some point, the 
convenience of the RPM system loses it's value.

> 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.

Lemme see...in order of personal preference:

1. Build package with <google>checkinstall</google> using original source. 
2. Download package and install it with <google>pkgtool</google>. 
3. Update automagically using <google>swaret</google>. 			  
			  	

> 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, .... ?

Easily.

> 4.  What is it about Slackware that you prefer to run it over other
> distros ?

It just works...period. 99.999999999999% of the time if something doesn't 
work as advertised in Slack, it is the operators fault. In my experience, 
the other major distributions are closer to 95%, with Debian being a 
notable exception. I'd say Debian hits 5 nines based on limited 
experience.

-- 
Jonathan Rickman
Key ID: 0DF501FF