3 ms·

If you want the most BSD-like distro, it's probably gotta be Slackware. It changes little between releases (just newer versions of the software it ships with mo

by cyphax 7y ago

If you want the most BSD-like distro, it's probably gotta be Slackware. It changes little between releases (just newer versions of the software it ships with mostly).

hedora 7y ago
I’m worried that, with core dependencies like X11 being abandoned, the writing is on the wall for the hold-out distributions (I run Devuan and OpenBSD mostly). I get that it doesn’t make business sense for RedHat to maintain parts of the open source ecosystem that will never drive consulting or support revenue, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want a computing environment that just works (including software that’s been stable for a decade, and isn’t constantly ported to the new shiny).
- wmf 7y ago
  You want it, but you aren't willing to pay what it costs to maintain it.
  - yarrel 7y ago
    I'm willing to pay for it, but nobody is willing to sell it to me.
    - toyg 7y ago
      Chicken and egg, sadly.
- derefr 7y ago
  Consider: what would it mean for an OS to be "stable for a decade" in the face of generational hardware changes? For example: we have 4K monitors now, and 8K monitors soon. OSes before ~2010 didn't really support DPI scaling (with mixed-DPI display layouts, etc.), because we didn't have those monitors; but now we do. OSes had to add DPI scaling support throughout the whole stack to support these monitors in the way people expected. This required a nontrivial rearchitecting of the components of some OSes, because they had been built in a world where you rendered e.g. fonts by caching fixed bitmap tile-handles with the (non-DPI-aware) pixel size of the font as the key. In the case where you have two monitors of differing DPI plugged in, that cache spits out wrong tiles for at least one of your monitors. So, what would you expect this "stable" OS to do when you plug an 8K monitor into it? Or, another example: touchscreen tablet support, implemented by pen and gesture input events becoming the lower-level input-event stream, and pointer events being reimplemented on top of them. What would you expect your stable OS to do if you installed it on a tablet? Sometimes, OSes have to rearchitect things. The reason is not always "FEATURE: now written in a cool new language!"; sometimes it's "BUG: it just doesn't got-dang work to do things this way any more."
  - iso-8859-1 7y ago
    got-dang? Is this atheist slang?
    - chousuke 7y ago
      This is a bit off-ropic, but I'll answer anyway. Out of curiosity, why would you associate it with atheism? Since many (most?) Christian denominations believe it's forbidden to curse in God's name, it's actually more likely to have theistic origins. I don't think it's a signal either way as to belief or nonbelief, though. It's more likely to just be a part of their vernacular. Finally, as an atheist I can tell you that I have no need to avoid using the word "god". What's it going to do, cause a god to pop into existence if I say the name thrice? :) That would certainly be interesting.
xeeeeeeeeeeenu 7y ago
Slackware's release cycle is way too slow and it gets slower with each release. The current stable version (14.2) was released three years ago and it doesn't support modern hardware. Additionally, due to a bug in the installer, it's impossible to install it on NVMe drives. Also, I don't understand why does it ship with KDE4 instead of Plasma 5. Even in -current it's still the case.
- xorcist 7y ago
  Slackware-current is very usable as a day-to-day machine. It hasn't been broken in years.
clarry 7y ago
> If you want the most BSD-like distro, it's probably gotta be Slackware. As someone who's used OpenBSD for more than a decade.. no, I do not find Slackware to be BSD-like at all.

by cyphax 7y ago

If you want the most BSD-like distro, it's probably gotta be Slackware. It changes little between releases (just newer versions of the software it ships with mostly).

hedora 7y ago

I’m worried that, with core dependencies like X11 being abandoned, the writing is on the wall for the hold-out distributions (I run Devuan and OpenBSD mostly). I get that it doesn’t make business sense for RedHat to maintain parts of the open source ecosystem that will never drive consulting or support revenue, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want a computing environment that just works (including software that’s been stable for a decade, and isn’t constantly ported to the new shiny).

wmf 7y ago
You want it, but you aren't willing to pay what it costs to maintain it.
- yarrel 7y ago
  I'm willing to pay for it, but nobody is willing to sell it to me.
  - toyg 7y ago
    Chicken and egg, sadly.
derefr 7y ago
Consider: what would it mean for an OS to be "stable for a decade" in the face of generational hardware changes? For example: we have 4K monitors now, and 8K monitors soon. OSes before ~2010 didn't really support DPI scaling (with mixed-DPI display layouts, etc.), because we didn't have those monitors; but now we do. OSes had to add DPI scaling support throughout the whole stack to support these monitors in the way people expected. This required a nontrivial rearchitecting of the components of some OSes, because they had been built in a world where you rendered e.g. fonts by caching fixed bitmap tile-handles with the (non-DPI-aware) pixel size of the font as the key. In the case where you have two monitors of differing DPI plugged in, that cache spits out wrong tiles for at least one of your monitors. So, what would you expect this "stable" OS to do when you plug an 8K monitor into it? Or, another example: touchscreen tablet support, implemented by pen and gesture input events becoming the lower-level input-event stream, and pointer events being reimplemented on top of them. What would you expect your stable OS to do if you installed it on a tablet? Sometimes, OSes have to rearchitect things. The reason is not always "FEATURE: now written in a cool new language!"; sometimes it's "BUG: it just doesn't got-dang work to do things this way any more."
- iso-8859-1 7y ago
  got-dang? Is this atheist slang?
  - chousuke 7y ago
    This is a bit off-ropic, but I'll answer anyway. Out of curiosity, why would you associate it with atheism? Since many (most?) Christian denominations believe it's forbidden to curse in God's name, it's actually more likely to have theistic origins. I don't think it's a signal either way as to belief or nonbelief, though. It's more likely to just be a part of their vernacular. Finally, as an atheist I can tell you that I have no need to avoid using the word "god". What's it going to do, cause a god to pop into existence if I say the name thrice? :) That would certainly be interesting.

xeeeeeeeeeeenu 7y ago

Slackware's release cycle is way too slow and it gets slower with each release. The current stable version (14.2) was released three years ago and it doesn't support modern hardware. Additionally, due to a bug in the installer, it's impossible to install it on NVMe drives. Also, I don't understand why does it ship with KDE4 instead of Plasma 5. Even in -current it's still the case.

xorcist 7y ago
Slackware-current is very usable as a day-to-day machine. It hasn't been broken in years.

clarry 7y ago

> If you want the most BSD-like distro, it's probably gotta be Slackware. As someone who's used OpenBSD for more than a decade.. no, I do not find Slackware to be BSD-like at all.