4 ms·

I know that this is no way of judging a distribution - which never had a decent package manager as far as I know - but all the assholes, hacker-wannabes from my

by atmosx 13y ago

I know that this is no way of judging a distribution - which never had a decent package manager as far as I know - but all the assholes, hacker-wannabes from my early IRC era (1999-2004) were pompously bragging about how elite they were using slackware. I know many of you find that behavior childish but I'm 100% others encountered the same behavior as I did. I never knew if it was the founders/dev's (I think was only 1 at the time) own attitude but seriously, slackware attracted idiots like honey bees.

conductor 13y ago
> how elite they were using slackware Actually, before the Slackware 14.0 version there was the 13.37 version. So yes, that's elite.
ZeroMinx 13y ago
there will always be idiots. there will always be people catching on to something, being loud, creating the first noise other people see. Seriously. Fuck it. Ignore it. Ignore them. I haven't followed Slackware dev for 10+ years (too old etc), but it was the awesome thing in the 90s (to me); at a time I was curious to learn about all the weird details, it gave me the opportunity, I hope it still does give that opportunity, AND that young people take advantage of this. Looking back, this is (part of) the magic and joy of computers. People doing a lot of cool shit, and then sending it off for free for other people to do other cool shit. No app store in sight.
- secstate 13y ago
  Amen. I can't believe what people do for free, and that OSS has taken off at all. While there's room in this world for all kinds, my soul dies a little when someone comments, "wow, kids these days are so smart with computers!" While they watch them install iPhoto off the App Store. It's not true, but there will always be awesome people with awesome ideas and be willing to share them with the community. It's like http://bedrocklinux.org/ http://bedrocklinux.org/ Damned if I need to use it, but it's awesome that someone is pushing boundaries like that. Or CoreOS, or Docker, or Debian, or Sugar (OLPC)... It just goes on. Be a hacker, and enjoy life. Loud people are everywhere, but it's the quiet ones in the corner doing the cool work.
  - jff 13y ago
    For example, if you would like your system to be mostly stable and unchanging, like Debian or a Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone, but would like access to cutting-edge packages from Arch, Bedrock Linux can provide this simultaneously and transparently. Does... not... compute. If you want your system to be stable and unchanging, why would you care about the most cutting-edge packages? Those are the buggy ones, the reason Arch was always breaking my libraries or fucking up GRUB. Debian stable is stable because the packages in it have been tested as they made their way through "unstable" and "testing". If you want cutting-edge Debian packages, you run "testing"--that's basically the Arch experience, down to the periodic fuckups.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      It would compute If you explored a little further than the front page, or even carefully considered the meaning of "bedrock". http://bedrocklinux.org/introduction.html#what_bedrock_does http://bedrocklinux.org/introduction.html#what_bedrock_does
      - jff 13y ago
        "And you thought getting support for your distro was hard now, we've provided n! combinations of software for you"
        telephonetemp 13y ago
        That should be n^m where n is the number of packages and m is the number of distributions (for software that's common to all distributions). And anyhow, perhaps it would easier get support this way since you could get each software package to run in the distro where it's the easiest and then set them up to interact over IP like they would in containers.
Myk267 13y ago
> which never had a decent package manager as far as I know This is false. The package management tools work fine, they're just different from some others. Slackware users find the design decisions in the provided tools to be a strength, but opinions may differ.
dsl 13y ago
Slackware actually had, and still has, the best package manager I've ever used. http://www.slackware.com/config/packages.php http://www.slackware.com/config/packages.php The "elite"ness of Slackware was a bit valid. It it has no automatic dependencies system, which in itself is a powerful tool that you can do awesome things with. The second fantastic thing (which sort of ties into the first) is that packages are modified as little as possible from the original author, save some metadata. So if you know what you are doing, and an openssl vulnerability is found, you can have a package built in minutes without waiting for the upstream.
- busterarm 13y ago
  Not only that but if somebody finds the bug/vulnerability in working with the distro, they can very easily contribute the fix upstream. This is the big plus in favor of Slackware and Arch and something you don't see so much with say Ubuntu. There's a good reason why the Slackware and Arch communities have generally always had the best documentation of all Linux distributions and even if you're not a user of either, the information is often friendly to solving problems in other distributions.
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
That may have been true back in the day, but certainly not anymore. Most idiots nowadays have migrated to Arch.
- crashandburn4 13y ago
  Hey, no distro-bashing on HN! ...I like arch... :(
stinkytaco 13y ago
As others have pointed out, Slackware does indeed have an excellent package manager and even slackbuilds, a package depository of sorts. The slackware package manager does not do dependency checking, however. I see this as a good thing because I've broken things by compiling from source on Debian. Slackbuilds is quite helpful and provides most needed dependencies for you to compile first. >I never knew if it was the founders/dev's (I think was only 1 at the time) own attitude but seriously, slackware attracted idiots like honey bees. There's still only one and he's fairly hands off when it comes to the community. No one hears much from Pat and he does what he and his small team wants. So it's not the founder that's driving that attitude. I've actually found the slackware community to be one of the most open and helpful around. Check their forums and linuxquestions.org.
- busterarm 13y ago
  I have a similar feeling as you. The few times Pat does speak up end up being about really important issues that have impact for more than just the distro. I still remember his public dropping of support for GNOME in 2005 to be a really big deal. I feel like it motivated a lot of people into putting in more effort to fix GNOME and got rid of a lot of problems that were plaguing the build process back then.
Iuz 13y ago
I started as a hacker-wannabe and felt in love with the simplicity, minimalistic approach, stability and control it gave to me. Never went back.
aryastark 13y ago
Never saw Slackware that way. And I started using it in '96 or so. Those types of people were attracted to Linux in general, not a specific distro that I can recall. The whole reason had to do with the perception of Unix being a "hacker" OS. And as most know, there is the whole cracker vs. hacker misconception. So naturally, Linux was the place to be. But back in those days, there wasn't as much choice in distro. You used Slackware, Red Hat, or Debian (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Dis...).
- busterarm 13y ago
  Aye. I think the OP's dates need to be revised slightly as well. All of the elitest jerks definitely started using Gentoo starting in '03ish. That's not a slam on Gentoo or anything...Sabayon is a fantastic project...just that's how I remember things.
xutopia 13y ago
Maybe you were just surrounded by assholes. I was on Slackware in the 90s, early 2000s and people in the community were friendly and helpful.

by atmosx 13y ago

conductor 13y ago

> how elite they were using slackware Actually, before the Slackware 14.0 version there was the 13.37 version. So yes, that's elite.

ZeroMinx 13y ago

there will always be idiots. there will always be people catching on to something, being loud, creating the first noise other people see. Seriously. Fuck it. Ignore it. Ignore them. I haven't followed Slackware dev for 10+ years (too old etc), but it was the awesome thing in the 90s (to me); at a time I was curious to learn about all the weird details, it gave me the opportunity, I hope it still does give that opportunity, AND that young people take advantage of this. Looking back, this is (part of) the magic and joy of computers. People doing a lot of cool shit, and then sending it off for free for other people to do other cool shit. No app store in sight.

secstate 13y ago
Amen. I can't believe what people do for free, and that OSS has taken off at all. While there's room in this world for all kinds, my soul dies a little when someone comments, "wow, kids these days are so smart with computers!" While they watch them install iPhoto off the App Store. It's not true, but there will always be awesome people with awesome ideas and be willing to share them with the community. It's like http://bedrocklinux.org/ http://bedrocklinux.org/ Damned if I need to use it, but it's awesome that someone is pushing boundaries like that. Or CoreOS, or Docker, or Debian, or Sugar (OLPC)... It just goes on. Be a hacker, and enjoy life. Loud people are everywhere, but it's the quiet ones in the corner doing the cool work.
- jff 13y ago
  For example, if you would like your system to be mostly stable and unchanging, like Debian or a Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone, but would like access to cutting-edge packages from Arch, Bedrock Linux can provide this simultaneously and transparently. Does... not... compute. If you want your system to be stable and unchanging, why would you care about the most cutting-edge packages? Those are the buggy ones, the reason Arch was always breaking my libraries or fucking up GRUB. Debian stable is stable because the packages in it have been tested as they made their way through "unstable" and "testing". If you want cutting-edge Debian packages, you run "testing"--that's basically the Arch experience, down to the periodic fuckups.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    It would compute If you explored a little further than the front page, or even carefully considered the meaning of "bedrock". http://bedrocklinux.org/introduction.html#what_bedrock_does http://bedrocklinux.org/introduction.html#what_bedrock_does
    - jff 13y ago
      "And you thought getting support for your distro was hard now, we've provided n! combinations of software for you"
      - telephonetemp 13y ago
        That should be n^m where n is the number of packages and m is the number of distributions (for software that's common to all distributions). And anyhow, perhaps it would easier get support this way since you could get each software package to run in the distro where it's the easiest and then set them up to interact over IP like they would in containers.

Myk267 13y ago

> which never had a decent package manager as far as I know This is false. The package management tools work fine, they're just different from some others. Slackware users find the design decisions in the provided tools to be a strength, but opinions may differ.

dsl 13y ago

Slackware actually had, and still has, the best package manager I've ever used. http://www.slackware.com/config/packages.php http://www.slackware.com/config/packages.php The "elite"ness of Slackware was a bit valid. It it has no automatic dependencies system, which in itself is a powerful tool that you can do awesome things with. The second fantastic thing (which sort of ties into the first) is that packages are modified as little as possible from the original author, save some metadata. So if you know what you are doing, and an openssl vulnerability is found, you can have a package built in minutes without waiting for the upstream.

busterarm 13y ago
Not only that but if somebody finds the bug/vulnerability in working with the distro, they can very easily contribute the fix upstream. This is the big plus in favor of Slackware and Arch and something you don't see so much with say Ubuntu. There's a good reason why the Slackware and Arch communities have generally always had the best documentation of all Linux distributions and even if you're not a user of either, the information is often friendly to solving problems in other distributions.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

That may have been true back in the day, but certainly not anymore. Most idiots nowadays have migrated to Arch.

crashandburn4 13y ago
Hey, no distro-bashing on HN! ...I like arch... :(

stinkytaco 13y ago

As others have pointed out, Slackware does indeed have an excellent package manager and even slackbuilds, a package depository of sorts. The slackware package manager does not do dependency checking, however. I see this as a good thing because I've broken things by compiling from source on Debian. Slackbuilds is quite helpful and provides most needed dependencies for you to compile first. >I never knew if it was the founders/dev's (I think was only 1 at the time) own attitude but seriously, slackware attracted idiots like honey bees. There's still only one and he's fairly hands off when it comes to the community. No one hears much from Pat and he does what he and his small team wants. So it's not the founder that's driving that attitude. I've actually found the slackware community to be one of the most open and helpful around. Check their forums and linuxquestions.org.

busterarm 13y ago
I have a similar feeling as you. The few times Pat does speak up end up being about really important issues that have impact for more than just the distro. I still remember his public dropping of support for GNOME in 2005 to be a really big deal. I feel like it motivated a lot of people into putting in more effort to fix GNOME and got rid of a lot of problems that were plaguing the build process back then.

Iuz 13y ago

I started as a hacker-wannabe and felt in love with the simplicity, minimalistic approach, stability and control it gave to me. Never went back.

aryastark 13y ago

Never saw Slackware that way. And I started using it in '96 or so. Those types of people were attracted to Linux in general, not a specific distro that I can recall. The whole reason had to do with the perception of Unix being a "hacker" OS. And as most know, there is the whole cracker vs. hacker misconception. So naturally, Linux was the place to be. But back in those days, there wasn't as much choice in distro. You used Slackware, Red Hat, or Debian (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Dis...).

busterarm 13y ago
Aye. I think the OP's dates need to be revised slightly as well. All of the elitest jerks definitely started using Gentoo starting in '03ish. That's not a slam on Gentoo or anything...Sabayon is a fantastic project...just that's how I remember things.

xutopia 13y ago

Maybe you were just surrounded by assholes. I was on Slackware in the 90s, early 2000s and people in the community were friendly and helpful.