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No matter what Linux distro I hop to, I ultimately always keep returning to Slackware. Pat really is a visionary: he's one man who has always gotten it right ov

No matter what Linux distro I hop to, I ultimately always keep returning to Slackware. Pat really is a visionary: he's one man who has always gotten it right over 21 years, amidst a landscape like Linux, known for its chaos and constant reinvention. He should be an example to all distro maintainers. The system is so neatly designed that you don't even notice the lack of automatic dependency resolution. This is simply because of the sheer breadth of choices you have when it comes to installing software on Slackware. In short, it's the last bastion of sanity in Linux.

teekert 12y ago
You mean like slapt-get? What would be the best one?
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  Manual compilation, wget+installpkg on precompiled packages (whether by AlienBob or anyone else), sbopkg without queue files/with queue files, slapt-get/slapt-src, the FTP repository that can be queried from slackpkg, etc. Most of the time I use slackpkg to apply updates and version upgrades, sbopkg for third-party software by handpicking the dependencies, and precompiled packages for software with lots of dependencies that are tedious to sort. It's clean, easy and avoids the bloat of unneeded packages lying on your system.
reddit_clone 12y ago
> lack of automatic dependency resolution I never really felt this to be a problem. Slackware has everything you need in the installer you hardly ever have to install new stuff for most of the standard things.
mrottenkolber 12y ago
Strongly agree. I am writing this from a slackware I broke pretty badly right after install. I accidentally deleted /var/log/packages (don't ask me how), and didn't have any backup. People told me to reinstall. I didn't, I tracked down all the tgz's and hacked on installpkg to regenerate /var/log/packages without reinstalling. Of couse all streaming over a mounted curlftpfs. Oh what a rush. % ls ~/tmp/desaster/ installpkg local-pkgs root slackware64 This was possible because I knew which series I installed at date X. I knew my last security updates were at date Y and which custom (self-built) packages I had installed. Slackware is so simple, so sane, so beautiful. A hallmark of software engineering.

teekert 12y ago

You mean like slapt-get? What would be the best one?

vezzy-fnord 12y ago
Manual compilation, wget+installpkg on precompiled packages (whether by AlienBob or anyone else), sbopkg without queue files/with queue files, slapt-get/slapt-src, the FTP repository that can be queried from slackpkg, etc. Most of the time I use slackpkg to apply updates and version upgrades, sbopkg for third-party software by handpicking the dependencies, and precompiled packages for software with lots of dependencies that are tedious to sort. It's clean, easy and avoids the bloat of unneeded packages lying on your system.

reddit_clone 12y ago

> lack of automatic dependency resolution I never really felt this to be a problem. Slackware has everything you need in the installer you hardly ever have to install new stuff for most of the standard things.

mrottenkolber 12y ago

Strongly agree. I am writing this from a slackware I broke pretty badly right after install. I accidentally deleted /var/log/packages (don't ask me how), and didn't have any backup. People told me to reinstall. I didn't, I tracked down all the tgz's and hacked on installpkg to regenerate /var/log/packages without reinstalling. Of couse all streaming over a mounted curlftpfs. Oh what a rush. % ls ~/tmp/desaster/ installpkg local-pkgs root slackware64 This was possible because I knew which series I installed at date X. I knew my last security updates were at date Y and which custom (self-built) packages I had installed. Slackware is so simple, so sane, so beautiful. A hallmark of software engineering.