[ale] Slackware questions for Slackware users

[Byron A Jeff]

On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 07:25:24AM -0400, Geoffrey wrote:
> 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.
> 
> You're on the right track with Slack then.
> 
> >
> >1.  What do you think are the main differences between Slackware and
> >the rest ?
> 
> Slackware will provide you a smaller footprint.
> It's built from tar files, not rpms or dep format.
> It's a very fast install, when you're trying to create a small footprint 
> or server for specific purposes (firewall, dns, dhcp..)

Another plus is the fact that while the packages have been steadily upgraded,
the installation and configuration feel has pretty much stayed the same for
the last 7-8 years. It provides a serious comfort zone for longtime Slack
users because these usually very little to add to the learning curve from
version to version.

The config mangagement is an either/or/both situation in terms of manipulating
scripts as opposed to using Patrick's straightforward config programs.

> [ Snipped for brevity]

> >
> >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.
> 
> Neither apt-get or rpm.  You download tar ball code, either precompiled 
> or source.  Unpack precompiled and you're good.  Unpack the src code, 
> compile it and install and you're good.

A bit more than that. RPM has been packaged for the last few years. It'll work
as long as you run it with no dependencies. My 9.0 here doesn't seem to have
Debian's apt. May be a nice addition though.

For Slackware packages the place to go it http://www.linuxpackages.net where
you can find hundreds of different pieces of software compiled for various
versions of Slack.

As for source, there is a reason for dependancy management. While a lot of the
time a simple unpack, config, make, install works fine, more often than not
you fall into library dependancy hell, where you have to install a bunch of
libraries to support the application. I had one simple example yesterday where
my daughter needed to make some pie charts. Found the source to a piechart
program, but it required the GNU libplot library in order to run. While it
certainly was no big deal this time, it can be a bear on some apps.

> 
> >
> >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, .... ?
> 
> You can get closer to that solution then you ever will with RH, Mandrake 
> or SuSE, but you'll still find some stuff you'll likely remove after the 
> install.  You can really tune the install tight.

Expert installation mode will allow you to remove individual applications. 
However Patrick does warn that you may destabilize the install by doing so.

BAJ