Does anyone here REALLY use slackware as their main OS?

[debtown]

Like you I too have discovered that the enthusiasm and drive of Slackers is not there anymore. I noticed a decline in some of the Slackware Forums about 5 years ago.
It was my experience that some of the members in those forms didn't illustrate or practice much empathy, kindness <or> respect to new or old Slackware users.

I'll continue to run Slackware regardless and practice my dedication to assisting others who want to learn and run it:-

Yeah, you're right. Kindness and respect aren't what they used to be 10 years ago. The tone has become harsher. Of course, I'll still keep Slackware on one of my laptops. You don't just throw away an OS that you've been working with for over 20 years. It's really sad.

 

[Alexzee]

Yeah, you're right. Kindness and respect aren't what they used to be 10 years ago. The tone has become harsher. Of course, I'll still keep Slackware on one of my laptops. You don't just throw away an OS that you've been working with for over 20 years. It's really sad.

Sad indeed.

Slackware 14 ran great on my Sony Vaio for years. Now it's on my custom built desktop.

What kind of laptop do you have Slackware on?

 

[wendy-lebaron]

I'll continue to run Slackware regardless and practice my dedication to assisting others who want to learn and run it:-

I want to get like you. (thumbs up)

 

[Alexzee]

I want to get like you. (thumbs up)

Putting forth the effort and not giving up are the first steps.

 

[debtown]

Sad indeed.

Slackware 14 ran great on my Sony Vaio for years. Now it's on my custom built desktop.

What kind of laptop do you have Slackware on?

I have installed Slackware on a Lifebook E736 with Skylake and a Lifebook U9310 with CometLake. Both are perfectly configured.

 

[Alexzee]

I have installed Slackware on a Lifebook E736 with Skylake and a Lifebook U9310 with CometLake. Both are perfectly configured.

That's good news, thanks for sharing.

Didn't know that Fujitsu made laptops, ya learn something new everyday!

 

[debtown]

That's good news, thanks for sharing.

Didn't know that Fujitsu made laptops, ya learn something new everyday!

Lifebooks are, in my opinion, great laptops. They're robust, reliable, and easy to configure for Linux. What I particularly like about the Lifebook is that the fan doesn't run constantly; it only kicks in when it reaches a certain temperature. By configuring it accordingly, the fan stays off, allowing for work or enjoying music without fan noise. Especially with the ultra-thin U9310 CometLake, which often reaches temperatures of 100°C (212°F), it should be configured to stay below 65°C (149°F). This keeps the fan off, resulting in a quiet & cool laptop. For me, it's important to have a laptop that runs reliably for many years. With the combination of a Lifebook and Intel, you can hardly go wrong.

 

[Alexzee]

Good information thanks, Giaster-

 

[Vektor]

I have been using Porteus about a decade or so. A new variant called Porteux is all I run now.

I am able to save any changes to modules which makes it rock solid.

The forum is great.

Vektor

 

[Alexzee]

I have been using Porteus about a decade or so. A new variant called Porteux is all I run now.

I am able to save any changes to modules which makes it rock solid.

The forum is great.

Vektor

Is Porteux Slackware based?

 

[wendy-lebaron]

Yup.

It is an attempt to better Porteus by providing Slackware "current". But they are doing too much cutting down which makes me stick to "static" Porteus.

PorteuX was great for Wine with true "multilib". But otherwise use "slapt-get" or another way to get applications.

GitHub - porteux/porteux

Contribute to porteux/porteux development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

BTW there is a new release of Slackel out today v7.7 with Openbox.

 

[Vektor]

PorteuX picked up my audio devices whereas Porteus did not.

Static modules are the major reason I like PorteuX and Porteus. No install to break. A restart fixes everything.

I stay away from anything M$.

Vektor

 

[vs2-free-users]

I have tested slackware as main os. But its nothing for me because:

• no real release dates for versions
• default install is a full install of 10GB+

 

[camtaf]

I have tested slackware as main os. But its nothing for me because:

• no real release dates for versions
• default install is a full install of 10GB+

Same reason I don't use it, but I'm happy to use derivatives such as Porteus & Fatdog64, just not as my main system.

 

[dos2unix]

I haven't used it in years, but it was probably the second distro that I started using way back many years ago in 93 or 94.
I confess, I like convenience. I like easy, and a lot of packages. So I don't use it anymore, but in a way it's kind of sad.

The thing I really like about Slackware, is the old hobbyist home-grown nature of it. It was one of the first real distro's to get a lot of GNU packages together and make them into a usable operating system. Looking back, it was a bit primitive by today's standards. The package manager was really mostly an untar/ungzip packages to the right directory.

But it was all done in a LFS, almost "home made" style. Just people having fun, doing what they enjoyed back in the day.
It seems with IBM owning Redhat/Fedora, and Canonical owning Ubuntu, Oracle having their own distro, and other distro's that have corporate sponsorship, we have lost a lot of that old "hobbyist" look and feel of Linux.

Of course I'm preaching to myself here, I currently use one of the corporate backed distro's, so what can I say.

 

[wendy-lebaron]

default install is a full install of 10GB+

It's because Slackware is still a mainstay for a few developers. Sin embargo...

I developed a program with Freebasic on MX Linux. It compiled and ran fine. It only did fundamental graphics with coarse animation, nothing special about it. There were no third-party libraries being referred to, and no special system calls. Someone with Python would have been able to do the same thing more efficiently in a few hours. But then I take the same exact program, without modifying it, into Slackel (this was last week) and the compiler refused to deal with it. It complained about "asm" resolution.

This Freebasic is a language product coming from people who are too used to Windows to live out their dream to make it multi-platform. The original creator did so with M$ QuickBASIC v4.5, then moved on to Visual Basic, and finally his/her successors arranged it so it relies on "gcc" and the related assembler. Because Freebasic lacks a few things (such as image support other than BMP without using clunky third-party library), I have been using QB64 Phoenix Edition, which has not given me any problems on any Linux OS installation. However QB64 produces larger executable files than Freebasic.

It's fair to say that the Slackbuild for Freebasic needs to be updated, because the product won't build successfully on Slackel. On Salix forum I was suggested to take the package from Salix. The alternative was to pick up "libtinfo" legacy library from Debian. Whether or not this "foreign" package is included, and whether I was using v1.09 or v1.10 of the programming system, I got this error trying to compile my program on a Slackware-based operating system. I was unwilling to use Freebasic there to develop console-only applications.

I have never tried to use Freebasic on Porteu(s/X). I should have.

 

[Owel]

Yes, I use it. A good one!
Recommend to everyone that wants to learn Linux

 

[ShadowMonarch]

I am someone who just tries on multiple Linux OSs, and I primarily look for two things - a really good look and full support for programmers. Does Slackware help me with it?

 

[kc1di]

I am someone who just tries on multiple Linux OSs, and I primarily look for two things - a really good loo and full support for programmers. Does Slackware help me with it?

Slack is solid but I would not say great looking out of the box. They will not use gnome and thus it defaults to KDE. But it very stable. And has a learning curve. Give it a try see what you think.

 

[Aristarchus]

Well, Slackware has latest Gnome (45 or whatever) available. There is plenty of distros that support only one DM/WM. At least Slackware is consistent (vide Endeavour for example). Officially there is KDE, XFC, blackbox out of the box, cummunity suported latest GNOME.
Slackware is relatively small distro, but works well. Very stable e.g. I installed Slackware-current three years ago on this laptop, on previous laptop installed Slackware died with BIOS after four years. I don't dualboot.

Nobody can tell if Slackware is for you but it is easy to test. Hardware issues are common for all Linux distros. If you know how to deal with the issues then Slackware will work for you.
If you don't, just get another distro that may be compatible with your hardware.