Last couple of days I was tinkering with Slackware in my VirtualBox and was pleasantly suprised of how good this distro is for learning GNU/Linux.
Let's start from the installation. It is not as user friendly as Ubuntu or Fedora but also not on the same authistic level as Gentoo. The best thing about installation is that you can manually pick every single package that will be installed on your system from a user friendly menu. Also there is suck great thing as 'newbie' mode which tells you the purpose of every package that you are installing, it even gives you a link if you want to know more. This feature is just great and I don't know why is it not an option in every other distro. Though, it makes installation veeeery long and I wouldn't suggest using this mode when installing on a real hardware. In VB it is great - I learn about installed packages - get tired - make a snapshot that can be restored any time that I want to continue installation...
Wanna learn Linux? Try Slackware
The next thing is the philosophy of the distro iself. It tries to be as simple as possible and not to use some bloat complicated tools (like Systemd).
For every package hat you install you have to manually resolve all dependencies. Sounds like a waste of time? It is. But it's a great way for learning building blocks of your system.
of course there are lot of forks that make package managment easier with automatic depenencies resolver, etc. but it's kinda defeating the purpose of using a distro like Slackware.
also, when you using Slackware you will not encounter such a thing as a lack of packages because you can easily convert any RPM package to use in Slackware
the only bad thing about Slackware is that the base packages a very conservative. I meant- using KDE4 in 2017?
all the things that I've mentioned makes Slackware the best distro for learning GNU/Linux.
Would I use it on my main machine? No, it's to old-fashioned in it's Unix philosophy but it's the best disto at that.
Slackware+GUI > slackware
>Tfw already have Linux set up on all my main computer's
>Tfw want to try Slackware on a real computer but don't want to start distro hopping again
this how i feel. I installed ubuntu and ive been quite productive. The second i start fucking with distros its gonna be a huge time suck. I wanna fuck with arch / slackware / void so bad tho. seems fun
>Gentoo
>autistic
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as autistic, is in fact, a well documented installation process, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, detailed, open for choices and explaining every aspect of itself greatly. Gentoo is not an autistic distro unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning Sup Forums meme brought to life by the Sup Forums shitposters, shills and various uneducated idiots comprising a full crappy board as defined by moot.
Many Sup Forums lurkers hear about a modified version of the Gentoo meme every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of this meme which is widely used today is often called “the actual Gentoo experience”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically a lie made up by retards, developed by probably Archfags. There really is a Gentoo, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the meme they use.
Gentoo is the distro: the system that was created by great developers to create a versatile Linux experience. The distro is an essential part of this meme, but these people claim it to be useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a person that actually took the time to look up the handbook. Gentoo is normally used in combination with the Install Gentoo meme: the whole meme is basically Gentoo with shitposting added, or Gentoo/Shitpost. All the so-called “Gentoo” memers are really uneducated Archfags.
What's with the slackware shill lately? It isn't a pleasant distro.
>slackware shill
Actually, I'm amazed that it's not shilled more because It's one of the few non-meme distros out there.
>It isn't a pleasant distro
It is not. I can't find a good reason to use it as a daily-driver because of how raw it is but it's a good learning tool and a snapshot of a pure Unix philosophy
You answered your own question. People are looking for daily drivers.
It has a shitty package manager and not enough packages. It's okay for the rest, but that alone makes it not worth installing.
Arch is a great distro except for cocksucking systemd
Void is fine, but runit < OpenRC and I don't trust it's packages. For example, I made a pkgbuild for it 3 years ago and it's still in there, unaudited.
nice
Man I have good memories of using Slackware in 2003 or so. That was my first Linux distro. I'm going to take it for a bin in VirtualBox now.
I see threads with questions about which distro to use if you really want to learn Linux almost everyday. And I think that I have finally found a good answer. Slackware looks like it was designed specifically for this purpose.
>a shitty package manager
I can't say that it's shitty. It's different.
>not enough packages
You can use RPM packages.
I like slackware, but I don't like how big default installs are and I don't like how pulseaudio is now mandatory because of firefox. I'll stick with gentoo or source mage.
honestly if i installed arch id probably swap it over to parabola eventually. systemd is awfully bloated ... although isnt there a way to change arch to OpenRC?
>I can't say that it's shitty. It's different.
I want a package manager that can
* resolve dependencies
* track file ownership by packages
* differentiate manually/dependency-wise installed packages
Parabola is Arch with non-free software removed.
I installed Arch-OpenRC but it's quite messy and annoying. Every package on Arch is tuned to systemd now, so you'll end up installed a bunch of extra "pkg-openrc" packages and without a load of systemd junk left on your system anyway.
Sup Forums always talked about slackware, next you'll complain arch linux is being shilled.
how do I learn how to install slackware?
pacman
pkgtool
As you learn anything.
By reading their documentation and watching youtube videos of the process.
I wonder if there's some army dude somewhere named Colonel Generic.
checkinstall will build .deb, .rpm or slackware packages from source code, apparently.
Slackware is one of the few old school dirstros I haven't tried yet, though.
>2017
>people still falling for the .rpm meme
wake me up
how do you manage to get Network working in Virtual box?