Most stable and tested distribution?
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From: Baron on 6 Jan 2010 17:49 Michael Black Inscribed thus: > On Wed, 6 Jan 2010, Giorgos Tzampanakis wrote: > >> Robert Heller <heller(a)deepsoft.com> wrote in >> news:zpCdnSeyKblYfNnWnZ2dnUVZ_sCdnZ2d(a)posted.localnet: >> >>> Slackware basically has no package management (or a really >>> simple-minded one). There is not anything like apt-get or >>> yum at all. You need to check each package *manually* for >>> updates and you also need to *manually* deal with >>> dependencies (basically you rebuild from source and >>> re-install). Also, you cannot even try to update Slackware, >>> you can only do an install. >> >> This sounds like a lot of duplicated effort between Slackware >> users. A central software update channel would be much better, >> even if it was for the software less likely to break the system >> (anything except hardware drivers, X, desktop environments, the >> kernel etc.) >> >> It certainly doesn't sound enticing, to me at least. >> > I tried Debian 9 years ago, and since I was trying it on a really > limited computer, I had to do a tiny install. All that fuss > about dependencies was very daunting for a first time installer. > > I dumped it because it didn't have Pine, that I needed, and at > that stage I wasn't ready to try to install it separately. > > I found a beatup copy of "Slackware for Dummies" at the local > bookstore, the price was really great considering the CDs were > still in there, and I used that since it had Pine. It was a whole > lot easier to install what I could on that 240meg hard drive > than dealing with Debian. > > I've never seen a reason to stop using Slackware since. > > Michael Slackware was the first distribution that I ever used ! It was bound into a book that was bought for me. Must have been early 90's. It took me weeks to install it properly. You had to compile just about everything from scratch. Later I acquired a copy of SuSE 5.1 and have used SuSE ever since. SuSE was the first distribution that I had that installed without having to compile every little thing. Amazingly the 33.6 modem I had worked as soon as I put the phone number in. -- Best Regards: Baron.
From: JohnF on 6 Jan 2010 17:52 Giorgos Tzampanakis <gt67(a)hw.ac.uk> wrote: > Robert Heller <heller(a)deepsoft.com> wrote: >> Slackware basically has no package management (or a really >> simple-minded one). There is not anything like apt-get or >> yum at all. You need to check each package *manually* for >> updates and you also need to *manually* deal with >> dependencies (basically you rebuild from source and >> re-install). Also, you cannot even try to update Slackware, >> you can only do an install. > > This sounds like a lot of duplicated effort between Slackware > users. A central software update channel would be much better, > even if it was for the software less likely to break the system > (anything except hardware drivers, X, desktop environments, the > kernel etc.) > It certainly doesn't sound enticing, to me at least. I use Slackware and like it a lot. It's definitely very stable, though I'd reiterate the opinion -- reinstall rather than update any non-trivial change. But that advice goes for just about every distribution, so it's not a Slackware problem, per se. Heller is making Slackware management sound lots worse than it is. It's true that Slackware's pretty simple-minded, but that's a plus if you're not planning on doing complicated updates. Another issue you may want to consider is sysv versus bsd, e.g., see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Init But, as has been mentioned, all Linux distributions are Linux, and differences are second-order effects. Still, having said that, there are some differences, and no one can tell you which distribution will best suit your purposes and your interests. Try a few; they're cheap, and diskspace is cheap and plentiful, and it's real easy to multiboot several partitions. Debian, Redhat and Slackware (in alphabetical order) have all had plenty of time to mature, so I'd recommend trying those and see what you think. If you don't acquire your own independent experience, you'll just be bounced around by other peoples' biases. -- John Forkosh ( mailto: j(a)f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )
From: Darren Salt on 6 Jan 2010 18:19 I demand that Sidney Lambe may or may not have written... [snip; about John Hasler] > And an employee of Debian... That's an interesting assertion, given that Debian has no employees... -- | Darren Salt | linux at youmustbejoking | nr. Ashington, | Doon | using Debian GNU/Linux | or ds ,demon,co,uk | Northumberland | Army | + http://www.xine-project.org/ +++ Out of Cheese Error +++
From: Darren Salt on 6 Jan 2010 18:29 I demand that Mumia W. may or may not have written... > On 01/05/2010 06:18 PM, unruh wrote: [snip] >> It is mainly a matter of proper housekeeping-- making sure that the >> upgrade of an old package handles that old package properly. If they have >> the same name, rpm does OK, but if the name has changed, it is a mess. > This is rarely a problem with Debian. The Debian package management system > allows Debian maintainers to specify "conflicts" such as gimp2 conflicts > with gimp. Apt-get won't install gimp2 without first uninstalling > gimp--problem solved. In such a case, where the old package is no more, there'd be a transitional "gimp" package which is almost empty and which depends on "gimp2". There would also be versioned 'Conflicts' and 'Replaces' information. -- | Darren Salt | linux at youmustbejoking | nr. Ashington, | Doon | using Debian GNU/Linux | or ds ,demon,co,uk | Northumberland | Army | + http://www.xine-project.org/ I'd like to, but the last time I went, I never came back.
From: Sylvain Robitaille on 6 Jan 2010 18:54
Robert Heller wrote: > Slackware basically has no package management (or a really > simple-minded one). Its simplicity, actually, is what makes it so good. The assumption is that the user meant what the user instructed the software to do. > There is not anything like apt-get or yum at all. Exactly. Some would argue that's a point for Slackware. > You need to check each package *manually* for updates ... Perhaps you should have checked *manually* whether what you were about to write is true? Slackware does produce updated packages for software shipped with each of a number of recent versions of the distribution, to keep up with security patches. Upgrades for the sake of upgrades, or to have all the newest bugs (and a few new features) are saved for the next version of the distribution, which doesn't get released until the distribution maintainer is sure most of the bugs in the included software have been worked out (but usually just in time for some new bugs to be discovered; such is the nature of software development; that's also when update packages are most likely to be released ...). All the user needs to check, for Slackware package updates, is the "patches" directory of his/her favorite (or nearest) Slackware mirror FTP site. That's usually trivial to automate. See http://www.therockgarden.ca/software/slackware/UPGRADE.sh for a simple shell script that performs this task exactly, for example. > and you also need to *manually* deal with dependencies (basically you > rebuild from source and re-install). See my points above. What you're describing is neither necessary, nor the "normal" Slackware experience. However, if someone wanted to upgrade a particular software package to a newer version than is included in the distribution (s)he is using, yes compilation would be necessary. The best way to accomplish this would be to use the same script that the version included in the distribution was compiled with (these scripts are available in the "source" directories of the distribution disk(s)). In practice I find that if a package compiled with the distribution once, a newer version of the same package will almost always compile with the same distribution. A small number of exceptions might exist that require upgrading some library first, but if you're going to this sort of effort to have the latest greatest version of that software package, shouldn't you take a little bit of time to read the docs and understand the process anyway? > Also, you cannot even try to update Slackware, you can only do an > install. Again, you are apparently misinformed. Perhaps the problem here is that you might have had to *manually* *read* documentation included with the distribution to know how to upgrade over an existing installation? Yes, it can be done, and in fact, the process is normally not terribly complicated. There just are some preparatory steps that usually need to be undertaken, and these are clearly laid out in documentation included with the newer version. That said, it's cleaner to perform a fresh installation. That way you know that what's on your system is exactly what shipped with the new version of the distribution, with nothing left over from the old, but that's true of any Linux distribution. On Wed, 6 Jan 2010 20:01:03 +0000 (UTC), Giorgos Tzampanakis followed-up: > This sounds like a lot of duplicated effort between Slackware > users. ... Indeed. One would imagine that users faced with such duplicated effort might cooperatively find better ways. The poster to whom you followed up here seems to be quite mis-informed, and the scenario he paints does not reflect the reality of using Slackware and upgrading software with Slackware provided packages. The cooperation I propose among users does exist over and above the software updates available from Slackware itself, most notably in the form of build scripts (and unofficial packages) for software not included with the distribution, so that such software can ultimately be installed and upgraded just as though it had been included. It's an excellent system, in fact, and I heartily recommend you investigate it and evaluate whether it would suit your needs. See, for a subset of examples (anyone working with other examples, feel free to add to this list): http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/ http://www.slackbuilds.org/ http://www.linuxpackages.net/ http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/ http://www.slacky.eu/ There are others, but I believe these are the better known ones (in no particular order). > A central software update channel would be much better, even if it was > for the software less likely to break the system (anything except > hardware drivers, X, desktop environments, the kernel etc.) Agreed, and for software that ships with the distribution, security related patches are provided by Slackware itself for recent distribution versions. Updates for new features go into the next distribution version. It really is quite reasonable. > It certainly doesn't sound enticing, to me at least. Unfortunately, this is how people tend to get misled about Slackware. The distribution doesn't try to do things you didn't intend, out of the box, and that seems to cause people to jump to false conclusions about what is or isn't possible compared to other distributions that attempt to know better than the user (which as you've seen, can lead to system instability, and an overall poor user experience). I've been using and administering systems running Slackware since 1996, at home and at work, on workstations and servers, and I can honestly say that the only instability any of my (Slackware) systems have experienced could be traced directly back to an error on my part. I'd love to tell you it never happened, but I have made some mistakes in the years since 1996. At no time, however, did I upgrade a Slackware-supplied software package, only to find the upgrade broke some functionality on my system(s). Try Slackware. You'll wonder why you didn't try it sooner. I hope this helps ... -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sylvain Robitaille syl(a)encs.concordia.ca Systems analyst / AITS Concordia University Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Montreal, Quebec, Canada ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |