It's Friday 12th of December 2014.
This is HPR episode 1660 entitled trying out Slackware.
It is hosted by Benny and is about 65 minutes long.
Feedback can be sent to Benny at SDF.org or by leaving a comment on this episode.
The summary is, Slackware newbie Benny is talking too long time Slackware user McNelloo.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by Anannasthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15 that's HPR15.
Bit your web hosting that's AnastonFair at Anannasthost.com.
Welcome to HPR, that's Benny for HPR, I just try that Slackware a few weeks
or month ago and then I thought I'd like to do an HPR about Slackware.
Basically the reason why I tried Slackware was there is a nautical in Linux voice, well, there
was nautical a few days ago and read this and got interested partly because I still don't
fully like the idea of system-desire, I'm looking around for a tone alternative.
This article was written by McNelloo and so I asked him to be on the kapotcast so welcome
McNelloo.
If I explain it, it's great to know that at least one person read my article but I
said more than the feedback I got and it was quite positive and I think my brief when I was
writing it from Andrew Gregory was that he was quick into a Slackware article but he didn't
want it to be sort of evangelical, you know, sort of distro loving, this is the best
distro in the world thing, so I hope it gave me a cross like that but it's a very pragmatic
Slackware is always suited me very well and this is why and if it suits you great, if
it doesn't put a little bit of a bit of a distro hopper so I'll waste try out new things
and I keep coming back to Debian but as the moment I'm on Slackware in two machines and
I quite like it so could you tell me how you got into Slackware and how long have you
been using it?
Well I first used Slackware, you know I don't know the exact date but it was 1993 or 1994
so sorry, no it wasn't quite that's when I first clubed out in Linux, no it would have been 1995 that I first
used Slackware here, 1995 when I first used Slackware and it must have been first in three
point something and rather weirdly it was my dad who introduced me to Slackware, I had
got a one of the new Pentium PCs and I didn't want Windows on it so I was using a
son, unixy environment and my dad suggested well when you try this Linux thing and I don't
think I even knew at the time what distro was or what Slackware was or what free software or
even open software software was from maybe open software so I didn't as termed it exists
then I don't recall so that's when I first encountered it and I was utterly amazed that
this free thing could turn a thousand pound PC which in like today's money I don't know
what that would be but maybe for you know several thousand euros or dollars type machine into
hardware that ran as well and as fast as something that cost 10 times that much if you bought it
from Sunday so that was that was my first experience of Slackware
that's interesting because my first experience with Linux was in 1997 I got a redhead I think it was
a redhead CD from a dad for my birthday I didn't I didn't know it before so it's basically a bit
of the same story. While we both go introduced to Linux through our appearance that's great
I think that must be quite unusual. Yeah but I think your dad definitely had the better taste
when he comes to distro it's probably my dad didn't know anything about Linux it just saw
this disc and thought well my boy is interested in computer so let's let's buy this for him.
So what were your first impressions of Slackware? I take it the first time you tried it was
just recently or did you try it before then? No it's actually it's one of those distro
it's never tried I sometimes some years back I read that they don't they don't have well I think I read they don't have a
package management system which now turns out this isn't true but that was always my belief
about Slackware and never tried it because I figured it's too hard for me to get it to run.
Okay and so I mean I never had this leap from a dependency management system which is now normal
and Linux just like where I always had no dependency management and I have tried other distro but
I've never I've never had to experience that leap is that something that I guess that would
put you off but is that something you feel terribly problematic when you started out using it? Well
another first because at first you just do a full install and then you get most most of the things
you want and most of the libraries you need are there but over the time when you use it turns out
that some some software packages are troublesome because they have like 10 different dependencies
and dependencies and then you have to install them all manually but usually it's just one or two
dependencies it so for I don't remember what what package I think today I tried to install Pandok
and Pandok is something based on Haskell and you have to install like a huge amount of Haskell packages
so it just didn't install it in yet. Yes actually if you if you go back to that one
xfoys article that was one of that was one of my bug beers was in the Haskell
which actually the the Haskell it uses is the is the Glasgow compiler which is where I am
strangely enough by an old coincidence but they break down the packages into lots of little ones
and that means there's a heap of dependencies and yes that put me off Pandok but then I found the
we're owned it using Q files and through Slack builds which may become to later so I did get
owned it and automate the process and then it was you know what it wasn't so painful but yeah I totally
appreciate that. Yeah I think maybe Slack and not Slack where Haskell itself has some kind of
package management maybe you could work around I don't remember a name but I think it's something
like the paper for Python Python packages or something like this I'm not sure well I haven't
tried because I just tried this morning so I don't know yet but there is something else and first
well the first impression of Slack where but that put me off because if you if you look at the
website and just at the website and don't spend too much time to look for documentation it looks
quite outdated it tells you something about floppy disks to install floppy disks to install
Slack where it's quite hard to find information how to do the install from USB first my first impression
was it's just a dad's project and no one uses it nowadays anymore so I think they could improve
something that way. Yes I think that's true I think I used it for a long while and didn't really
think there wasn't any documentation that and I got all information I did it's semi-randomly from a
various collection of blogs and websites and forum posts but there's two things that I learned one
was actually a Slack where they do actually expect you to read the readmays that come on installation
desk or installation download and if you do that I found it was abundantly clear what I needed to
do and I think why did I do this in the first place and the reason was because I used windows
for so many years and maybe other distros where it was all automated I just got out the habit
of reading documentation ahead of doing somewhere I just used to dive straight in but with Slack
where it really does pay to sit down and readmays first and the other thing was that when I first
started using Slack where there was no Docs Docs Slack where Doc call which they're now is which is
something akin to the arch working not as comprehensive as the arch working but certainly heading
in that direction and that's only appeared in the last couple of years so it's a recent development
but I fully agree the website itself although it's very you know if it's a clean and some
sense is as large parts of it that don't get updated frequently. Yeah I think as soon as I found
the the readmays files I was fine but it kind of if you if you don't download the CD and you
don't know the readmays files are there they're just not obviously around on the web. I mean I
run a free BSD server and free BSD is a bit it's quite a hassle to install but the documentation
is so good it's no problem to install and everything's available online so if you haven't been
even downloaded anything or even tried free BSD you can still read through the whole manual and
it's just it's just there it don't have to go look look for it I think that's a bit problem with
those readmays files. Yes I agree actually because I was I mean when it's like we're disappeared I would
consider trying to go over to BSD for a lot of things and one of the things I loved about BSD
is the documentation and just you know it had a PDF file you could download and you could read it
and if you wanted you could print it oh it could stuck in your phone you know it was just it was nice
that we had very clearly set a methodically set out very professionally done. Yeah I think definitely
for me BSD is always an optimal problem is to teach I use a pen tablet and there is no
way to drive or for free BSD so I can't use the pen tablet that's why I always take two
two Linux I had one free BSD desktop some some while back but if you use free BSD and Linux
there is things that just don't work together the software packages where they just don't
exist in free BSD and or the other way around. Yes and what one thing it's worth mentioning is
but in some ways slackware is very much if you imagine a spectrum of distros and maybe you've got
a button to one end and slackware at the other of you know how easy they are to interact with
as a fairly novice user and that I would say that actually slackware is off at the BSD and
of that spectrum at BSD is probably a bit a bit further out than that and a number of ways
like for example hardware support as you mentioned I mean that my first experience with BSD
field completely because it didn't have the drivers for an up-to-date motherboard
a recent motherboard that say slackware certainly had but also there's actually another point
is that some of the some of slackware actually takes inspiration from BSD it's some of the
start-ups in like initialization scripts are done in a BSD style so I think that's probably why I
feel you know a step towards the BSD it from me is actually an easier step than a step off and
now it's too open to end of the Linux spectrum yeah for me that was my first impression from slackware
feels very much like a BSD system not not fully it's still it's still Linux but there's things
that are I think one thing I like about BSD systems and also slackware it's it's way easier to
understand how the system works in in something like well I never tried Ubuntu but some high-level
distribution it's quite hard to figure out how the boot process works and everything and in slackware
or also BSD it's just like a few scripts that are run in a given order and that's how you're
sitting in boots it's nothing magical about it yeah I mean actually I would although it's not the
reason I used slackware in the first place because my reason I used slackware in the first place
as I said is my dad gave me the that was a stack of floppy at that time but the reason I stuck with
it over the years is because I kind of went away from it and then came back to it and when I came back
to it I started really appreciating the the free software underpinnings of it and as you mentioned
the the clarity of the scripts it's a clarity of the scripts it's not something you could expect
your grandmother to start using your grandfather just avoid being sexist or but it's something
that the imprints both you're going to put a bit of effort into learning by scripting you can see
exactly how it boots up in fact I went and I deleted half the the start-up scripts and they are
c.d directory to have that the contents of them and then rewrote them myself to understand
what was going on and it was perfectly possible to do and you realized actually how most of what
the scripts do what's most of what's in the scripts is redundant because it applies to hardware
situations that you might not have for example you might not have a you know and that's because
you drive the old style or you might not have at those PCMI cards that old laptops have and all
this stuff and so you could remove fast swathes over them and it was still work and that made me
appreciate exactly how simple the boot process can be but also how much effort goes in to creating
a Linux distro that works in almost any hardware I mean that that latter but is really where my
hat goes off to the likes of Patrick Volk getting behind slackware and also the debion people and
the bunch of people and and everyone really that is really hard to make sure your distro works in any
hardware yeah true I think I think I'm always in favor for systems I can more well and not saying
I fully understand the system but I usually prefer systems where I can understand how they work
and they don't seem at least to me magical that's the reason why I buy old cars because
old cars just I know where what goes and new cars have like all this software you don't know
how to debug anything and the same goes for computers I like bicycles because bicycles are just
that simple to repair I like things I understand yeah I'm exactly the same and I give you
already stock example a few years back I had a Volkswagen Passat feeling you one and it went wrong
and I had to keep jumpstarting it off my 1970s Mercedes old so feel like a victim of a bang
but it was more reliable than the modern car because I knew electronics yeah I think I had
a Volkswagen event was 20 years old when I got it I was built in 1988 just knew how everything
worked I was even able to fix it myself but I don't know a lot about cars and it's just obvious how it
works so maybe let's just move on or move away from cars in back to blackware so
do maybe talk a bit more about the installation process would I'm also interested in
I install blackware to desktop at the moment but I'm basically looking for a way to replace my
debyan servers to well because again I tried to stay away from from system DS for as long as possible
but what's the difference there what do you run blackware servers do you have any experience doing this?
Yes I do although oddly enough at this precise moment I don't have a blackware server running anywhere
and I server I've got is running sentos and the only reason I did that is because I'm a little bit
of a distro-hopper and I was looking for something rock-solid and reliable to run out of small server
and I could have easily used blackware and it's always a wish I did but I just won't
feel like learning something different so it's running the latest 6.6.7 sentos and and I do run
servers I have run servers with blackware and my overall impression is it's just very easy
because everything I want to run the server is more or less already they are especially you know
at Apache and my sequel and you know PHP and Ruby and all these things you would want for a web server
so installing lakes of on-cloud is a doldle and so on in fact this episode is being recorded
not in the server but it's the the mobile server is running in my laptop here so my laptop
was turned into a server temporarily for this and the installation of the mobile server remember
was just a quick slack build with almost no dependencies I don't think or one protoboth maybe
which I already had installed so yeah I found it very very straightforward to run
slackware as a server but having said that I don't do professionally I would hesitate
it's just given my own experience to say to a professional look this is a production ready
server knocks anything against slackware it's just that that's not what I do I'm not professional
in that regard but in my amateur capacity a semi-professional capacity maybe I have really
enjoyed running slackware server so I find it very straightforward how do you go about to run
slackware server I mean usually and that's what you do it just the full install which is 8
gigs I think are 9 gigs of data and probably if you run it on a VPS where you only get like 30 gigs
or something you don't want to do a full install so there's some like server install or do you
manually uninstall packages or how do you do this I should have thought something
I've done recently I did do it not for VPS but I had a little little top box and it had I had one gig
onboard you know like hard drive flash SSDs very slow and small and you know it was no faster
than really running something for USB stick and for that I did have to trim down slackware and have to
say that was hard because slackware is designed for a full install so some weird things happen like
for example if you think well I'm never going to use an X server I'll do I'll do all my maintenance
from the command lane which I'm happy to do but I was rather taken aback to discover that one of
the dependencies for PHP was inside the X org package I don't ask me why this is I I did
read it and confirmed it was true but that was a bit annoying having to install a bit of X even
while I had no intention of running it but having said that people farm war experienced and
adept with slackware and I have have created a set of tag files so you can create minimal installs for
servers but doing it yourself I have to say if you want to cut it down yourself that is great
tough if you want to get it on to a gig certainly and that was tough 3 gigs yeah I might
in that's pretty straightforward with this level kd or something but you're cutting it right
don't a minimal server it would be tough and I probably want to go for a day being or arch and build
your way up that would be an easier approach because they're designed to do that so what does it mean to
have a tag file that never who it says something slackware specific or is it just a lack of knowledge
in my side oh no sorry that's completely my fault it is a slackware specific thing but it
like all slackware things it's far simpler than it sounds it's just a tag file it's just a
list of packages and it specifies whether yes install this package no don't install this package or
ask the user so it's like you know for each package you can put one line in entry and then say what
you how you want it to be treated by the installer as so you basically use this in the install process
you just select a this tag file and it tells the system what to install and what not to install
exactly yes so I mean if you look at the first page the install is a car citizen solar and at
the bottom and it's easy to miss because it's like eight options or something at that stage and
it does say user custom tag file but you know most users wouldn't use that you need to be fairly
expert and and to do I'm not difficult if you're something's giving you the tag files not difficult to do and
but most people wouldn't be going on writing the whole tag files is what I mean okay let's continue
about the installation process I think it's fairly fairly straightforward to install it from a
CD you just unloaded or from floppy disks even there is still floppy disks to install it but
if you don't have a computer with a disk drive how have you ever to do this how do you do
install where you don't have a disk drive well there's two ways to do it the first one I used
from my laptop was pixie boot which is where you get your boot up files from a remote server
combined with a TFT piece server it's just trivial FTP so that was one option so it's not a network
boot essentially and you just all you need to do then is make sure that you've got some remote
existing computer and your network set up to do it and this made a fairly quick instruction so
how to do that it's a bit of a hassle network boot and of course not all biases will let you do it
I don't even know about how what weather pixie boot still supported in UEFA or wherever I've never
even encountered it there but I've stopped doing that for two reasons mainly I got off
as a spliker subscriber I get mailed the DVD so and I've got a USB CD DVD drive so I tend to use
that but when I don't what I've done is one of the readmays on installation disk or on the
website is readmay for how to do a USB install and you just take an old flash drive use
DD to copy an image to it or you can use a windows or equivalent I think as instructions for that
to stick that in and then it will boot off the USB stick and at that point as long then after that
all you need is all the slackware installation files in any old directory that can be accessed
so that could be over the network it could be on a CD drive or it could be on another USB stick
or even the same USB stick and principle you could do that way it was all different ways of setting
it up if you don't have access to a DVD drive and the machine that's basically what I did
that's what I'm used to just the the ISO onto USB sticks and it works but actually this use
this has to be a special ISO some kind of hybrid ISO and usually you just download them and
they work but in slackware it was kind of funny you have to download the ISO and then you have to
use a script that's on your slackware install where you make this ISO hybrid and I don't think
this script exists in other districts at least I didn't find it so to be able to DD the ISO to
to a USB stick ahead to have a slackware install somewhere around to use the ISO hybrid script
or did there miss something do you know another way around this? Well I go to one of the slackware
minors and the entire contents of the installation desk will be on the mirror and so I'll just
download I forget which directly creates and as one of the top level directly is I'll just
download the USB boot tools so I don't need to download the whole ISO I just need to go in and
download the the image which I can then be the but as you say that image isn't the full installer
image it's just enough to get your system booted up into the slackware installer and then you need
you then you need access to the rest of slackware installation directly from somewhere else but that
could be anywhere okay so you don't have to download everything from from my FTP server or a mirror
you could just copy to some second USB stick or to different partition on the same USB stick
and then use the minimal minimal image right? Yes that's right yeah so you can just download
it manually from the website and in principle you know these ways you can do that in the installer
w get is there and if you want the network gets up and running and then install or if you're
in that fortunate position then you can sort of w get then all the files you want to install
onto a USB stick okay well the last installer had to do or well I did I didn't have to
the last install was on a machine where I didn't have a network connection and I didn't have a CD drive
so there was kind of hard because I couldn't get it from just from w get from the web but
do you know the reason why they just just don't give you a hybrid image to download where you have
to use this ISO hybrid script to make it hybrid? No I don't really know what the reason is for that
it's never really occurred to me I think it's never occurred to me because of I've always had
the slackware DVD and you know we USB DVD drive so so I don't know I don't know if there's other
people who who you find that more irritating than I do but I can understand from you know from
where you're coming from that is that could be could be quite inconvenient. Well in the end the
install process was was not that hard as soon as you find the read me scripts maybe maybe it's
good it's a good idea to mention there are different readme scripts so if you want to use alvm you could
use look another look at another readme script there is a readme alvm script there is also one script
for locks for a disk inscription you could use alvm on top of locks I think that's also
explained in the locks readme file maybe we we don't go too much into this but just look at the installation
disk everything's there so maybe we just move on to packages and packaged well ways to install
install packages so could you tell me something about what's there how do you go about
install software that's nothing the base install in slackware. Right okay so the the first thing
to mention is that the base install is quite comprehensive in terms of libraries which has to be
because otherwise you'd be chasing dependencies a lot which is why you know obviously with
admittable install our other destroyers on archer debut and as soon as you want even the simplest
of packages installed it's gonna have to pull in and lots of other dependency so that doesn't
happen in slackware because you start off with quite a broad base of libraries to build on so if you
want something that doesn't come on from a visual slackware then then the simplest thing to do
would be to head over to a website that's put together by a chap called alien bulb or just for
your name is Eric Hamelier and he's one of the main contributors to slackware and in fact
it's all creating it in a sense is the main man who runs is living off it an alien bulb is like a
a super enthusiast who supports it but he maintains loads of packages that he has built and
he's very knowledgeable about slackware and very reliable and you can be sure that if he's built
something it's of good quality and it's signed with the key at AMD 5 someone's available
all by very professionally done actually so for things like Libre Office, VLC virtual box,
wine all kinds of things that you need day to day useful wise but let Libre Office is absolutely
painted to compile that from source he provides a lot of those packages and although they're not
technically official they're the next best thing so you can get that either just by going to
his website and downloading them manually and then on the command line you don't load a package
and the package would just be a tarball looks a dot to gv tg z or tx z file so
tarden and zipped in some way and compressed and then you would just pipe install pkg all together
space in the name of the package and then it would be installed and that's that you know it really
is a simple as that so and then there's a few tools that go with that the this removed pkg which
does what it says and upgrade pkg which does what it says and those three toll tools together
are all you really need to install roof and updates like repair packages as we as we said before
we don't have any tool that does dependency resolution so those tools just installed the
Eden yeah packages as they say so how do you find out what what the package needs let's say
you install something that needs separate library that isn't in the base install how do you
find out do you just run the program and it tells you well there is something missing or is there
a way to figure it out before you installed package well I used to do that and I used to use LDD to
try and figure this out I think I filmed it was a much simpler way that is well frankly RTFM
I like alien Bob site this like build site which maybe just customer minute they all tell you very
clearly what the dependencies are and in many cases you'll find that a phone store of slack where
satisfies the dependencies in a few other cases what many other cases I would say you've got one or
two other packages that are always provided a feeling Bob's provided package x and it depends on
why he'll also put the pen provide package y as someone lives slack builds so all you have to do is
read these read miss and they will tell you what dependencies need to be installed if there are
any and then you can choose to do that manually or there are ways of automating it
yeah and you mentioned this website select builds the door probably you explain later what
did these you probably do a lot better job than I do but or it's just run by the same person it's
basically a website where you don't download software packages is basically a website where you
download scripts that build the packages for you are the packages from alien Bob are they built
from slack builds or does he write his own buildscript here it has own slack build scripts so
if actually all the sources for slack where include the slack build scripts that Patrick Volker
didn't has created for each package and that's really useful because it means you can roll your
own packages quite easily and see what tricks patterns but in some way for alien Bob the great
advantage is with alien Bob's repository he provides the build packages as well for recent slack
where versions so that's a really important if you're running a very puny little system while
little netbook and you want to run liberal office isn't a way you can compile it in your netbook
so you really have to go to the pre-built packages slack builds however as you said only provides
the slack a written slack build script and the slack build site is a community driven
affair with a small core of experts who review the slack build scripts and that's very important
because you will generally run slack build scripts as a route and so you really want that to be
a trusted source and it's backed up with GPG keys and MD5 sums and links to the source and
full documentation and this trusted inner circle of maintainers who will approve the slack build
scripts as being yep this is a ascript that we trust and we can release it to the community
is it correct I think I just had a close look at those slack build files but basically a slack build
is just a shell script right that installs as the builds and installs the software or is there
anything else to it? No basically that's it I mean a slack build can be as simple as
tape a source tarball unpack it go into its directory do configure make make install
or whatever you know it's all tools but you can use as versions for C make and Python
all kinds of variations on it but so it could be simple as untar build install into a dummy directory
and then create slack or package out of it and that's it you know so it could you could have a
slack build that was three lines long generally they're longer because you want to strip out you know
debugging information from binaries and move man pages around and maybe rearrange things a little
but the general route is the rule of thumb and slack squares do as little as you can to upstream
I mean that that that goes all the way from what Patrick Volker think Volker thing does
really involve and also through slack build is if if you can possibly avoid it don't tweak the
defaults given by upstream and that brings tremendous advantages especially if you want to
roll your own package so basically it's like slack wear packages just some files in
in a file system structure and then they're get copied into the file system structure of the system
right exactly yes if you if you take a slack wear tarball about tgz or txz you unpack it you'll
find you've got like slash user slash etc it's familiar sort of Linux file system top level
routes route file system structure and then the only other thing you'll see in there is a slash
install directory and in there will be a few and a singular file andcillary files that described
installation one which is just a small text readmakeholder slack desk is in the slack description
file and and sometimes there can be a do-inst.th file which just runs post installation
tidy up from essentials but they're not even always present so yeah it's like wear package is really
just a parable of what's going to be installed it is that simple in almost all cases and if I
understood correctly I think there is no like database where they keep what files belong to what
packages basically just one file per package some per package somewhere in a folder where
the file's are listed so basically if you want to know whether packages installed you just list
if the content of this directory and you get a list of all the install packages and if you
want to find a file or whether file belongs to this or that package is basically just a you just
look through those files and you could use sad and crap or whatever to compile a list of files right
yeah exactly so the list you refer to is a directory in slack recalled slash vr slash log slash
packages and in there will be a file for each package you've installed right on the base system
you're right on to the base of fundamental binaries and in it scripts and everything and in there
you you can just use standard command you can use LS to find the package name you can use
great to search through the scripts and actually that's one thing when I went to other distros
that had material in my head out because it was one time that I kind of remember what it was exactly
but there was it turned out was a bug in an arch package would do with pearl that meant the whole
of Apache wouldn't start very you know only lasted for matter of hours or a day until some
defective but I was trying to track on what would go and wrong and it was very difficult for me
coming from slack where to understand how to use Pacman to get at where which package brought in
that particular library it wasn't at all obvious to me and it's still finding that when I'm using
the sentos server that something's happened has been an update and I can't figure out which
package has broken something or not a broken it in sentos but it changed the setup so I don't
understand any more reason slack where I just go into that var log packages directory and a quick
grip I found the file that I want that's maybe causing me drip because of me an issue and then I
can really quickly understand just using dead simple you know very linuxy or unixy
text processing tools figure out how my systems put together so very basic yes but then I don't have
to grow down learning various tricky command line options for Pacman or RPM or yum or whatever
so I see that as an advantage of slack where so I can see a lot of people see that simplicity as
well it's too basic I like my package manager doing that for me for me this was also a nice experience
because I come from other distros and whenever I distraw a hop to distraw where they use a different
packaging system you have to learn all the commands and how the packaging system works and how
you figure out where files belong whatever but in slack where this was just I arrived there and I
got my standard tools I know from Linux anyway I know tar I know grab I know LS whatever and you
choose to use them you don't have to learn anything new you use what you already know nothing that's
that's a good thing yes we like that certainly is what attracted me no it wasn't what attracted me
distracted where but it's what kept me with it all the years is that when I went to other distros
I always had this feeling that I don't really know what's going on and I am an inverted
fiddler I do like to understand what's going on and think about that so that's important to me
and that's certainly not important to all Peter's users by no stretch of imagination that's
basically the main reason why I moved away from from Windows when I was a boy when I got this
redhead CD which is this was a system I could more well I never fully understood it at least
back then but it was a system that doesn't stop you from understanding it there is also always
a level below you can understand where with Windows you just someone you hit the wall and there is
no way to break the wall because it's where Microsoft wants you to stop yes indeed yeah that is
actually and and other distros do start to feel like that to me and and that's where our conversation
could be to adventure onto a system D territory because that I feel is why I don't really like
system D I've actually nothing fundamentally against it it just doesn't feel fits with
certainly with Slackware it jars with it was Slackware and the philosophy behind understanding
everything through text file configuration and it start up scripts it doesn't sit well at all
with fan and yeah so I'm not going to make any huge criticism system D it's just does not feel
like my cup of tea at all yeah it's exactly the same for me it's said instead of I say
system D is a bad idea I I know way too little about system D to even judge whether it's it's a
good idea not I run it on a large box and pretty much like the fast boot but when I use the
use of system for me it's just not not obvious how you use it with those you have binary
log files so you conscious go to a log directory and use the tools you're used so you have to
learn new tools for for things that where you used standard tools standard unique tools that
have been around for ages and it's just nothing nothing that suits me but there's probably just
me being liking the ways the ways they are just me being conservative yes and I think I mean
that's like we're in that sense it's up to date in the sense that it gets a new release every 18
months on average and it's up to date if you select recurrent and that it's pretty much a rolling
release if you fall select recurrent but it's very conservative and it's designed decisions
it never adopted pulse audio pulse audio still does not come with select where you can install it
if you want and I I only once had to install select where for a game almost also if we're
worked just fine with also the AL it's a nose some system there are almost no bits of software
fact there are no bits of software I've come across that require pulse audio and it turns out
the one time I had to install it it was for the game is it VVVVVVV how many V's it is I forget but
it required pulse audio to be there but it turns out it will only the installer expected pulse
audio to be there and then you can remove it again and it doesn't seem to mind that it uses
also just happily so I think that was a peculiarity of the installer so I'm thinking if pulse audio
was a big awesome yield-dancing solution to the Linux own problem how come slack we're
has been able to exist without any pulse audio without any significant audio problems or
dependencies on it right up till 2014 many years after pulse audio was supposed to have
sold all our problems well I don't know I basically never used pulse audio because
a long time I used org Linux in org Linux you decide what you installed what you don't
install so I usually didn't install pulse audio and I was fine with also I'm I'm fine on slack
where so I'm not really sure what problem so was solved there as long as it works I'm fine
we talked earlier about the BSD style in its system I think that's also something they
tried to keep simple I think there is also pan that the authentication mechanism isn't around
in slackware as it is in other Linux distribution so right yes that's correct I'm not
because I'm a slackware user I've never really had to tangle with pan so I really can't see
much about it other than occasionally I occasionally read that it causes problems
for the maintainers the distribution if some important bit of software that comes with
coarse slackware needs something like pan I don't know how to deal with it but certainly I've
never come across a single issue where it's caused me a problem and it's also worth seeing
that slackware although it's conservative is quite pragmatic I wouldn't rule out the possibility of
something like pan or system D being brought in to slackware if there was no other choice it may
well be that although Patrick Volker doesn't really like system DNA I don't think he really said
anything that strongly about to alien bulb has he has been very critical of system D in how it's
come in to being from red had and he's very vocal about it Patrick Volker things a bit more quiet
and pragmatic about it and that you'll bring system D in light of the rules do when it really just
becomes impossible to avoid it when it's the pragmatic thing to do yeah I think that's also something
well I'm not always talking about things that like about slackware but there's something I like
when I came across slackware it doesn't it tries to keep things simple but it doesn't feel like
they just oversimplified we're like keep it too simple that you can't work with it so they just
seem to do what's necessary and keep keep away what they don't need or what they still can live
without so moving back to the BSD style in it system do you know anything about the difference is
where where difference is because well no compared to system D compared to SSV in it as we have it in
the other distributions nowadays again I have I'm so so long in the tooth experience with slackware
that actually I don't really understand well enough how either BSD or system 5 in it work or
system D for that matter tants of that question properly all I can say is that if a package comes
along or you have to build your own package which I've done occasionally and it has and it's expecting
a usual system 5 in it set up then the directories and subs are all there under slash et cetera
so that it's completely system 5 in it compatible although the slackware we're doing things
the scripts themselves the RC don't whatever scripts they look a lot more like BSD which to my
mind is cleaner and easier to follow than the system 5 equivalent equivalent but if I would say any
more about it I would be venturing into territory what I'm not not not not really experienced enough to
comment yeah it's probably been the same for me I'm definitely not an expert I know when this is
this is the unit every every software that has to be stored it has its own script that's run
and I think one difference is in this unit you have links you have one directory per run level
and then you have links to the to the files what to start and if you remove a link something isn't
stored in so how does this work in BSA in its systems how do you tell the system yeah I want to
start network manager or I don't want to start or I want to start a patch or don't start a patch
you where do you where do you edit this in this way in it you just create links or you delete links
well I in slackware I'm off top of my head I believe you just edit one lane and slash et cetera slash
in it tab which is a text file and then there you specify the default run level by default it's
run level three which is slackware means boot to the command line and then if you change it to
tell it to default run level four in that text file it's just editing I think you just comment
out a lane and comment it in another one then it will run to the whatever default graphical login
screen which I think by default it's like where it will be KDM for KDE because that's the default
if you haven't specified otherwise it will go to KDE so it's it's comment in and comment out a
lane and that file to change it so and if you plan to remove or add something to a run level let's say
you're in run level three you don't want the extra run but you need network manager or you need a patch
she how could you add this to the run level do you know this I actually don't not strangely enough
because I always run a run level three I always go to the command line so it never is never occurred
to me before that I'd want to do that if I do if I want to change the behavior of whether things
start up or not which I do all the time so for example the mumble server is not something
I won't every time I boot up my laptop then I just make sure that the file slash etc slash rc dot d slash
rc dot murmur that is set to be known executable and if it's not executable then it will never
get started if it is executable then it will get started by default when I enter run level three
or maybe before so I know I'm not answering your questions directly because I don't know the answer
but it's whether those rc dot files are executable that will determine whether they run or not
check to find out which script actually launches them and whether it's part of their unlabeled
script there are c0 dot d etc so basically from from our emitter view of things
it's a difference of creating creating links as opposed to marking a file executable or not
indeed and I just quickly checked in my current install I'm using sort of current sack of 14.1
install and using and rc0 dot d rc1 dot d rc2 dot d all exist under slash etc but they're all empty
so what it tells me is by default as I was saying earlier system five and it is supported and you
can put scripts in there if you want but that's not the way the slack really works by default
that those directory starter was empty because they're all living in rc dot d directory instead
yeah and the thing that's also the directory where start up scripts live in bst so that's one thing
this comes from bst where in Linux it's more in it dot d and then I don't remember rc1 up to
four dot d for the run level links or something so maybe just let's move on to talk about the
community of slackware I mean slackware is run by Patrick Volkerding as one guy I think he
lifts from doing slackware right yes he does and so the the subscriptions like the one IP and
any donations and merchandise from the shop that funds has his life you know so I guess he's
been able to make a reasonable living out of slackware for these last few day a couple of decades
but he's only person I think that that's directly funded by a slackware project
you just go to a shop to their webshop and order CDs and t-shirts or is there actual
subscription where you pay like an annual amount or something yeah so there's the subscription which
is what I do and and I get mailed a DVD on if and build whenever there's a new release so
there were a slackware 14.1 sort of slackware 14.2 or a 15.0 I don't know which it'll be yet
whenever that comes out then automatically my credit card will be billed and I'll be mailed a new
DVD now right so that's that's probably how he manages to keep up our revenue stream because
if you reliant people going to the webshop probably doesn't work over over the years
people just tend to order ones or twice and then then move away so where where does the slackware
community where do you meet them in the web what options are there there's IRC there's a slackware
channel in free node I very rarely go there I'm just I like IRC in principle but I find
interactions they're not just slackware but I find that's often a bit too abrasive for my liking
so I generally go to the forum some Linux questions and I find that is quite
a friendly place in general although a few people get a bit shorty with you if you haven't
read the readmays and you're asking basic questions that are answered in those which I
feel a little bit unfair but mostly people just slightly say look have already the readmays
first because if you're not prepared to do that with slackware you're probably not looking
a person that wants to use slackware so there's a few people that would be more gentle than others
and I certainly I'm one occasion I and the forums I got pulled off for something other and
had stand my ground and the person eventually apologized so it was it can be a little bit intimidating
if you're a bit of a newbie but but I think overall it's a friendly place to be but very
very factual you know it's not not much the way a joking goes on and the forums it's all very
rooted and and lots and bolts how to do things yeah a thing in every online community there are
people that aren't I think people just there are people that aren't as nice online as they've
would been in person so to tend to tell people of faster than than in real life I guess
yes yes that's I mean that's that's not an endemic in the way but I mean it's like we're as
sacrifice for them is actually a pretty good place to be you know as internet forums go
though it has its moments and certainly if you mention system D and a thread or especially on
the title of a thread then it ignites immediately and you know can go on for weeks and months
of repetitive discussions which I try and avoid yeah I think that's probably something at
the moment no matter where you go in the internet if you just mention system D that's that's
what happens you could probably mention system D and the windows forum or something and
look the discussion would start for for ages is there or are there any other places to
go to like for for people that are not too fond of web web interfaces are there mailing lists
in use groups or any of those things to go to. The only mailing list I'm on for slackware is
security advisers so you know when like the likes of heart bleed came out there was a
an update for that and you know get meals pretty quickly you know that's quite
really quick response of as part of those kind of things but I don't come on any other mailing lists
and there may be others but I certainly there's no there's no ones for the official distribution
where like yeah there's no notification lists for slack builds I am what that I am in the
mailing list for slack builds although I've really really pushed to that reply to the messages on
that it's generally people sharing information quite constructive way but how best puts like
builds groups together you know it's a nice and nice community again very very nuts and bolts
like like the like the Linux questions for them and so in the end it's basically the Linux
questions for them forums where you go I think at first I was a bit confused it's like where it
doesn't have its own forum or its own mailing list for discussions but I mean in the end it
saves saves time and money to not run your own forums but use what's already there it's a bit
this is same as with software in slack where it's basically their philosophy just use what's there
use upstream and don't don't change everything and don't invent everything new yes I mean actually
I'm it's very practical reason is that it's only one person you know one full full-time
maintainer Patrick and he can't be maintaining forums like and so it's sort of the
outflame wars while maintaining the distribution so he does pop up in Linux questions and I think
he did there was a time with slack where it's one forums but I think that was just too draining
in his time I think I get as you see it was a pragmatic and sensible move you know keep him
doing what he does best and let the moderators from the community sort out the forum which is
all right just how it works yeah well we are now up to one hour recording so maybe and we are at
the end of the list for what we wanted to talk about or is there anything we missed anything we
should we should still talk about no no I think we've covered just about everything without going
to nitty-gritty details and corners I think you know if there's one thing that repeatedly said
and we're emphasizing a yet again is that slack where is simple but no simpler than it needs to be
and it doesn't mean that it's going to be easy to use but it means it's possible to understand
and I'm absolutely in attraction in it for me for me it's definitely this simplicity but
well at a moment I just am just a new slack where I use it and for me it's always when things
a new attempt to be excited and then it turns out whether I'll use them over time so this still
has to be seen it's debion is one thing I keep coming back to because I just like the weight works
I like the way you can do a minimum install and then move on on from what you have there
I don't know yeah whether there's simplicity of slack where also sticks with me so maybe we should
talk again in one year something and see whether I'm still in slack where if I am then that's
probably a good sign and I'll probably stay for for a bit longer indeed yes I'll be interesting
and I keep meaning the one distraught I've never seriously tried is as debion
I know good reason for that but maybe also what I should do is we should do this other way around
I should give debion a go for a while and then then we can we can talk about that instead
yeah I think that would be interesting also again I'm just like an amateur user and definitely no
expert I probably know more about debion than I know about slack where I've been
well we can give it a try and see how it works out so well then basically this is the end of the
podcast and what what's left to us is to tell the community who we are because we didn't
with it basically didn't it beginning so let's do this now so if you try to find me on
micro.fractf.com for micro blocking new social as Norwegian and I'm on STF yeah on STF
for email as Benny at STF to the work so if you try to contact me or what you could do is just
record another show and tell us what you think about slackware so let you tell everyone where to find
you yes well my name is Andrew but on the web you will generally find me called Macnalu MCNALU
and you can record a blog blog.micnalu.net or you can find me in the
news social fedyverse called Macnalu at micro.fractf.com so and of course you can leave comments
on the steps or on the hack a public radio site and a big thank you to the hack a public
radio community and as Benny said either leave a comment on the site or record a show in response
yeah I think that that's one of the things I like about hack a public radio I would never do a
podcast myself but here you just record something throw it up on the web and wait for people to
tell you what they think and you don't have to keep doing one recording a week or whatever so you
just record something if you feel like it and throw it up and there it goes indeed well thanks very
much Benny it's been great talking to you thank you was great thank you for coming on the show and
telling me about slackware because I couldn't have done it by myself my guess because I'm just
still a newbie and don't know too much about slackware cool a pleasure an absolute pleasure okay
guess that's where we stop the recording right you've been listening to hack a public radio
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