SLACKWARE: Simple, Straightforward and Stable

This article discusses Slackware, a free and open source Linux-based operating system.

Slackware GNU/Linux was created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. It was originally a derivative of the ‘Softlanding Linux System’ (SLS), one of the most to offer a comprehensive software collection that comprised more than just the kernel and basic utilities.

In time, Slackware evolved into a separate system with clear goals and a development model, while its precursor, the SLS, lost the crowd’s interest and soon vanished. Over the years, Slackware has had many versions and changes but it still remains the most loyal to its ‘UNIX-like system’ roots, among all the GNU/Linux distros.

The will to preserve and support a tech utility or way of doing things well known to the user base is probably the best thing about Slackware. It makes you learn less unnecessary new stuff and keeps the user in control. This simplicity is not matched by any other system in existence.

Being a fairly new UNIX connoisseur, I was introduced to Slackware in its 14th avatar in the fall of 2012. I have missed the countless events and steps that Slackware has taken and the obstacles it has overcome over the years, to become the oldest still actively developed GNU/Linux distribution in existence. I missed the switch from ‘X’ to ‘xfree86’, and the project's lead developer Patrick Volkerding's mysterious illness back in the early 2000s .

Emotions apart, Slackware has a great tendency not to

adopt new unstable and potentially useless technologies, which are received with much appreciation by other communities and distros in the *nix world, e.g., ‘Systemd’, a fairly worthless upgrade from the existing ‘system V-like’ init systems widely implemented currently in almost all distros.

Slackware, however, hasn't yet addressed this issue and mailing lists about it, and it's a unanimous belief among all users and developers that it will not switch to a worthless upgrade when it has already implemented a beautifully working, run level system.

Slackware is not about being compatible with the rest of the world or having the most user-friendly workflow or ease of use. For that matter, Slackware is wrongly portrayed as an 'advanced user only' distro and that the community built around it consists of advanced users. Slackware, however, is supported primarily by the 'grand-dads' who are caring yet cranky enough to make you the future *nixers who will succeed them as the graybeards of Slackware.

The installation media can be acquired from http:// www. slackware. com/ getslack/. I, however, preferred getting the DVD image for my architecture amd64, for testing the installation on all three of my trusted machines — my ThinkPad x120e, ThinkPad x201s and MacBook Pro 2010.

The installer for Slackware is based on ncurses, which gives the retro look to this distro and appeals to users because of the kind of simplicity it provides. The installer requires you to partition your disks with cfdisk or fdisk utilities, which are certainly more geeky and not as simple as gparted or an automatic partitioning tool shipped with most beginner distros. KDE is the default DE for Slackware, but xfce and other WMs are shipped with the DVD image too. Thus it is easy enough to skip installing anything.

You can choose the exact packages you want for installation, individually, or you can choose from categories; even a Net install is possible but is not always the most feasible thing to do.

The best thing about the DVD image is that it Slackware provides from its core infrastructure. Frankly, mention the ‘pkg’ package managment toolkit, which is actually just a clever way of using ‘make-install’. This there is for my personal needs.

However, users who are not so comfortable with packaging and maintaining builds of software for themselves can rely on newly established services for Slackware users such as ‘ slackbuilds. org’ and ‘ slapt- get’, which acts a lot like the Debian ‘ apt’. In my opinion, though, the use of such tools robs you of the advantage that Slackware provides you, which is a clean slate to build on and maintain. To quote Patrick Volkerding, “Slackware is designed and developed in such a way that if you wanna compile/ rebuild a part of it, it'll not fight/ oppose you in the process and will gladly surrender to your changes.”

The Slackware philosophy is a lot like that of the BSD operating systems of today—the automation of maintenance tasks to make the user's life easier while also making it simpler for them to tweak the system. And how can I forget the love the distro has for LILO, the long forgotten boot loader, which is the default on formatted disks on my ThinkPads but made me cry my eyes out on the GPT set-up on my MacBook Pro.

Excerpts from my journal regarding my experience with Slackware.

Day 1

Downloaded Slackware current distro tree to build my own image for installation, using Pat's script for building a

isohybrid </path/to/the/.iso>

This command needs the package ‘Syslinux’, which is a modern boot loader found in almost all distro's repos and used for booting live images of distros like *buntus, Fedora and Manjaro.

I was running Debian with Syslinux installed and I created a hybrid image for my own use. Thus I can vouch for Debian being able to do it. After this, I got a flash drive and dd this hybrid image on to it, and ran the

dd if=/path/to/.iso of=/dev/sdb

Note: /dev/sdb

fdisk -l

After booting from the USB on my ThinkPad x120e I mkdir aditya installs slackware && mount /dev/sdb aditya installs slackware

After this, the installation was quite straightforward with choosing the keyboard layout, the disk partitioning which I had to do manually with cfdisk, and then selecting partitions on which to install swap, / and home.

Then I had to select the packages to install from a radio button menu. I didn't install KDE since I am anti K/Qt. I chose xfce and not DM. I highly recommend xfce, which is at version 4.8 right now on Slackware. It works without a hiccup. The best part about Slackware’s installer is that it is ncurses based, which makes me feel like I am running a real UNIX-like system and not a cheap clone!

Day 2

Installed a newer version of Gambas since I had an urge to hack something not so familiar. In my opinion, it is the best way in the world to install software. It worked out quite nicely. The dependencies are listed on the Gambas homepage. slackbuilds.org, then I installed an older version of Python since I needed to test some of my apps for Debian Squeeze, which still has Python 2.6 by default (and I can't expect all my users to build and install a newer version of Python on their systems).

Day 3

out the version of Virtualbox that I acquired was ‘virtualboxqt’ and since I am anti Qt/K, I had to re-download the right binaries for the GTK2 version of the Virtualbox UI.

Day 4

I had to enable the network manager and the Bluetooth services daemons from /etc/rc.d from Alien Bob's script generator http://www.slackware. com/~alien/efg/. It’s as easy as pie and the script generated is adequate if you are running a desktop on which you don't

Day 5

Finally, set up Slackware on the ThinkPads and then it was time to rip a little hair from my head. I now had to set it up on my MacBook Pro. One thing I'd like to mention is the difference between EFI and UEFI. UEFI systems be replaced/overwritten easily. It may brick your system if the EFI support on your UEFI system is buggy; however, Apple EFI, which is an Apple specific version of (U)EFI doesn't follow standards set by the industry. The firmware on Macintosh systems is primarily stored on the HD itself, which makes it almost immune to bricking. The way to subsequent start-up chimes, which will reset the firmware on your Mac to its factory state (this also works if you forget the EFI password for your pre-2011 Mac. I know this from experience; however I am not sure about the post 2011 Macs since I don't have any). Anyway, I had to replace the stock LILO from LILO-EFI64 to be able to boot my Mac, and had to use rEFIt to change the partition

Day 6

Packaged my first piece of software in Slackware’s native ‘tl.gz’ format, which is nothing but a clever way of using GNUmake's build powers as an installation capability; subsequently, I read the Slack Book which has a new version in beta these days. Well, this version is much more evolved and it has much newer, more useful, relevant and contemporary documentation about Slackware than the http://www.slackbook.org/; http://www.slackbook.org/ beta/

Day 7

Had to set up my HP deskjet printer. To my surprise, Slackware doesn't just come with the ‘Hplip’ drivers; it comes with the

Day 8

Had to set up the Broadcom wireless card on my MacBook Pro (bcm 4322). Yanked BCMfwcutter and ran it. It pulled reboot and my Wi-Fi was working.

In the eight days that I used Slackware as my main OS on all three machines, I must say I was amazed by its simplicity and straightforwardness. Nothing comes close to it. I now have two distros that I can rely upon—Debian and Slackware. If I were to choose one (every Debian purist vein in my body is screaming as I say this) I would choose