Slackware Linux: Less is more

Jan 20, 2010, 22:03 (0 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Richard Hillesley)

[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for this link. ]

"Slackware is the most stripped down and UNIX-like of Linux distributions and is designed to be a workhorse for developers or sysadmins, who do not want "to be met with GUI greeters, setup wizards, beginner-oriented defaults, and enabled-by-default automatic updates."

"What you get from Slackware is a clean system that expects more of the user, at the command line and in the configuration process. There are virtues to this approach. As Patrick Volkerding, the guiding light of Slackware, sees it: "I think the more you try to second guess the user, the more you put up barriers. So we like to keep things uncomplicated as much as possible."

"Slackware isn't for everyone, and will never win the race for the Linux desktop, where fancy gizmos, music players, office suites and games are at a premium, but works for users who want "a system that makes a good server - where you aren't even required to install X if you don't want it - or a good desktop workstation if you do a full installation with KDE" or Xfce or Fvwm or Windowmaker or Fluxbox."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Review: Zenwalk 6.2(Jan 15, 2010)
• Bash 101: Working at the CLI(Jan 10, 2010)
• Arch vs. Slackware, a friendly comparison(Jan 03, 2010)
• Getting Started with Arch Linux(Jan 03, 2010)
• Review: Slackware 13.0(Dec 18, 2009)
• The Five Distros That Changed Linux(Dec 17, 2009)
• Slackware Linux 13.0 - the oldest Linux distro gets a major overhaul(Oct 05, 2009)