• Victor@lemmy.world
        4·
        2 days ago

        Curious, what do you like about Slackware? I had a look at the web page and the post on the front page is from 2022. Is that really the kernel version that comes with Slackware now?

        Is Slackware intended to be like an offline distro? Or am I misunderstanding how the release model works?

        • MehBlah@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          23 hours ago

          Slackware is the linux arch users wish they could maintain. I keep a machine with it installed. If you want to know how it all works then slackware is a good place to learn. Having said that It has a near vertical learning curve for new users.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
            1·
            18 hours ago

            Slackware is the linux arch users wish they could maintain.

            Could you uh… go into more detail? I don’t ask for anything else from my Arch install so I’m curious what Slackware has to offer that’s better than Arch.

        • mech@feddit.org
          3·
          2 days ago

          It’s a distro that maximizes stability and KISS design. If you used it 20 years ago, you’ll still feel at home today.
          And it’s so simple, it’s basically just a selection of software and a number of bash scripts.
          The release model is “whenever Patrick Volkerding decides it’s ready”.
          Slackware looks dead at first glance. The last stable release took 5 years, the website isn’t updated, all official online documentation is outdated.
          But the people involved coordinate on linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/ , the Current branch is as active as Arch, and the up-to-date documentation comes in text files that are right in the directory where you need them on an installed Slackware system.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
            3·
            2 days ago

            So like, you aren’t using packages from 2022, then? Or, you are if you’re on the stable branch? Am I getting close?

            • mech@feddit.org
              3·
              1 day ago

              No, you’re getting updates.
              I’m on the Stable branch. My Firefox and Thunderbird from this branch are newer than the versions released as Flatpak, for example.

              • Victor@lemmy.world
                2·
                1 day ago

                Huh, interesting.

                Maybe I’ll understand better if I try to install it in a VM or something. 😁

        • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
          2·
          2 days ago

          It worked well from that perspexrive. Remember that when it started, always-on connectivity rich enough to download hundreds of megabytes was a novelty, but you could get a Slackware CD that just worked.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
            2·
            2 days ago

            So all the package versions really are locked to the Slackware version from 2022 then? Is that how it works? If so that’s very… stable.

            • mech@feddit.org
              2·
              23 hours ago

              No, my Firefox and Thunderbird for example are newer versions than the Flatpaks.
              In practice, Slackware doesn’t have the manpower to fix version numbers and backport security fixes, so if there’s a vulnerability or critical bug, they’ll often pull a newer version from upstream and push it to the stable repo after testing it.

    • Victor@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 days ago

      Interesting. Which distros have you tried so far?

      [with comical timing] None?

      No but joking aside, which distros? I’m genuinely curious, if you were serious. 😊

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        2 days ago

        Not Santa, but I’ve tried a dozen or more distros over the last 15 years. Multiple pains in my ass see me going back to Windows, every time. Headless Linux as a server OS rocks out.

        The fact that you have to ask is a major point against the Linux desktop.

        • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          I upvoted you because this has been my experience.

          When W10 got cut off, I made one more bid for CachyOS and enjoy it, but even then, I had to prep myself with “I’ll run into stupid shoot that annoys me, question is, is it more stupid shit than I get on Windows”.

          I genuinely hate all the Linux ads that try to use the Mac “It just works” mantra without recognizing all the stuff people will have to do, not to mention the discovery process of those things.

          “Want to install an app? Simple! Just ‘sudo pacman -S app’! Want to find the name of a package to install, so you can start figuring things out for yourself instead of doing exactly what the tutorial prescribed character by character? Er, sorry, not in this guide, also your wildcards are used wrong!”

        • Victor@lemmy.world
          2·
          2 days ago

          The fact that you have to ask is a major point against the Linux desktop.

          I softly disagree with this statement. I was just following what they said in their comment, and what I was really fishing for was use case and circumstances, down the line in the conversation. 🙂

          Probably not surprisingly, it came down to gaming and kernel-level anti-cheat software.

          But your experience matters, of course. A lot of efficient and lean Linux distros can’t really afford to do a lot of handholding in order to be so lean. And reading documentation and following along with instructions definitely isn’t for everyone. But really that’s all I did to install my distro of choice. I just read the installation guide on the Wonderful Wiki™️ and I came out flying.

          Linux really has matured a lot in the recent decade though, even more in the last couple of years. So maybe you’d find something you like if you gave it another go now.

          I’m happily gaming and working and just regular-old computing on my PC with Linux. It can be done. I feel like maybe you had bad luck with the timing in combination with what you wanted to accomplish or achieve with your PC, or something. I dunno.

          Anyway, long reply is long. Take care!

      • SantasMagicalComfort@piefed.worldEnglish
        31·
        2 days ago

        I’ve tried Fedora, Linux Mint Cinnamon, Arch, Ubuntu, Hanna Montana and PonyOS but I haven’t been able to get Fortnite to run properly on it.

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Me too and I’ve tried Linux on and off for 15 years. Also, I have never once had any of the issues lemmy tells me I’m having. Apparently that pisses lemmy off because I get hella downvotes for merely stating my experience. I think 97% of the hate comes from people with awful experiences at work or they think “Windows” is what they get from their laptop manufacturer. Installing a base ISO is a way different experience.

      Some article comes out that an update is doing something bad? I wouldn’t know, hasn’t happened to me, or the Windows fleets I’ve managed, for nearly a decade. I’d say over a decade, but I dodged that update that borked CMS systems because, duh, I manage updates instead of letting them roll.

      Linux is my go-to for servers, every time. I’ll only deploy Windows if I must, such as a domain controller, or our software has to run on IIS, stuff like that. Otherwise, I can’t imagine using Windows Server. It’s not so much that it sucks, but why pay for a slower system?!