LWN: Comments on "Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it"

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

nix — Wed, 04 May 2011 09:50:01 +0000

It doesn't work with CUPS, which as far as I can tell has a far less capable filtration system (certainly a much less flexible one). :/

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

bdw — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 22:49:10 +0000

A very nice trip down memory lane!

When I first heard of Linux back in 1993, the SLS distribution was my first foray into it. It was a broken distro so it was a rather bittersweet introduction.

I then tried Slackware when it first became available and wow, I had my very own UNIX(tm)-like box! I used it for a while then went back to Windoze 3.11 because, well, the applications. I then went to Red Hat 4.2 and kept upgrading it till about Fedora 11 (I recall all the controversy when Red Hat went to libc6 :) when I decided to switch over to Ubuntu. I've been using Linux as my full time OS since 1998 when I got fed up with Windoze and the BSOD.

After reading this article I downloaded the ISO images and installed Slackware 13.1 via VirtualBox. And yes, the Linux landscape has changed radically. I've been spoiled by all the polish that's be put into Fedora and Ubuntu; I'd forgotten what it was like to have to hand edit inittab and XF86Config/xorg.conf. Rather embarassing!

I'm still going to keep Slackware on the VirtualBox. My geek skills have atrophied a bit. :)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

kirkengaard — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:13:37 +0000

So many good memories! I've since gone to a laptop system that (for all its Intel Linux compatibility) broke my chain of Slack use. Stupid wide screen -- I got tired of fixing everything that didn't believe in 16x9.

While we're "old-folks-at-home" here, I got into Linux with a SuSE retail box just before the libc6 transition. Spent too many times screwing it up by recompiling/upgrading libc and X and everything after, and then discovered Slackware. That was right at the version 7 bump, and I never looked back! Debian was still on text-based install, and nothing like as slick and clean as the Slackware install environment. I had some friends go Mandrake for its auto-configure, but I hated supporting their systems because the init scripts were botched by the process. Just not designed to be treated like UNIX. I ran -current constantly, and with only two major problems across the span of time from 7.0 to 13.0. It's just a beautiful system, especially now that it has package management and third-party repositories, and all without corrupting the basic philosophy.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

stevem — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:09:44 +0000

Oh gods, yes... :-)

Then the mess I had left caused me to switch to Debian later that year IIRC...

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

dsimic — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 01:13:57 +0000

Well, that makes sense from another standpoint. ;) You're right that it's perfectly Ok to do other things than coding and such, but with Ubuntu you get people amazed by colorful things and distracted from the hard way of learning what's actually happening under the bonnet. And you get another "mutation" of M$ Windows in the town.

Similar status applies to M$ Windows itself -- there are very few people knowing what's happening under the bonnet, as it's much more fun to poke images and watch videos, than to dvelve into MFC / DCOM or whatever, or to type in a console or vi. I'd say similar will happen with newcomers into Linux which opt for Ubuntu or similar "brain-dead" distros, as nobody will start picking to do more complicated things.

As with Slackware in old days, you *had* to know what's under the bonnet just to bring up a PPP connection. So if anybody wanted to do anything, he had to learn a lot. Nowadays all the colorful stuff is simply de-motivating learning -- I can bet that less than 1% of Ubuntu users know what the heck is iptables, for example.

But again, I might be wrong. Probably I just need to watch more YouTube videos. ;)

"Have a lot of fun!", indeed

gus3 — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:14:51 +0000

I was first exposed to Unix in 1993, in college. It was arcane, complicated, even case-sensitive on the CLI! But, by golly, I could take this C program I had written for DOS, compile it, and it would run.

The system was an Alpha that got scrapped for parts during the summer. We had a shiny new AIX system when I returned the following autumn. I learned how to use "man" and that was all I needed.

I got my degree, and signed up for the free Unix Review monthly, for some exposure to non-M$ stuff. In it, I read about this interesting thing called Linux, that acted like Unix, ran on any PC that could run Windows, and came on a CD (this was in 1997). Well, I decided to give it a spin.

I went to a local bookstore, found their section with computer books, and picked up the cheapest Linux book with an install CD in it: the Linux Bible, which was largely a collection of HOWTO's of varying accuracy, plus a detailed first section on installing Slackware Linux from the CD. For the first, last, and probably only time in my life, I read the instructions very carefully, even taking two pages of hand-written notes in preparation for the work ahead.

Three installation attempts later, I finally got a working Linux boot. Success! I got a login prompt, logged in as root, typed "man vi", and rejoiced. I was actually running a pure 32-bit, multi-user, multi-tasking OS on my home computer. Granted, Linux is the adopted bastard step-cousin of the Unix family, but its multi-user multi-tasking capabilities were designed in pretty much from the beginning, not tacked on as progressive overlays as as Microsoft had done going from DOS to Windows 95. (I'm ignoring Windows NT; I couldn't afford a system that heavy.)

I did so much wrong back then: running as root, never updating, yadda yadda yadda. I learned about such things in the School of Hard Knocks, but that was my own obstinacy. When my Linux installation got messed up, I knew it was probably my own fault.

By contrast, what happened to my Windows installation was not my own fault: I lost everything to the Chernobyl virus on April 1, 1998, thirteen years ago tomorrow as I write this. It wiped out my partition table, which blew away both Windows and Linux. Since I didn't have the tools to recover Windows, and Linux partition recovery tools were hard to come by, I decided to start over with 100% Slackware Linux. Thirteen years later, I'm so happy I did.

I haven't stayed with Slackware the entire time. I've wandered into Mandrake, Red Hat, and Gentoo territory, but I've come back to Slackware every time. When I got my 64-bit desktop system, before Patrick had official x86_64 support, I had Slamd64 and Bluewhite64. As soon as Slackware64-current went public, I downloaded the entire set of packages and installed them.

Rest assured, if I ever get an ARM-based system, it will (must) support ARMedslack.

Thank you, Pat, for all the fun you put into Slackware, and all the doors you've opened up for me. The learning curve was steep, but without it, I wouldn't have been able to get that job in Silicon Valley, and I wouldn't have met you at Linux World Expo 2000 in San Jose.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

sumanah — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:17:56 +0000

Easy-to-install and easy-to-use free operating systems give people tools to make their lives easier. It is legitimate to contribute things to the world other than code and to focus one's energy on understanding things other than code.

(And, anecdotally, nontechnical users I know find Ubuntu easier to use than Windows. So it's not just cheaper, it's better.)

long-term support...sort of

dvandeun — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:54:28 +0000

The old versions are still usable on servers. Desktop systems should indeed be upgraded more often.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

saxa — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:14:54 +0000

Gnome on Slackware has also another option, dropline GNOME, which of course
is not always ready for the last Slackware release, but we are trying our best.

Just for info: http://www.droplinegnome.org

We have nearly ready gnome 2.32 for Slackware 13.1 and soon we plan to
release it for Slackware 13.37 .

Also a great article, stating exactly what Slackware is. I'm a Slackware user from 3.3 version, or maybe earlier... Anyway simplicity and full set of packages is what make it my preference over other distros.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

cmccabe — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 05:01:40 +0000

> Ah, nostalgia. But was there really a version of linux
> that would run on a PDP-8?

No... not *yet*.

Just kidding. I don't think Linus would take that new arch. We've got enough archs that are pining for the fjords already...

But seriously, someone did write a UNIX for commodore 64 from scratch in the 1990s. It was called LUnix:

http://hld.c64.org/poldi/lunix/lun_about.html

Apparently it was written in pure assembly language. Wow...

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

jschrod — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:46:30 +0000

Ouch, bad memories. Did you have to wake them? :-) :-)

But then, having Slackware was so much better than compiling everything by hand. (I used SLS before Slackware, having used original Version 7 and BSD Unix before; and was quite happy when Slack came out in 1993.)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

aclucas — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:02:12 +0000

Agree there, got to be better that, than paying a company who'd continue to subvert the world to paying them for every new computer they buy.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

mbar — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:51:34 +0000

"What's the purpose of having install-it-in-10-minutes-and-understand-nothing Ubuntu, with brain-dead audience using it just to browse pictures or login into Facebook and leave more meaningless stuff around?"

And what's wrong with that and on top of that still having $200 or whatever in the wallet?

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

The_Barbarian — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 04:58:01 +0000

Now that I saw the tail end of. I am not sure, but I believe the version of Mandrake I started with was the first Mandrake with glibc

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

The_Barbarian — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 04:48:46 +0000

>a five year old who knew Python and C++

What

I can see a five year old that can do some Python, but the thought that a five year old could do any C++ terrifies me.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

dsimic — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:18:37 +0000

Got involved with Linux back in 1997 or so, with Slackware 3.6 -- and happily used Slackware exclusively until 2007 or so. Back at that time hardware evolved to 64-bit CPUs and Slackware lacked official support, so unfortunately got myself migrated to CentOS while doing hardware upgrades -- and I really miss the simplicity of Slackware. There -- man is a man, and startup script is a startup script. No lemons.

I'm looking at Ubuntu from time to time, just to see what's happening in softy-and-user-friendly-land -- well, what a thing they turned Linux into... I don't see the purpose of making Linux to be second Windows -- if you want that, go and shell out $200 or whatever Windows 7 costs, and enjoy it, you'll get the *real* user-friendly thing.

What's the purpose of having install-it-in-10-minutes-and-understand-nothing Ubuntu, with brain-dead audience using it just to browse pictures or login into Facebook and leave more meaningless stuff around? I'm not saying that we all should still be using DIP switches to configure expansion card IRQ usage, but what's the point in making Linux second Windows?

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

dsimic — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:58:57 +0000

isapnpdump -- those were the days! ;)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

jcm — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:13:40 +0000

Certainly some velue in the front panel switch suggestion as well. Having a good understanding of computer architecture is never wasted ;)

Clearly I'm exaggerating. But I don't always like the world we live in because things are sometimes getting a bit easy. This is why I think occasionally doing something arcane or forcing yourself to skip the fluff for a few minutes can only be useful education.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

sfeam — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 17:38:47 +0000

You should force them to key in the bootloader using front-panel switches instead
Ah, nostalgia. But was there really a version of linux that would run on a PDP-8?

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

bronson — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 07:20:41 +0000

Modelines are among the most arbitrary wastes of time ever inflicted on Linux users (and I say this as an ex-graphics driver writer). You'd spend the afternoon reading docs and fiddling little numbers just trying to get the stupid video card and monitor to sync without flickering. The only lesson you'd remember is that most graphics hardware is junk... which you already knew.

You'd rather see people monkeying around with VESA tables instead of working with Linux? You advocate FORCING people to learn this antiquated stuff?? You should force them to key in the bootloader using front-panel switches instead, at least then they learn the machine architecture.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

jcm — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 04:50:23 +0000

I'm thinking about the LWN crowd - people who work on Linuxy stuff. I'm all for using EDID provided data and doing everything automatically for end users, and even happy with lots of the prettification on that front, but if you're going to really work with Linux in terms of the features and experience provided to end users, you should be forced to at least know what a mode line is, etc. If this kind of logic were broadly applied, the results could only be a good thing.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

roelofs — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 23:37:58 +0000

I'm pretty sure that must be a later-generation XConfig. The ones I was working on weren't nearly that friendly. They were more compact, using single lines where you've got stanzas.

Yup, my early-1994 ones were like you describe, and the one I excerpted still has equivalent commented-out lines like that:

#   ModeLine "1280x1024a" 110 1280 1320 1480 1728 1024 1029 1036 1077
#   ModeLine "1280x1024"  110 1280 1288 1472 1712 1024 1025 1028 1054

Was that an X11R5-vs-R6 change, maybe?

As you say, it was very easy to get wrong, which is why, in slightly later releases, the bundled text file(s) showing other people's working configs for card/monitor combos were so valuable.

What I always lusted over was the early Sony multisyncs. Those were beautiful monitors.

That they were. I eventually bought a used Hitachi 21" with the same (Trinitron-style) shadow mask; it's still sitting on my desk behind the LCD. :-)

Greg

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

malor — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 23:09:05 +0000

I'm pretty sure that must be a later-generation XConfig. The ones I was working on weren't nearly that friendly. They were more compact, using single lines where you've got stanzas. It was best to use a calculator to figure out the correct numbers, and very easy to get it wrong.

Multisyncs aren't *supposed* to be killable by any input, but obviously your experience disagrees. :-)

What I always lusted over was the early Sony multisyncs. Those were beautiful monitors.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

malor — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 22:54:15 +0000

I'd argue that if you have to keep your brain engaged to use a computer without blowing anything up, it's most emphatically not getting out of your way. :-)

There's still plenty of brain-bending stuff in Linux these days -- a great deal more of it, in fact. Things must be a hundred times as complex, overall, as they were back then. You don't need as much knowledge to use the system at a basic level, but becoming truly expert is far more difficult than it was, simply because there's so much more to know.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

jcm — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:36:04 +0000

I'm actually a fan. Part of me pines for the days when using a computer required the brain to be fully enabled. Blowing up a monitor with an incorrect modeline is a nice IQ test. Yea, it's nice that we're all encompassing these days, but I liked it when things kept out of my way.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

roelofs — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 20:40:37 +0000

That was the big selling point of the expensive 'multisync' monitors -- you couldn't wreck them that way. :-)

"Expensive" being the key word... This was a multisync, but either it didn't have the circuitry to detect out-of-range signals, or else its parts were borderline. (It did survive my settings for at least a couple of months, and I believe its replacement did, too, though it's possible I tweaked things.)

Hmmm...just found a 1997 XF86Config:

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier  "KFC 17-inch"
    VendorName  "Kuo Feng Corporation"
    ModelName   "CA-1726"

    Bandwidth   110.0
    HorizSync   31-70   # multisync
    VertRefresh 45-90   # multisync

    [...]

    # 67Hz 1152x864 mode (hsync = 63.1kHz, refresh = 67Hz)
    Mode "1152x864"
        DotClock        100.0
        HTimings        1152 1200 1296 1504
        VTimings        864 866 869 904
        Flags           "-HSync", "-VSync"
    EndMode

    # better 1280x1024 mode (hsync = 64kHz, refresh = 60Hz)
    Mode "1280x1024"
        DotClock        110.0
        HTimings        1280 1288 1472 1712
        VTimings        1024 1025 1028 1054
    EndMode

EndSection

I had forgotten all about interlaced modes (one of the 1024x768 settings) and the need for special, lower-res modes to accommodate graphics cards that either didn't have enough memory to support 16bpp at full res (e.g., 2MB ATI Mach32) or couldn't crank up the dot clock high enough or both.

Good ol' days, indeed...

Greg

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

malor — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 06:19:49 +0000

That was the big selling point of the expensive 'multisync' monitors -- you couldn't wreck them that way. :-) All monitors these days are multisync; they just ignore signals they can't correctly reproduce.

Fixed-frequency monitors were much cheaper, but they were scary to use with Linux. It was sooo easy to get a modeline wrong.

Mature Linux Users

speedster1 — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 06:16:10 +0000

Subscription model forced me to get an account as well -- but I put LWN subscription on a wishlist for my birthday, which delayed things for a few months. Guess I was too cheap to buy it for myself, a grad student at the time ;)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

roelofs — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:27:46 +0000

Ha, yes. I did this too - destroyed a monitor by running it at slightly too high a refresh rate, on its maximum resolution, with a custom modeline. :)

Yeah, we've all been there. Though in my case, the monitor in question (KFC 17", I think) claimed to support 1280x1024 at 60 Hz, so I didn't feel too bad about sticking them for an in-warranty replacement. I had to wait about six weeks for the damn thing, though.

Haven't destroyed anything since then, but ironically enough, I did end up mucking with modelines and deep X voodoo not too long ago, trying (futilely) to get a stupid onboard Intel chipset to do 1920x1200. I'm still kind of annoyed by that one...

Greg

long-term support...sort of

roelofs — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:18:49 +0000

Though it's not advertised heavily, Wood points out another of Slackware's advantages long-term support. Wood says that Slackware 8.1, released in 2002, is still receiving security updates.

That's true as far as it goes, but as with Barry Bonds, there's a big asterisk lurking there. Browser support (Firefox and SeaMonkey), for example, doesn't go back before Slackware 12.2 or 13.0, I believe; yet clearly that's one app category in which ongoing security updates would be very nice. (Not that I blame Pat for cutting things off, of course--browsers have a huge dependency list and tend to be a pain to recompile. Doing so on an "outdated" software stack becomes untenable pretty quickly.) Some other packages get updates only back to 11.0 or 10.2. I think only the simplest (least-dependent) ones go back as far as 8.x, and then only if they're considered to be in the "very high" security-risk category.

Greg

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

roelofs — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:07:35 +0000

Gotta admit, I first got started on slack back on an IBM PS/2 ...

I think I installed mine on (the remains of) an IBM PC/AT. Granted, the motherboard was gone, but that case and keyboard were built like a tank. IIRC, the upgrade path was something like 286-6 -> 386-25 (first Slackware, early 1994) -> 486-33 -> 486-66 (CPU upgrade only) -> 2 x Pentium-100 -> 2 x PII-266. The power supply was still working after nearly 20 years...but its lack of ATX headers finally killed the upgrade cycle.

These days I run a mix of systems, including two that shipped with Ubuntu, but I still have Slackware on my current desktop at work and on at least one or two laptops at home. Ah, X Windows and Netscape in 16 MB of RAM...those were the days.

Greg

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

tonyblackwell — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:10:17 +0000

Low number LWN members well represented in these cozy reminisces. Fun reading. Thankyou.

Off topic, talking of Slackware old hardware support reminds me when SCO was not a dirty word and I ran a whole haematology lab with 10 serial terminals on a 286 and Stallion serial expansion card, SCO Xenix serial no 240, 100Mb hard disk. Around 1986 I think?

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

cry_regarder — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 22:22:11 +0000

:-) I did a manual a.out to elf conversion. Soon after that I said "Never again!" and switched to red hat.

I started with SLS and SWiM Motif way back in the day.

It's been nice long ride!

Cry

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

vonbrand — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:19:57 +0000

I'm sorry, but when I used Slackware (way back) and installed stuff from sources, I had to reinstall with some regularity because of self-inflicted breakage. Same when I moved to Red Hat, until I learned to get the SRPM (source), create my own with any updated/hacked upstream, check the patches/modifications from Red Had still work, build and install my own package. It integrates with the system cleanly, if/when Red Hat does come out with an updated package it will cleanly replace mine if I'm a bit careful, any dependencies are handled for me. Any real package management system must at least allow yo to do the same. Remembering what hacked stuff is on the system is feasible as long as it is a dozen (at most) packages, over that is sheer madness.

Been there, done it.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

rworkman — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:11:30 +0000

Grab a napkin, bud; you just got served. ;-)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

rbrito — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000

(Debian maintainer of magicfilter hat on)

Gee, what is the problem with magicfilter? :-)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

paulj — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:08:49 +0000

Ha, yes. I did this too - destroyed a monitor by running it at slightly too high a refresh rate, on its maximum resolution, with a custom modeline. :)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

malor — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 06:26:38 +0000

I think I must have skipped that, probably upgrading to a distro that was using ELF, but I remember damaging a monitor once, trying to write X modelines. I was terribly poor at the time, too, so I had to suffer with the monitor for several months, as it got darker and darker, until I could finally afford to replace it.

Good times, for a limited definition of good. :)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

dmag — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 02:25:47 +0000

The biggest benefit of Slackware is that you can upgrade things at will. There are no surprises if you have to go upstream and do the "download/configure/make" dance.

In Ubuntu/RedHat, everything works if you stick to the package system. But if they are too slow (or you need different compile-time options) it's not always easy to "do it yourself". Grabbing a fresh copy from upstream will often break in subtle ways because of changes made by the distributor. (In fact, that's what makes moving between these distros a pain.) They do everything from moving around config files to adding custom patches to changing the name of services! (ssh vs sshd, apache vs httpd).

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

baldridgeec — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 01:35:16 +0000

Wait, I'm wrong - a.out -> ELF was libc4 to libc5. I was going from libc5 to glibc (libc6).