[lakerdonald]

Slackware 10.1
MSRP: Free
Score:


Installation
If you don't have a CD Burner, the process of gaining what you need to install Slackware can be a real chore. You have to select your floppy image, select which package sets you want, and either download a lot of data to a seperate partition or do a network install. Even if you do have a CD Burner, however, the official Slackware Mirror doesn't host a pre-made ISO image. If you don't want to make your own CD image from the files provided on the mirror, you'll have to do some Googling.
I was blessed with a CD Burner, and after about five minutes of Googling I had found the two installation CD images.
The Slackware installation program was reminiscient of a FreeBSD install, as it is a curses-like menu interface. Hard drive partitioning, package sets, and initial system configuration are all handled by this installer routine.

Configuration/System Administration
System maintanence, which includes configuration, administration, and installation/removal/updates of packages, is managed by a few core programs. The main one is pkgtool, which provides a curses-like menu where a system administrator can install/remove packages and obtain information on packages currently installed on the system.

From an administrator's standpoint, Slackware is very easy to use. It is quite stable and secure. In fact, I've been working hard trying to break it, but I just can't (short of 'rm -rf /' !) All of the packages in the stable branch have been very heavily tested, and all of the dependencies seem to place nice with eachother. I haven't run into any of the errors of dependency conflicts between two packages that seem to plague RPM-based systems (Fedora, Yoper, SuSe, etc.).
My only gripe about Slackware's package management system is the lack of an automatic package retrieval system that is the core of systems like Gentoo and Debian. There are several third-party utilities (e.g. slapt-get), but I tend to trust first-party system administration tools more than third-party add-ons.

Usage
Installation...check. System Administration...check. The only thing left was to actually, well, use it. I started gdm, and logged into XFCE, which looked beautiful, and started up Firefox and XChat. Several errors later, I realized I had forgotten my wireless card.

Being a CLI-Enthusiast, I Ctrl-Alt-F1'd back to my Virtual Terminal, and I had internet in under a minute. I went back to my X Server, and found the only bug I noticed the entire time: my X Server had a dull, gray tint to it, and there was barely any color. I tried all of the Window Managers I had installed, and upgraded the X Server with pkgtool, but the problem remained. The only way to get rid of it was to restart the X Server, so I learned very quickly to use XFCE's terminal emulator instead.
Other than the snag in the graphics, Slack was a dream to use, and every thing looked very nice.

Bottom Line
Slackware 10.1 can be summarized in two words: stable and secure. I only found one problem with Slack, albeit a major one, which was the X Server. But I'm sure this has something to do with the old laptop I was running it on.
I'd give Slackware 4/5 Penguins, and while most people wouldn't take it as a first distro for novices, I'd recommend Slackware to anybody who's used Linux before and is comfortable with the command line.

-lakerdonald

[AndrewB]

the webserver isnt great in my opinion..
no php support etc etc

But good review andy

[lakerdonald]

Originally Posted by the_guy_dressed_in_black

the webserver isnt great in my opinion..
no php support etc etc

But good review andy

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of binary distros for reasons just like that:
You can't control what features to enable.
But Slack was my favorite of all the binary distros I've tried.

[dylunio]

Yeah, I find that a fair review, I have been using slack until last week for a few months, and rather liked its stability. Though the lack of package managment forced my hand and I went over to gentoo.
I have 10.0 at the moment, though this review temps me to upgrade to 10.1.

[Belial`]

Even if you do have a CD Burner, however, the official Slackware Mirror doesn't host a pre-made ISO image. If you don't want to make your own CD image from the files provided on the mirror, you'll have to do some Googling.
I was blessed with a CD Burner, and after about five minutes of Googling I had found the two installation CD images.

Don't you know there's a whole list of mirrors on the official Slackware site?
http://slackware.com/getslack/
But I do agree that the webserver included in slackware 10.1 isn't that much...

[puntmuts]

You probably installed slackware-current because firefox was not included in 10.1 . Slackware recently made some changes with huge impact and is at the moment probably experimental.
http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=i386

10.1 compared to 10.0 was not a major upgrade. I'm under the impression 10.0 is a better version then 10.1. Slackware 10.1 was not tested very well and misses quite some features:
- a new glibc version 5 days before releasing the final version
- several updates a few minutes before releasing it
- firefox is missing
- kernel 2.4 based
- incomplete and old gnome version
- old apache and php versions

But php support is a matter of editing a configfile. And there are bittorrents for downloading iso images and several mirrors have iso's as well.

Rate of this review: 1/5 penguins

[lakerdonald]

Originally Posted by puntmuts

You probably installed slackware-current because firefox was not included in 10.1 . Slackware recently made some changes with huge impact and is at the moment probably experimental.
http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=i386

10.1 compared to 10.0 was not a major upgrade. I'm under the impression 10.0 is a better version then 10.1. Slackware 10.1 was not tested very well and misses quite some features:
- a new glibc version 5 days before releasing the final version
- several updates a few minutes before releasing it
- firefox is missing
- kernel 2.4 based
- incomplete and old gnome version
- old apache and php versions

But php support is a matter of editing a configfile. And there are bittorrents for downloading iso images and several mirrors have iso's as well.

Rate of this review: 1/5 penguins

I used 10.1, and I installed firefox myself.
Get a life.

[LiNuCe]

Originally Posted by the_guy_dressed_in_black

the webserver isnt great in my opinion.. no php support etc etc

Look at the end of the /etc/apache/httpd.conf configuration file :

# ==> mod_php configuration settings <==
#
# PACKAGES REQUIRED:  openssl-solibs (A series) and/or openssl (N series),
#                     mysql (AP series), gmp (L series), mhash (L series),
#                     and apache (N series)
#
#Include /etc/apache/mod_php.conf

The top of the top is that there is even SSL support :

# ==> mod_ssl configuration settings <==
#
# PACKAGES REQUIRED:  apache (N series) and openssl (N series)
#
#Include /etc/apache/mod_ssl.conf

To find these lines, you have to read the Apache HTTPD configuration file to configure/customize the software before starting a public web server : I think this quite reasonable, as blindly running a public web server is a bad idea.

[lakerdonald]

Originally Posted by LiNuCe

Look at the end of the /etc/apache/httpd.conf configuration file :

# ==> mod_php configuration settings <==
#
# PACKAGES REQUIRED:  openssl-solibs (A series) and/or openssl (N series),
#                     mysql (AP series), gmp (L series), mhash (L series),
#                     and apache (N series)
#
#Include /etc/apache/mod_php.conf

The top of the top is that there is even SSL support :

# ==> mod_ssl configuration settings <==
#
# PACKAGES REQUIRED:  apache (N series) and openssl (N series)
#
#Include /etc/apache/mod_ssl.conf

To find these lines, you have to read the Apache HTTPD configuration file to configure/customize the software before starting a public web server : I think this quite reasonable, as blindly running a public web server is a bad idea.

He said that, not me. What dressed_in_black has to say doesn't necessarily reflect my opinion. Jesus christ you people are worse than slashdot.

[loft306]

Originally Posted by LiNuCe

He said that, not me. What dressed_in_black has to say doesn't necessarily reflect my opinion. Jesus christ you people are worse than slashdot.

heh we try...