I was trying my hardest not to comment, but this is a pertinent question, maybe even THE question when discussing Slackware.
It's true that it might seem like an anachronistic distribution in 2012. It was actually the first distro I ever used back in the day when I started running Linux full time and increasingly had to interact with it professionally, and while I've long since moved on to other distros for a myriad of reasons, I wouldn't trade the years I spent running Slack for anything in the world,for a very simple reason, and that is that the old adage is absolutely true: when you run Distro X, you learn Distro X. When you run Slackware you learn Linux.
The whole distro, from the package manager to the init scripts is built around the KISS principle. Take the init scripts for example, they're nowhere near as powerful as, say, Upstart, but they're orders of magnitude easier to troubleshoot, and if you take the time to read through them (and yes, they're actually readable and very well commented) you gain a great working knowledge of how Linux actually boots and gets everything up and running.
The same philosophy applies to every other corner of the distro. Want to learn how to compile stuff on Linux? Take a look at a Slackbuild script, everything is in there. Want to know exactly what goes on during a distro upgrade, like what packages have precendence and so on? Read UPGRADE.TXT (http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/UPG...). I can only dream that even a small percentage of so-called enterprise software I've come across had release notes and upgrade guides this clear and well written.
Another great thing is that they maintain a policy of minimal interference with upstream code. If you come across a bug, you can be fairly sure it's from upstream and not Slackware, instead of having to examine the gazillion patches other distros like Debian and its derivatives introduce into the package.
I could continue to wax poetic about it, but I think I've given you an idea. It's not an exaggeration to say that I probably wouldn't be working in IT today if I hadn't come across Slackware in the before time. It's fun, and if nothing else it's a great learning experience.
The problem, however, is that no other Linux distribution looks like Slackware anymore. Everyone has moved to Sys V init first and then some to Upstart, systemd, and others. Other distributions have sophisticated package managers and source package formats. Other distributions use PAM for authentication.
So, effectively, when you learn Slackware, you learn Slackware. If you have to use Linux in the real world, you might as well learn a widely-used distribution such as a Debian derivative. Or Red Hat if you like suits.
Everyone had moved to sysvinit years ago. The point is not that Slackware did what the other distros did, minus the handholding utilities. The point is that Slackware requires you to figure it out yourself, read documentation, go to the IRC channel, and grep around /etc until you got something working the first time, a skill that will help you with any flavour of Linux--no matter which init system it uses.
Well, I think the biggest argument against Arch or Gentoo (even though I like both and actually am using Arch right now) is that you can't/don't want to use it for a production server.
Frugalware may do a better job for that (if you love Arch Linux, but don't want to use it on production you should give it a look!), but still isn't Slackware.
And with Gentoo. Not trying to start a Distro flamewar, but if someone wants to learn distro independent Linux, then he or she should try his or her hands on LFS. The next best thing after LFS would be Gentoo.
Distro wars was why I was trying my hardest not to comment.
Personally if someone would have put LFS in front of me when I was just starting out with Linux, I would have freaked out. It's just too complex (although not complicated) to get up and running. But it's a good learning experience once you're comfortable with the basics.
As for Arch, it was one of my stops when I migrated away from Slackware, and while it's very similar in some aspects, I feel it has an added layer of fat that's missing from plain Slack and its one man vision of what a distro should be.
YMMV and all that, but IMHO Slackware is a Goldilocks distro. It maximizes learning without the pain of being overly onerous.
Thank you for the post and the comments. I am a new Arch user (having used it for about 6 months now), and while I am happy with it, your comments are making me want to try other bare distros like Slackware or Linux From Scratch.
" the old adage is absolutely true: when you run Distro X, you learn Distro X. When you run Slackware you learn Linux."
Dont you mean, "when you run slackware you learn slackware"? Otherwise the old adage is not true.
With the exception of the ssh keys I can not remember running into a problem that debian introduced into a package. Which packages have you had trouble with in debian?
> Dont you mean, "when you run slackware you learn slackware"? Otherwise the old adage is not true.
No he means what he said. There are no distro specific tools for Slackware. You don't `system-config-network` or `system-config-services`, you edit the config files. You don't run a tool to update which Java runtime is your default, you edit config files, or write a wrapper script for what ever applications need a specific version. Or do both, if you as the admin determine that is the right way to go.
You don't have a tool coming back and undoing your changes because you edited the file instead of using the tool. You're not reliant on a tool to enable or disable an Apache module.
You, as the admin, are the be all and end all. The distro is not second guessing you. There are no special tools to learn in running the system, just vi. That is why it was said when you learn Slackware you learn Linux.
I too ran Slackware in the Way Back When days, and I think it's simplicity helped admins to understand how Linux works, on a more general scale, than user-friendlier distros nowadays might not.
There's a time and a place for both. Simple upgrade mechanisms and scripted/UIed management tools make the OS more accessible to the less hardcore Linux enthusiast; but these benefits come at a price - larger distros, somewhat higher system requirements, some abstraction between what the user wants the system to do and what the system actually needs in order to do it.
I see Slackware used now in very small embedded Linux systems in a few places, and I think I would be hard pressed to come up with a better choice of distro for a limited resource environment (no distro wars argument here, I know there are others that'd fit, I just my opinion from using it).
I am not using Slackware myself, and obviously can't speak for the GP, but I think the old adage means that Slackware is so low level and comes with only the bare minimum, that it forces its users to understand lots of things about linux, as opposite to, say, the package manager of a given distro.
It's true that it might seem like an anachronistic distribution in 2012. It was actually the first distro I ever used back in the day when I started running Linux full time and increasingly had to interact with it professionally, and while I've long since moved on to other distros for a myriad of reasons, I wouldn't trade the years I spent running Slack for anything in the world,for a very simple reason, and that is that the old adage is absolutely true: when you run Distro X, you learn Distro X. When you run Slackware you learn Linux.
The whole distro, from the package manager to the init scripts is built around the KISS principle. Take the init scripts for example, they're nowhere near as powerful as, say, Upstart, but they're orders of magnitude easier to troubleshoot, and if you take the time to read through them (and yes, they're actually readable and very well commented) you gain a great working knowledge of how Linux actually boots and gets everything up and running.
The same philosophy applies to every other corner of the distro. Want to learn how to compile stuff on Linux? Take a look at a Slackbuild script, everything is in there. Want to know exactly what goes on during a distro upgrade, like what packages have precendence and so on? Read UPGRADE.TXT (http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/UPG...). I can only dream that even a small percentage of so-called enterprise software I've come across had release notes and upgrade guides this clear and well written.
Another great thing is that they maintain a policy of minimal interference with upstream code. If you come across a bug, you can be fairly sure it's from upstream and not Slackware, instead of having to examine the gazillion patches other distros like Debian and its derivatives introduce into the package.
I could continue to wax poetic about it, but I think I've given you an idea. It's not an exaggeration to say that I probably wouldn't be working in IT today if I hadn't come across Slackware in the before time. It's fun, and if nothing else it's a great learning experience.