Slackware Live Edition

Re:Slackware Live Edition by jqm on Sunday November 22, 2015 @09:42AM (#10610166)

It's simple so it's somewhat easy to take apart and re-purpose. I was able to use it to build an internet enabled kiosk for instance without a lot of extra weight. It's super stable also so it make a good server. Lack of package management means you won't find it in the standard VM distro line up though.

As for other uses... using it to reply to this comment right now.

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Re:Slackware Live Edition by vezzy-fnord on Sunday November 22, 2015 @10:01AM (#10610221)

Lack of package management

There is no lack of package management. There is a lack of automatic dependency resolution without third-party additions. This is nowhere near as debilitating as often presented by outside observers who have never tried the distribution.

YMMV, but I've ran into circular dependencies and conflicts in addition to configuration updates rendering systems unbootable multiple times on distros like Debian with their non-transactional resolution heuristics that make your life easier, until they don't. Slackware's spartan package management has not failed me once, it's rock solid no matter how much you thrash your file system hierarchy. In addition, when I want to install SlackBuilds, I have never used a more convenient package manager than sbopkg before. Dependencies can be cleanly recorded and built with queuefiles.

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Re:Slackware Live Edition by jsizz on Sunday November 22, 2015 @10:48AM (#10610381)

> I have never used a more convenient package manager than sbopkg before. Dependencies can be cleanly recorded and built with queuefiles.

http://idlemoor.github.io/slackrepo/index.html

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Re:Slackware Live Edition by jqm on Sunday November 22, 2015 @10:51AM (#10610389)

So it does... I mispoke. But it isn't the same as yum or apt-get. (which is ok w/ me).

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Re:Slackware Live Edition by deelowe on Sunday November 22, 2015 @10:42AM (#10610362)

Slack has package management. It doesn't do automatic dependency management. That said, Slack's packages are built in such a way to make dependency resolution relatively painless to the point where it's almost a non-issue.

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Re:Slackware Live Edition by igravious on Sunday November 22, 2015 @11:50AM (#10610571)

Really? How so? How is dependency resolution managed to the point that it's relatively painless without resorting to automatic dependency management? I'm not saying I don't believe you, I'm just curious. Slackware was the first distribution I ever used oh so many moons ago that I've forgotten how it all worked. Ah sweet nostalgia as someone else mentioned.

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Re:Slackware Live Edition by massysett on Sunday November 22, 2015 @12:20PM (#10610668)

Libraries are built as a single package, not split into separate "-dev" packages with headers, so there are fewer packages to manage. Also, these days it's easy to just install the whole of Slackware for a desktop system (when even an SSD is hundreds of gigabytes, a few gigs is no hardship.) So when you do need to build third party applications, your system probably already has what you need. Slackware already comes with a good set of the major libraries, even if they're not GNU (pcre, for example.)

Slackbuilds.org will tell you if one of the packages there has dependencies that aren't in Slackware. Typically installing them is not onerous.

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