Source
r/linux•
willp

I know I may be throwing myself to the lions with this one, but can I get some unbiased suggestions between Arch and Slackware?

Basically, I've been using Fedora, OpenSUSE, and/or Ubuntu for the past several years (I switch every now and then) and while these are great for getting up and running quickly and doing what I need to do (mainly development) I feel like I've never really learned the true ins and outs of Linux. I've narrowed my choice down to Slackware and Arch but am stuck trying to decide between them. Any useful suggestions?

Posted Aug 25, 2009, 10:28 PM UTC

429
riddley•

Unbiased? No.

9
willpOP•

Upvote for your honesty. How about your biased view, then?

3
riddley•

Well the last time I used slakware was in 1992 and it pretty much sucked then. I have no idea if it's still tarball based or not, but if it is, come on. No really, come on. It may have changed since then, but I'm too busy doing real work to care.

About the only things dumber than tarball-based distros are source-based distros. Anything you can do in a source-based distro you can also do in a package-based distro and in less time. These days there really aren't that many stacks/applications with compile-time options that people really want that are being left off in the official packages and if you're silly enough to think that a compile-time optimization is going to save you any real time, you don't need to save time because you have too much already. There's also nothing stopping you from rebuilding whatever package you might like with whatever options you might like.

I think kids like source-based distros because it makes them feel smart to see all of that compiling whizzing by. Don't just feel smart, be smart. Learning to compile things and how compilers work etc, all important. But running 'emerge' doesn't teach you any of that, it just wastes your time and spuriously strokes your ego.

5
[deleted]•

The packages for slackware are tarballs, but they're still packages. Not everything needs to be compiled from source. Although a lot of stuff does.... A LOT of fuckin' stuff does.

Once you've packaged it yourself though you start building up your own personal repository and this can actually save you a lot of time in the future. If you do it right you "waste" time now to save time later, in the end it all balances out. Unless you update your kernel and find you need to recompile something that's broken.

You sound so damn vindictive about this I can't help but wonder why. I love my slackware box, but it is not a production machine. This is a giant toy to me; I do schoolwork on it too, but most of the projects I work on are personal pet projects that won't necessarily benefit anyone or be considered a productive use of time. Of course, since I've got my personal repository set up, with all the applications I need for any real productivity, or just for messing around, I can safely install slackware on any machine knowing that I can quickly get any real work done.

Gentoo seems like a novelty to me. It's fun to play with but I'd never use it for my main systems.

2
moonhead•

troof. but having more control of what is installed on your system feels good.

1
riddley•

You have absolutely no more control than I do.

3
neoice•

I'm using Gentoo because:

  • I can use grsec
  • it makes compiling my hardware modules a breeze
  • it tends to be more up-to-date than a binary release
  • I'm supremely bored and need things to do while working graveyard shifts.
1
riddley•

why not spend that time learning something that will get you out of that boring job? :)

0
jck•

Arch vs Slackware

The mighty Slackware and Arch are quite similar in that both are simple distributions focused on elegance and minimalism. Slackware is famous for its lack of branding and completely vanilla packages, from the kernel up. Arch typically applies patching only to avoid severe breakage and preserve functionality, if absolutely necessary. Both use BSD-style init scripts. Arch supplies a package management system in pacman which, unlike Slackware's standard tools, offers automatic dependency resolution and allows for easy system upgrades. Slackware users typically prefer their method of manual dependency resolution, citing the level of system control it grants them. Arch is a rolling-release system. Slackware is seen as more conservative in its release cycle, preferring proven stable packages. Arch is more 'bleeding edge' in this respect. Arch offers ABS, an actual ports-like system. The (unofficial) Slackbuild system is very similar to Arch's AUR concept. Slack users will generally be quite comfortable with most aspects of Arch.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_vs_Others#Arch_vs_Slackware

8
moonhead•

basically the difference is arch has a x64 official release and a sweet package manager. slackware's x64 release is not official, and it doesn't really have much of a package manager. so if you like compilan' then slack is the way to go.

it's my favorite distro, but i'm currently on arch because of the lack of x64 for slackware and i'm kinda lazy. when they release slackware 13.0 i'm sure i'll go back.

4
clarky_poo•

Get VirtualBox and install both.

3
calrogman•

Arch is a pain to get working in a virtual environment.

4
glw•

How so?

2
calrogman•

I just downloaded the 2009.08-core-i686 iso and booted it in both QEMU and VirtualBox, in Qemu it freezes here, with VirtualBox it finishes loading the UDev hook and then crashes. Here is a sample from the log.

2
Svenstaro•

Think of it like this: Slackware doesn't provide any kind of package manager, you grab vanilla source packages and install them manually. Gentoo is Slackware with a package manager that does all the grabbing, compiling and dependency resolution for you. Arch Linux is Gentoo but with lots of pre-compiled packages and the most bleeding-edge distro at that.

Of course, that way of comparing isn't really all that accurate but it gives you an overview of the bigger picture. Arch, Gentoo and Slackware users usually have no strong negative opinions on each other but they do have strong opinions on Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse and the like.

Needless to say, I use Arch and I recommend you do as well :)

3
willpOP•

Thank you to you and everyone else who has posted on this. I think I've decided on Arch and am going to try to install it this evening after work if I get the time. Instead of starting a new thread, I'll see what kind of responses I get here: Are there any tips or other bits of information I should be aware of going into the installation?

2
Svenstaro•

Read the Beginner's Guide on the Arch wiki or everyone you ever met will hate you.

4
willpOP•

I've printed it off to use alongside installation. Just wondering if there were any other little things that people ran into during install that I should look out for. If nothing else, I may be back with specific questions later, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a smooth(ish) install. Thanks for your help.

2
Svenstaro•

Arch is a rolling distro and thus the wiki is by concept one of the most recent, best updated resources on a lot of general Linux stuff. Other than that, the Beginner's Guide is especially updated and all things you should watch out for are marked as WARNINGS, HINTS or NOTES. The only thing I can advise you to do is to read everything very carefully and not assume that you know how to do something. Even if it turns out you do, you might learn something new :)

Good luck! Hope to see you in #archlinux, bbs.archlinux.org, the mailing lists or even on AUR.

3
shinynew•

Lets pretend that everything went well on your install and it boots up. All you will be greeted with is a log in prompt. startx will not work, almost nothing that people are accustomed to will work. However thats not all bad. I have been using arch for a couple months now, only a couple weeks of heavy use. You will start to spend a lot of your extra time either

  1. reading current config files and some sort of guide on it
  2. finding new programs to use/learning their config files
  3. getting your computer close to what just about everyone takes for granted (through new programs or config files)

I only got my laptop to auto suspend when I close the lid yesterday and I still plan on getting the media keys to work some time today or tomorrow. That being said I am really starting to hate using other computers. The applications that I use frequently are awesome WM, uzbl, vim and lxterminal. So I have gotten pretty used to being able to use the keyboard for just about anything. It is very painful when I have to use anything vanilla.

2
shinynew•

Also with arch if you run into a package that pacman doesn't have but AUR does you can install yaourt and simply do yaourt -S [package name]

2
[deleted]•

Slackware's package manager is called slackpkg. It also contains an older one called slapt-get which is still used by some of the slackware spinoffs such as Vector Linux.

They both work well. The problem is there are only so many prebuilt packages in the repos.

1
bart9h•

For a server, or a conservative desktop, Slackware all the way.

The great advantage of Arch is the huge amount of incredibly up-to-date packages. The cost of that is stability.

3
Daenyth•

I'm not exactly unbiased, but I did use Slack before coming to Arch. My advice: Just use Arch.

2
[deleted]•

Unbiased? You may be asking too much.

I prefer Slackware myself, but it can take a lot of work to get the desktop set up. When you gotta build with slackbuilds and hunt down all the dependencies and build those with slackbuilds (when they're available) it can get kind of tedious.

Arch is more user friendly in that it has more packages available. yaourt seems pretty cool. All in all I think it's less common that you HAVE to build from source or hunt down your own dependencies than it is in Slackware.

That being said. Slackware is for real men.

Slackware FTW!

2
xaetherxx•

Unbiased? No.

Arch.

1