welcome back

I'm not a school employee. I have a maintenance contract for a modest fee. The school has been one of my first clients back when I created my company in 2009 and installed their initial LAN from scratch. The director is a Linux & FOSS enthusiast and doesn't mind when I use the school's network as a testbed for new configurations.

This is an excellent learning experience for me. Currently there's 80 users in the LAN, and you can't imagine a worse user profile than your average teenager.

Yes I can. Someone like me. Hopelessly inept with computers, but having delusions of grandeur believing he can learn to use Linux and BSD. With the teenagers, your concern would be their whining complaints. If you had to deal with people like me, you would break your nose from too much falce-palming.

Kiki, have you ever tried BSDs as servers?

I tried FreeBSD, and I like it very much. But I also like running the same distro on my servers and on my desktops. And I can't use FreeBSD on the desktop, since my clients throw all kinds of hardware at me, and BSD hardware compatibility is limited, at least compared to Linux. One of the (many) reasons to choose Slackware.

You like doing it just because it is easier to make them communicate or because you just want to get used to one thing?

I like the fact that my Slackware workstation sporting a KDE desktop works exactly like my headless (e. g. no-GUI) LAN server or my public Slackware server under the hood. So when I need to setup a local Apache with a dozen virtual hosts, same routine as on a public machine. Setting up CUPS and sharing a printer is the same everywhere. Need a package that's not included, be it on a server or on a desktop? Just download the build script from SlackBuilds.org or write one from scratch, same procedure on servers and desktops.

Maybe it all boils down to laziness. On the other hand, I do work too much for a lazy person.

Nah, I don't believe that. Back when I worked at the public library, I had a bunch of 70+ year old users who never held a mouse in their life, so first thing I had to teach them was the difference between a right click and a left click. One of my neighbours is an old lady with a natural fear of computers. I installed her my personal blend of Slackware+Xfce, with a reduced set of very large icons on the desktop. I took a couple hours to explain everything to her, beginning with how to turn the thing on and off ("No, don't pull the cord!"). Is that your level?

Praise Bob!
Great news, kiki! Your director will enjoy the return to rock-steady reliability.

Slackware "bloated", as in "fat"? Hmmmm...

Thinking that the other major distributions have somewhere around 10000 packages, Slackware, with around 1000 packages, eventually can be considered anorexic...

After setting everything up, I wrote him a short message yesterday to inquire if everything worked as expected and if there were no major showstoppers. He responded by SMS. "Ça bombarde" = "It rocks".

So I have to thank Slackware for retrieving a sound sleep at night.

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These numbers are mostly due to package splitting. Let's take package foobar. Debian will split that package into foobar-common, foobar-doc, foobar-devel and foobar. Slackware will only give you foobar.

Wow what a thread! I will chime in and mention, as had already been mentioned, that I do not install any of the KDE packages when doing the install. I have a lean XFCE system that does everything I need (with a few added packages from Slackbuilds)

If anything KDE is bloated, not Slackware!

Also, Pat is in fact God of Slackware! Funny story... my wife and I were fantasizing about winning the lottery and how we would spread some of the money around... I said "I would give a real nice sum to Patrick Volkerding" my wife is like "WTH is that??" She of course knows the words "Linux" and "Slackware" from my ramblings and t-shirts but that is about it.

I went on to explain who Pat is and how I have had the pleasure of using Slackware since 1995 and the enormous affect it has had on my life! I am sure there are some saying right now "That guy needs to get a life!" but really, I would not be where I am now, Systems Engineer, without my experience with Slackware. Not to mention the many many hours of fun playing with Slackware!

OK, hows that for thread drift!!! (The above "Funny Story" tied into the Pat is God comments, at least in my twisted mind)

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Slackers never face-palm; slackers have tact: "Those cross-dressed threads certainly don't make you look bloated, dear...."

cheers,

Yes. The effect that Patrick Volkerding has had on my life has been enormous and all good! Literally life changing in the best of ways.

As so many others, I have benefitted greatly from his unique genius and generosity via Slackware. But the steady character of Slackware over so long a time is surely a mirror of the character of the man whose work it is.

Reflected also by the high regard in which he is held by others. Not fickle fanboyism, but genuine respect. It is a wonderful and rare thing to see!

5 members found this post helpful.