Slackware ships with a variety of excellent IM clints. I use xchat and pidgin.
Pidgin will connect to the yahoo network.

Well, I actually use both Ubuntu and Slackware. Slackware on my desktop and Ubuntu Hardy Heron on my laptop. I worry a little about the Linux 'tribes' that form around each distro. I rejoice a little that each distro has a different focus and a different user group in mind.

Andrew

I just can't help myself:

How absolutely weird! My laptop running Debian SID[UNSTABLE] and my desktop running Debian SID[UNSTABLE] are quite stable. Surely I'm doing something wrong because according to you I shouldn't be able to use my computers for anything at all! How do you explain this weird and surely impossible phenomenon which is taking place in my very home?

If I had a penny for every time I heard that. And just what is your understanding of this "Linux" that Slackware makes you learn? If you run Slackware you automatically know how things are done in Ubuntu? You automatically know how to handle Gentoo, Fedora, Arch Linux and openSUSE? Interesting. Oh, you mean `fetch/configure/make/install` works on any distribution? I agree, but you can learn how to do that on Ubuntu too. You think knowing how to add a personally-written initscript in Slackware means you also know how to do it on just about any other distribution out there? Knowing how to create a slackware package means you know how to build packages for any distribution out there? What then? What exactly is Slackware teaching you? ls, cd, mv, rm and others? These can be learned using Ubuntu.

I would really like to hear some explanations from --Mellar--, because I'm interested in what --he-- meant.

You seem to have a real problem with that, judging by every single post you've made in the Slackware forum, and I wonder why you bother. You are possibly the biggest troll on these forums, and it's quite annoying. This whole thread is *mostly* pointless, which is why I haven't replied, but felt the need to ask you why you even bother. You raise some valid points that aren't really very necessary and have been repeated many times, much like the rest of this thread. As for the requirement for using Slackware to learn Linux, it's really a matter of whether or not you want to learn, regardless of the distro. If you want to learn Linux, you can use almost anything. The reason the saying "but running Slackware will make you learn Linux" is actually *somewhat* valid, however, is because Slackware makes *very* few distro-specific alterations, leaving that to upstream maintainers. Everything is very vanilla except when changes are absolutely necessary. This allows you to learn about the widest range of distros in my opinion, since different distros will include different modifications -- it present a vanilla option which acts as an "average" of all distros. That's not really completely accurate, but I think my point is still valid. However, Slackware is equally bad for learning Linux in general because of its lack of PAM, for example. Most distros use PAM, which affects a lot of things -- and you can't learn that using stock Slackware.

The reason I think that phrase is repeated so many times is because Slackware FORCES you to learn about Linux (well, technically you can get by without learning much and just use Slackware's own utilities to get stuff done, but the level of transparency makes it very easy to take it one step further). Of course you can learn Linux on any distro -- you just have to get past the GUI utilities first, which is a major barrier that Slackware doesn't present.

These X distro vs. Y distro threads need to stop. The ONLY way to decide what distro is best for you is to try them out. If you want to learn Linux, learn it. The only distro that would actually force you to learn a lot about Linux is LFS, but it can also be argued that, if you just follow directions to create an LFS installation, you won't really learn much there either. Please stop polluting the forums with this drivel, or at least search before you do.

As a Debian user, I guess you know that when you are pretty close to a new stable release, you will experience less problems with Debian testing and unstable. I used Debian testing and unstable for about one year on my desktop. Sure I'm using the unstable argument a bit stronger than what is reality, but it's that unstable that I don't want to use the system. I often experienced crashes, and it was a lot of work to do with merging old config files with new ones, because of all the updated packages provided by Debian every day.

Some people think Gentoo, Fedora and Ubuntu are stable, and I actually disagree with them. I guess we just have a different opinion on what's stable and what isn't.

Sure you don't learn how to use Debian, Gentoo or Arch specific tools when using Slackware, but you are learning the tools which are provided by its original authors. You do configure xorg with the tools provided by the xorg team, and not dpkg-reconfigure xorg-server. As far as I remember, you don't configure your sound with alsaconf in Debian either. Did you know that system wide desktop environment (or window manager) is set by the xinitrc symlink in /etc/X11/xinit/ ? Another example is apache, which behaves very differently in Debian, because of the changes made by the Debian development team. And actually you learn a lot about the packages by building your own applications, not only how to do a ./configure and make.

I'm sure you can learn most of these things when using Ubuntu, but this is just not the way things are being encouraged to do, which is my argument.

You don't learn how to use sysvinit scripts in Slackware. You are absolutely correct about that one.

Agreed. He's a troll. Don't bother engaging him in a discussion as that is a pointless endeavor. Don't feed the trolls.

I'm a troll? Kissing Slackware's ass and bashing another distribution for no good reason is OK but me asking that person to explain himself is trolling?

Fascinating. Well then you have one less troll to worry about. Bye.

This thread asked the question "Why Do You Recommend Slackware Over Debian Or Ubuntu...?".
It's not surprising that the resultant posts focussed on the positives of Slackware and the negatives of the other distro's as that was inherent in the question, especially so given that it was asked in a Slackware forum mostly frequented by people who prefer the Slackware approach.

The Slackware and debian/ubuntu philosophies are diametrically opposed: simplicity and minimalism on one side, integration and automation on the other. It's really no wonder that we disagree. The trick is to accept that we value different things and not argue about it.

Very well said. I certainly would not and could not take a position about any of these other distros because I use ALL of them for different purposes. The only thing I would say about Slackware is that I am a fan of Slackware because it does not hold my hand through anything and forces me to either find the answer within Slackware itself or somewhere else. This fact has, on more than one occassion, helped me solve a problem in another distro with a solution that I learned from Slack.

Bob

I think this discussion went pretty well. However, before this goes any further, I would like to ask you to not deny people discussing things, you have absolutely no reason or right to do that. And please do not call the troll card. Settling things on the factual level would be better for this discussion and the community in general.
Thanks in advance.

Please accept my apologies! You are correct on this, unSpawn. This won't happen again.
Also my apologies go out to introuble and the other members of the LQ Forum.

hitest

It means that Pat Volkerding doesn't screw with the software he packages with the distribution. The documentation of any package in its generic form is as good as any "Slackware-specific" form would be. As I said, I often encounter people in Emacs forums whose problems are because of Debian's site-start.el. That just doesn't happen with Slackware.

By the way, as I mentioned elsewhere, things work better in Slackware, too. I installed Gnome this week and it's worked better on Slackware (where it's not officially supported) than on Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo or Fedora. That's the power of Slackware.

Joel

Agreed. Speed, stability, and security are hallmarks of Slackware. I also think that Slackware functions better for me than other distros I've tried.

It was the distro I started with for linux, I have learned it and it just feels "right" for me. it poses challenges which I like to figure out and it teaches me more and more each time I use it.

While I think there is general agreement that this thread has long passed any definition of usefulness, (and the OP has moved on with his silly questions to another name and another forum,) in a moment of silliness I read the last page or so.

I've never used Slackware, but I'm convinced that Debian is superior in concept and execution. The killer argument for me is the very political formation that many people feel is Debian's weakness. Slackware shares political style with Ubuntu. It's a benevolent dictatorship. As has often been proven in political schemes everywhere, that model is the best and most efficient until the leader is gone. Debian and Slackware have co-existed since Slackware was just a few weeks old, and Debian will still be the prime force behind FOSS when Slackware is a dimly remembered footnote.

Linking Debian and Ubuntu as some sort of hegemony (Debian/Ubuntu) shows a total lack of understanding about their relationship. Ubuntu is just one of 150 or so active Debian derivatives, and no more significant to Debian than any of the others. It's big, rich, and impossible to ignore, but Debian would not be influenced in any way if it disappeared tomorrow.

Finally, while it is certainly possible for incompetents, like the OP, to get a Debian installation running by simply accepting all the default options presented by the installation media, that is certainly not the Debian ideal. The proper Debian installation consists if a planned, designed system with little or no bloat.

About 3 years ago, I installed a complete Debian desktop system including a core version of Gnome, and OpenOffice Writer and Calc on a P2 with a 6 GB hard drive and 256 RAM. About once a year, I get around it and do some upgrades and minor clean-up, and it performs excellently as a light-office, email, web browsing system for my aunt. After 3 years, there is still almost 4 GB of hard-drive free.

That is Debian's strength. A system designed to be as flexible as it's manager and equally suitable to an idiot manager as a knowledgeable and efficient one. I must admit that I am often irritated by the hopeless incompetents that are able to successfully install Debian, then hang around forums asking dumb questions, but for the most part, I have learned to ignore them, secure in the knowledge that before long they'll move on to the next stage of their bothersome lives.