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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Who here uses a less popular Linux distribution? What made you choose it? (lemdro.id)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hey fellow Linux enthusiasts! I'm curious to know if any of you use a less popular, obscure or exotic Linux distribution. What motivated you to choose that distribution over the more mainstream ones? I'd love to hear about your experiences and any unique features or benefits that drew you to your chosen distribution.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use Slackware, which is so unpopular it doesn't even show up in this thread, yet.
What made me choose it is the fact that it hardly ever changes, at all. It's a bit weird to set up at first, but all knowledge gained about it will stay relevant for a very long time. Also, it is a real general purpose distro, so I can use it on my gaming PC, laptop and server.

Debian would probably be a better choice when I just take practicability into account, but I like Slackware's philosophy, and running a system that forces me to learn it inside out. Arch is too bleeding edge for me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would love to use Slackware as a daily driver, but no package management OOTB makes me feel I am not worthy of using it. I believe third-party tools exist, so maybe I will use it at some point, but perhaps I'd be better served with Void for now

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In practice, Slackware package management after installation works like Arch's AUR.
You install (or build) packages from a community-maintained repo and are officially supposed to do it manually and always read the build scripts and READMEs, but a helper with dependency resolution (slpkg) exists, works well and most people use it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What do you use? What are some problems you have with Slackware?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use slackpkg+ which is an addon to the default package manager that allows you to install packages from community and third-party repositories.
And sbopkg which gives you a TUI frontend to install Slackbuilds (Slackware-specific build scripts for building from source).
Neither offer dependency resolution, which I don't really need anyway.

Now that I know how Slackware works and what its quirks are, I don't really have any issues with it. But it's pretty hard to figure that out when you're coming from more modern distros. It throws curveballs at you, like not booting after a kernel upgrade if you forget to copy the new kernel to your EFI partition and recreate the initramfs.
Most online documentation is wildly out of date and googling is no help due to how few users there are.
It took a while till I figured out the README files that come preinstalled with the distro are actually the official, up-to-date documentation and very helpful, and also that the place where most users (including the maintainers and author of the distro) gather and answer questions is the linuxquestions.org forum.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How do you install packages without appropriate dependency resolution?

I didn't know about that. I should probably run it in a VM for a while before trying

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You read the package's .dep file, which lists dependencies, add those to your install queue in the right order and then install the queue.
It's not as daunting as it sounds, since the default Slackware installation already includes most common dependencies.
The most dependencies I ever had to install for a package were 3. But if you need a lot of additional software with many dependencies, it's best to do it just once for installing slpkg and then let that tool deal with it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks. I'm probably going to install some software for IOT devices alongside the usual workstation stuff (vim, tmux, browsers, audio, git, htop, a WM with add-ons etc). I'll take a look at slpkg.