@tallship@claudiom I’ve been using the “new geninitrd command” (quote from 15 release notes) on one of my #slackware 15.0 systems. Works for me, but that machine is mostly stock
I don't know who needs to read this, since there are probably 12 #Slackware users out there, but a new version of postfix is out for Slackware 15, with a patch for "smtp-smuggling":
A Linux distribution is a similar concept to a phone’s app store. It allows you to download software that’s pre-vetted. This reduces the chance that it’s malware and allows the different dependencies to work together to reduce redundancy. However, you MAY optionally get software OUTSIDE of the package manager and directly from the software’s developer, through universal systems such as Flatpak, AppImage, or Snaps.
If you get software from OUTSIDE the package manager, then you’ll have double dependencies which takes up space and causes some minor delay in starting up the program. Many in the Linux community argue and debate over if the delay, space, and security issues matter, or if it’s more important to have software that works across distributions and is released faster. The delay on Snaps is worse than others, leading SOME to criticize Ubuntu which heavily uses them. This is why Mint is a fork of Ubuntu but WITHOUT Snaps. Others point out that without universal package managers, it can take YEARS for new software to make it to distributions with slower release cycles such as Ubuntu and Mint.
A Linux distribution is NOT the way Linux LOOKS. That’s the desktop environment! So if you like a distro’s software, you can swap it for any other desktop environment than the default. For example Linux Mint’s “Cinnamon flavor” look, could be put on Debian or anything else! At the end of the day, distros DON’T matter that much and anything is better than Windows… even snaps =)
>"At the end of the day, distros DON’T matter that much and anything is better than Windows… even snaps =)"
That having been said, I'm a firm believer that "Friends don't let friends run ewb00ntew!" Yah, that's kinda a little disparaging tagline I came up with a decade or so ago. I think it's cute, but it does express my sentiments.
I was sooooooooo tired of answering the same question for about twenty years, searching for new ways to say it, and shifting from one fav distro of mine to another, and then back again. But I really failed to acknowledge the need for #n00bs to experience instant gratification to hold their interests long enough to just ditch the #Satan of Redmond (Windows) for that of freedom and privacy in the form of one of the most incredibly steep learning curves I was actually expecting those people to climb after having their questions answered.
#Slackware still tops the list to this day - it is so powerful and.... yes, simple - but that's what us sysadmin's say. Concepts like sbin/lilo and fdisk partitioning or manually editing etc/fstab real quick coz I know what I want as special mountpoints over NFS or whatev.... "OH the Horrror!", is prolly what any of those n00bs seeking to escape the apron strings of #Microsoft likely said, right before making a pinata in my effagy to bludgeon.
#Debian, and I am a proud and self-described Debiantard, isn't (wasn't) really much better back in the day, even with auto provisioning of partitions and the #GUI based install it sported... "non-free-firmware... huh? Why am I looking at a blank terminal with a command prompt's blinking cursor, instead of pretty little windows with a mouse pointer?"
#Arch_Linux, #Gentoo, and others not historically worth mentioning at this time weren't any better, because they were better, and far superior to the semi-n00b-friendly distros at the time. #Redhat 5.0 - 7.22 weren't that bad actually, the newcomer could actually fumble their way past the installation (and even choose the Redneck language for foshizzles and giggles), but like you mention above, obsolescence loomed imminently with gobs of #RPM Hell, especially if you went out to somewhere like RPMfind.net or another place where you could do an rpm -ivf <packagename> and then discover you broke your google... (prolly Alta Vista back in those days), but you could seriously want a really good application and find out that you have to put the lotion on its skin - or at least have a current copy of the AutoTrader to take your mind off the predicament that landed you in the bottom of a pit.
Enter #LMDE... Lemme say that again: Enter LMDE!!!
Now I had something I could recommend to n00bs that split the difference between a rolling distro and a plug & pray installation! All that non-free firmware that was so confusing for so many back then (can't get your display to work, can't this or that and aaarrrrgggghhhhh).
LMDE tracked Debian Testing but installation was as easy as just installing Mint with all of the firmware you needed - people started thanking me twice (they always thanked me once, and then a week later swore to unleash painful, bloody vengeance upon me for burying them in documentation that they could in no way comprehend). The problem, previously, was one of the tenants of my religion - "You can do it right.... Or you can do it twice!"
The truth was, they couldn't even do it AT ALL the first time, and I'm telling them to use a simple distro like Slackware or Debian - nevermind the the 3 stages of Gentoo (They don't even offer those staged platforms anymore, it was too involved for even seasoned aficionados of source based distros).
There was SuSE, but it was as ephemeral as Redhat, and for a while in those early days, I was able to wholeheartedly recommend Mandrake Linux, which had a beautiful DE and easy install, but they went public just prior to that big "POP" of the dotcom bubble and were vaporized.
Yes, When Mint came along I was elated. I could recommend LMDE, and the user could install and easily manage their desktop - and it was a rolling distro too!
Then came the realization by Clément Lefèbvre that without considerable funding there was no way the team could even have a life of their own or watch their kids grow up if they continued to support what was almost effectively two separate, but equally in appearance, distros. I must applaud the Mint team because they did gracefully migrate the LMDE folks back into the mainline Mint over a period of a couple of years.
Then I stopped recommending Linux Mint - "Friends don't let friends run ewb00ntew!"; Remember? Then, a couple of versions back, I caved with the announcement that Clément had decreed those evil "Snaps" would be disabled (If you tell me what you want what you really really want... as the Spice Girls said...). Yes, of course, you could manually enable it - just like Shuttleworth hiimself defended the Shopping Lens malware because the users could simply disable it - Huh? Disable shopping Lens? How in tarnation could a n00bie even know what to look for in the package manager to make that malware go away????
But I digress. If you really wanted to, you can enable Snaps in Linux Mint, but it's disabled by default - and for good reason, as you pointed out. Now, it's been a couple of years since I've looked, coz I no longer can be persuaded to answer that question anymore (um.... Okay, I'm back to recommending Slackware, Debian, or Arch again, but prefer to just set up a laptop for friends and say, "see? Just like Windows, huh?"). But here's what I would really like to see.
Now that non-free-firmware (since the pre-Bookworm vote in the community) is a very easy option in Debian proper, I would really like to see Linux Mint migrate back to a Slick Debian and just fricken' ditch Ubuntu altogether. My thoughts have always been that the firmware was the major issue that prevented them from getting 100% behind the upstream in the first place (I could very well be wrong about that).
Things I like about Ubuntu??? Um..... gimme a sec... Lemme think... Errr...
Byobu
That's it. #Byobu. And IMNSHO, that's really just a pretty skin over #tmux anyway, but it's got some kewl status widgets you can embed at the bottom of the screen. Speaking of #screen, Byobu IS NOT screen - it's tmux underneath, but it does default to ^A instead of the tmux default of ^B, but that's easy enough to change. What I really like about it is that it's a bit more user friendly in that you can customize it for your users and have it AutoStart sessions as soon as they log in - but there I go again, imposing what I think is kewl on people who really just need things as close to point and click on next ==> next ==> next ==> next as we can get it for them.
You see it wasn't all that long ago that even Windows needed an occasion tuning from your local PC Field Tech, much like our pianos do. I see no reason why we can't at least instill the responsibility for having a third party on retainer for quarterly or bi-annual maintenance of our Linux laptops either - I mean, just look how assimilated everyone still running Windows has become since Windows is free to pillage your privacy in the wake of Win10 forced updates?
Well, I'll close now, but did want to mention that your profile's stated mission sounds really refreshing to me - and I might just doing a copypasta of the link to your profile the next time someone asks that age old question.... Which Linux distro should I start off with?.
I want to do some meta packages for people who don’t want to use my pre-builds to make desktop installls easier. And I plan to add lxqt and more software until I reach a point of not being able to keep track of it all. 😂 But just enough stuff to have a decent repo for #slackware-current available. I don’t plan to ever have all that SBo has, just a curated set of things I feel should be available to slackers who choose to live on the edge.
Alright, I’ll do something productive since I took the day off work. Building libreoffice 7.6.3.2 for #slackware#aarch64 and I’ll push the updates I’m sitting on for #nwgshell once I check and ensure I didn’t break any packages.
Today #Slackware introduced kernel 6.6 in its /testing branch. I gave it a whirl, and so far it's behaving nicely. The bad part is that it adds 1 seg to my boot time...
In the early 2000's, #Linux distros had avoided packaging #Xfce because of its closed toolkit roots even though Xfce had been #OpenSource via the GPL since 1999.
#Slackware was the first major distribution to package Xfce at 3.8 in 2002! #Debian followed with Xfce 4.4 in Etch in 2007.
KTOWN: live ISO with Plasma6 Alpha. Also, chromium now supports HEVC/AC3 playback
I have uploaded a 5 GB ISO file containing a new KTOWN variant of Slackware Live. This is the KDE Plasma6 Alpha release. Play around with it and perhaps you will be able to contribute to an improved Beta by finding a
@libreoffice is here on Mastodon to spread the word on the awesome #libreoffice suite of applications. Use the available documentation (written by the community) to improve the quality of your writing, sheets and presentations.
If you are a #Slackware user, be sure to install the libreoffice package I provide for the 15.0 and -current distro versions. These packages are natively compiled on Slackware and fully tap into the power of the OS. Download them from https://slackware.uk/people/alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/ .
What distros have you tried and thought, "Nope, this one's not for me"?
I’ve been using Linux Mint since forever. I’ve never felt a reason to change. But I’m interested in what persuaded others to move.