Mythbusting

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IratumSenem
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Joined: 21. Aug 2017, 18:36

Mythbusting

Post by IratumSenem »

Hello all...

My first post here and I confess that I've not actually installed Salix yet. But I'm the original systemd refugee who's now eyeing Salix as a potential permanent home.

In an entirely different venue, an obviously knowledgeable Salix user indicated that there were many negative myths surrounding Salix.

So, my question to each of you who's willing to respond is this: what do you feel is the one/biggest falsehood that IYO gives Salix a bad rap? (Just to be clear, my interest/focus is exclusively on Salix. "Pure" Slack seems a bit too high maintenance for my personal tastes.)

Afterthought: And I'm not philosophically opposed to more than one answer from anyone who's feeling chatty. (I just don't want to appear greedy in my very first post.)
Last edited by IratumSenem on 21. Aug 2017, 23:29, edited 1 time in total.
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zAchAry
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Re: Mythbusting

Post by zAchAry »

Salix OS does not have to be pure Slackware, and yet I do think that there must be a better compatibility with SBo either by having all dependencies that SBo expects from its users to have, or by providing a complement dependency index file to SBo for Salix OS so that we would not fail building packages from SBo; and also a better mechanism that would detect and prevent package conflict and duplication with the SBo repository is needed.

Personally, I prefer Salix OS over Slackware, but due to the issues above, I use Slackware.
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ChuangTzu
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Re: Mythbusting

Post by ChuangTzu »

That Slackware (and thereby Salix) is difficult, old, outdated, relic of the past etc....Rather than tried, true, proven, battle tested etc....

I like to view Slackware and Salix as the standard Linux, while the other distros have deviated from that standard, but then I am biased.
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IratumSenem
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Joined: 21. Aug 2017, 18:36

Re: Mythbusting

Post by IratumSenem »

ChuangTzu wrote:That Slackware (and thereby Salix) is difficult, old...
No no no. I am difficult, old, etc.
ChuangTzu wrote:...but then I am biased.
Well, for this question, I want biased. Why else post the question here, right?

Thank you for taking time to answer my question.
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mimosa
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Re: Mythbusting

Post by mimosa »

I wasn't aware anyone had anything bad to say about Salix (apart from one or two grouchy longstanding users). It has all the benefits of Slack with dependency resolution and its own additional repositories, plus a carefully tweaked configuration out of the box. The result is even the inexperienced seem to do well with it, though Salix was originally aimed at the "lazy Slacker", that is to say, those perfectly capable of using Slack, who therefore have little to learn from the initial hassle.

I think the only reason it doesn't have more users is because those starting with certain very popular distributions are led to expect more bling - and repositories with tens of thousands of packages, though admittedly, these may be of variable quality.

Why not just try installing it? That should only take five or ten minutes. Or you could give it a spin in a VM.

Be sure to check out the Salix Startup Guide (link on homepage). This is slightly out of date, as documentation will become if left alone, but remains a fair introduction. See especially Chapter 3 on package management.
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Papasot
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Re: Mythbusting

Post by Papasot »

IratumSenem wrote:My first post here and I confess that I've not actually installed Salix yet.
Welcome. If you are interested on Salix you have to at least try it... Installation takes 5 minutes, and there is always the live version, not to mention virtual machines. You have no excuse. :D
IratumSenem wrote:But I'm the original systemd refugee who's now eyeing Salix as a potential permanent home.
You are not alone... Many people came here for the same reason, including me.
So, from personal experience, I can tell you this: I am lazy, but without any previous experience on Salix, it took me about one day to figure out everything I needed, such as learning the packaging system, setting up the system exactly the way I like it, migrating my own libraries in Salix, etc. After that, I felt perfectly at home. That was about 3 years ago, and I didn't look for another distribution since then.
If you need an operating system that woks without any efforts to keep it working, don't look elsewhere. Salix never fails. You just set it up and forget it, until a new Salix version is out, or your hard disk dies.
IratumSenem wrote:what do you feel is the one/biggest falsehood that IYO gives Salix a bad rap?
To be honest, I doubt there are any negative myths about Salix.
I can't think of any flaws worth mentioning..IF I were forced to name one, I'd say Salix is a fixed (not rolling) distro, with all the pros and "cons" that entails. It's rock-solid, but you will only get security updates, so you won't find the latest version of, e.g., GCC or kodi here. However, there are few applications I really need up-to-date, and I found it easy to upgrade them myself. For example, Salix comes with GCC 5.3.0, which is pretty much what most stable distros out there use by default. But if you really need GCC 7.2.0, you can easily install it as a second compiler collection.
A pleasant detail in this forum: several people pick a picture of their pet as their avatar. Who am I to do otherwise? ;-)
IratumSenem
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Re: Mythbusting

Post by IratumSenem »

mimosa wrote:Be sure to check out the Salix Startup Guide (link on homepage). This is slightly out of date, as documentation will become if left alone, but remains a fair introduction. See especially Chapter 3 on package management.
Yeah, I saw that, but I thank you very much for the pointer. If I note any big "disconnects" as I install, I'll keep notes and pass them along.
Papasot wrote:If you are interested on Salix you have to at least try it...
[snip]
You have no excuse. :D
Well, I sorta do, at least in the short term (moribund hardware and extremely limited 'Net connectivity). But these issues will work themselves out over time, and my plan is to give Salix a 30-day opportunity to enchant me.
Papasot wrote:IF I were forced to name one [flaw], I'd say Salix is a fixed (not rolling) distro.
In my mind, a fixed release model is a feature, not a flaw. I've never been impressed with ShinyNew$h!t Syndrome. I'm one of those folks who thinks that "latest" is just an alternate way to spell "buggiest."

At the risk of betraying just how retro I am about such things...

- I ran OS/2 long after it was "discontinued," right up until about 10 years ago. (The cfdisk screen looks spookily familiar!) If OS/2 ran on 21st century hardware, I might still be using it. (And yes, I am aware of Blue Lion, or whatever it's called. But after a decade of disuse, my Warphead urges have atrophied.)

- I'm currently running Debian Wheezy. If Wheezy weren't about to go EOL, I can't honestly say that I'd be particularly motivated to switch. (But it is, so I am.)

- If Salix doesn't work out for whatever reason, I'll probably drop a Devuan respin called exegnulinux on my laptop. Why does this qualify as retro, you may wonder? Because exegnulinux runs Trinity (KDE 3, for you old timers) as its DE.

Thanks for the replies!
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ChuangTzu
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Re: Mythbusting

Post by ChuangTzu »

hmmm, I am sure Trinity could be built for Slackware if you really needed it.

PS: the angry old man, classic. :lol:
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IratumSenem
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Re: Mythbusting

Post by IratumSenem »

ChuangTzu wrote:hmmm, I am sure Trinity could be built for Slackware if you really needed it.
Technically, I don't really need it. KDE4 actually runs OK on my laptop. My plan for Salix is to install using the Fluxbox .iso and then add KDE4.
PS: the angry old man, classic. :lol:
Pleased to remake yer acquaintance. :-)
Last edited by IratumSenem on 23. Aug 2017, 22:30, edited 1 time in total.
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gapan
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Re: Mythbusting

Post by gapan »

Our fluxbox iso is currently 14.1, not 14.2 which is the latest in case you hadn't realized.
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