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SlackWare Linux

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Author:      int16h
Submitted:      01-Jan-1970 01:00:00
Imported From:      zZine (original author: Vengapir8)


Slackware Linux was first released in 1993 and aimed to be simple, stable and comply with Linux standards. It's traditionally known as the most UNIX-like Linux distribution, but there has been a few competitors for that title recently.
Target audience and usage

The types of people who are most probable to use/like Slackware are power-users.. Possibly people who like the simplicity and stability of *BSD Operating Systems, but want the flexibility and hardware compatibility of Linux. Slackware is generally used as a Workstation/Desktop distribution, ranging from users who like a graphical workstation to people who prefer to work solely on a text terminal.

Pros, Cons & Features

Slackware is an ideal choice for any specification of x86 hardware,and other architectures too. It's very easy and flexible to install with the FreeBSD-like curses installer, and software management is simple using the pkgtools. The Slackware package format is very portable, since it isn't unique like Redhat's RPM or Debian's DEB format; The package files are merely a Gzipped tar archive of the directory tree of files needed for the package to run (installpkg
basically de-archives the package in the root (/) of the system).

One downside for many people is that it isn't possible to install all packages and compile an initial kernel from source during install-time.

Slackware nowadays comes with a good-sized array of software, and modern features that you'd expect from the more user-friendly distributions. You now have the choice of KDE, Gnome and some lighter window-managers for X(org), but of course the stable and traditional packages are all there.

This article was originally published by CyberArmy.net in the CyberArmy Library.

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