Should I choose Slackware or Arch as my first distro?

atriya · 2008-09-09 12:44:44

I'm just starting out with Linux, but as a advanced OS X user I'm no newcomer to UNIX. Also, I'm majoring in computer science, so I can't afford to shy away from technicalities, nor would I want to. As such, I want to learn from ground up; I don't want a 'user-friendly' distribution to hold my hand - rather a system that'll teach me linux internals as I work with it. Minimalism, and structural simplicity & elegance are important. At the same time, I don't want a source based distro like Gentoo (and definitely not LFS). Maybe later, but not now.

That said, two distro's I'm considering are Arch Linux and Slackware. The Arch developers have made their philosophy very clear on their website, and everything fits in with my ideas very well. It's also a modern, bleeding edge rolling release system, with a good package manager and repositories - all of which are BIG plus points in my eyes. I also love the fact that I start with a minimal system and then build on it as required - I HATE bloat, and systems filled with stuff I didn't ask for, don't understand and can't use; I like keeping everything under control.

However, I hear of Arch's 'non-standard' configuration methods. I don't want to learn Linux in a manner that's specific to Arch, or any other distro. That means I'll have to unlearn things later. Then I heard the saying 'Study distroxyz and you'll learn distroxyz, but study Slackware and you'll learn Linux'. That's EXACTLY what I want to do - learn Linux. I've briefly tried both distros and both 'feel' good, though Arch seems easier to use - due to the centralized configuration and pacman. But 'easy to use' is of course, not my priority.

So what do you folks make of this? I've been trying to make up my mind for about two weeks, and really must make a choice now. Please advise. And PLEASE don't tell me to continue with both, that would almost count as bloat in my book.

Thanks in advance.

sand_man · 2008-09-09 13:16:22

"However, I hear of Arch's 'non-standard' configuration methods. I don't want to learn Linux in a manner that's specific to Arch, or any other distro."

This is just not true. Arch uses BSD style init scripts but this is not 'non-standard'. Also, all Linux distros have their differences. You will learn different things using different distros.
Try Arch and you won't regret it.
Oh and nobody here is going to tell you to use Slackware just like nobody on the Slackware forum is going to tell you to use Arch

Cerebral · 2008-09-09 13:26:44

I haven't really ever used Slackware, so I can't speak from a perspective of "both-sides-of-the-fence", but the saying "Study DistroX and you'll learn DistroX, but study Slack and you'll learn Linux" seems kind of.. odd to me. If Slack is the only distro on which you'll learn "Linux", then how is that knowledge transferable at all? If the knowledge is not transferable to other distros, then how are you really "learning Linux"? Meh, maybe I'm overthinking it.

Anyway, taking a look at the Wiki comparison page, it seems the Arch and Slack use similar system configuration methods (BSD-style init, essentially) which many other distros don't use (usually they use SysV init). The main difference, as far as learning Linux, between the distros would seem to be their package management - while we use pacman, Slackware uses whatever Slackware uses, which isn't pacman.

Otherwise, we both use fairly vanilla packages, which means the per-package configuration will be very similar between the distros. Seems to me the choice is really down to which you prefer in the end.

Hopefully someone with more experience on both distros can help out a bit more.

Cerebral · 2008-09-09 13:28:34

sand_man wrote:

Oh and nobody here is going to tell you to use Slackware just like nobody on the Slackware forum is going to tell you to use Arch

Actually, I kind of like how often people around here will NOT recommend Arch - we have a pretty good idea who would enjoy the distro and who wouldn't, and don't just go around blasting "Arch is the best" everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more "choose whichever you're liking the most" posts than flat-out "Arch rulez!" posts.

ralvez · 2008-09-09 13:31:15

It has been said many times before that "Slackware is as friendly as a rattle snake but once it is set up is rock solid".
I used it for may years and I must say that the "snake" thing it not that true but the rock solid is. If you want to learn all the dirty details, including compiling your our applications, that's the way to go.
Arch is rock solid too, but pacman conveniently deals with your applications and their dependencies so that you do not see that part. I have been with Arch a few years now and I love it but if what you want is a distribution to experiment and learn I think Slackware will not disappoint you.

R.

moljac024 · 2008-09-09 13:36:55

Xyne wrote:

As sand_man pointed out, people here will tell you to use Arch, people over at Slackware will tell you to use Slackware. If, all things considered, you really can't choose... just flip a coin.
Then choose Arch

Exacly.

Heads - Arch

Tails 3 times in a row - Slackware

byte · 2008-09-09 13:42:50

I started with Slackware and I would say, it's better suited _IF_ you are the explorer guy, digging through the filesystem, reading every README and ChangeLog that comes by, especially the stuff on the CD/DVD/FTP (ideally before installing).
It's a bit more barebones than Arch and there are packages that haven't been recompiled for 5 years or more, but on the other hand it's also very verbose (comments in SlackBuilds and config files, package descriptions, /usr/share/doc etc).

X/ax · 2008-09-09 13:55:07

I'd recommend using slack for 2 months, discover that maintaining the os is a bitch, and flip to arch in the end.
Slack and Arch are very similar actually, the diffirence is that arch doesn't want to be a bitch on updating. You can still (at your own risk) compile all the stuff yourself, or use pacman to do the maintainance for you.

In the end though, it's all to your own liking, I'd say hit both linux distro's as hard as you can, and perhaps you'll find that none of both is the one you're really looking for...

dav7 · 2008-09-09 13:55:51

All I can recommend to you is this: you might like to learn Linux, and this will be awesome if you want to learn how this UNIX derivative works and will be especially helpful if you want to be a kernel hacker or make your own distro... BUT.

Right now, you're starting with Linux. You already know about UNIX - or rather, you know about how Apple took the Mach kernel (Darwin) and overlaid an entire system of frameworks on top of it.

Freedom is freedom, but when it comes to creative works, it's hard to make that freedom seem like freedom to more than one person, and especially in the case of operative derivative works.

Unix is in itself a freedom, a theoretically perfect specification (within the finite bounds of the specification itself and the decisions that created it at AT&T).
Apple took the Mach kernel, a system based on the UNIX specification. Mach came with its own nuances and took away certain freedoms by its design implementation, and Apple built on top of that, further introducing their (Apple's) own nuances.
On the other hand, Linus Torvalds took the bare UNIX specification and wrote what, to him, was a good implementation of it, taking away certain freedoms as he implementation took shape as well.
BSD did roughly the same.

Therefore, Linux, BSD, and Darwin all have their own differences. These can range from kernel issues to changes in the /proc filesystem to the way the applications work. So you'll have some adjusting to do.

On top of that, when you use a Linux distro, it's configured in such a way that the original distribution developer saw fit. If whoever came up with the design goals had his head on right, a pile of users will agree that they think his ideas are actually awesome, and use the distro too. They accept what can't be changed in return for what can be changed. Arch Linux focuses on simplicity and keeping up to date. One of the freedoms that are taken away here is that you will have serious problems if you don't accept keeping the kernel version up to date - if you "lock" the kernel package, sooner or later, something will break because XYZ package depends on the latest kernel (or depends on something which depends on something else which depends on the latest kernel)... which isn't installed.

Let's take Debian as an example. The developer who initially created it had the freedom to do whatever he wanted within reason, but once the design began to harden in stone and settle, Debian users couldn't randomly change the way the system starts up and loads drivers, for example, because the system is configured in such a way that it depends on the way it currently loads drivers. With Linux, in my opinion, "the system" works by both using freedom and taking it away at the same time - but some freedom is still there, in areas the developers have left untouched, for example in package selection. But there is already some guidelines and non-freedom laid down, which all users must accept and abide by in order to use the system.

However, at the end of the day, no amount of distros can take away your freedom of choice, so you can choose which system you want to use, but with the number of systems out there, it's hard to know which one to use.

The type of choice made depends on a number of things, in my opinion. Personal preference(s), application (what the end result will be used for), situation (what the end result will actually perform as a task), and preemptation of yourself (what you might be likely to do in the future) name a few.

* If the application is a production server environment, a good choice is a distro such as Debian, CentOS or maybe even Slackware, and even Ubuntu, with its Server edition - have (re)defined or used good usage paradigms and created a system that people can use and use well, in a server environment. Extra configuration that keeps the system up to date with security-related packages, but keeps everything else at set versions for stability, can be a good idea. Debian isn't very good at keeping up to date, while Arch is a little overoptimistic about keeping EVERYTHING up to date. In case you didn't know, Arch has unstable and testing repositories. So it's a balance to find which one works the best for you.
* If the application is a desktop environment, everything probably wants to stay relatively up to date - Arch excels here, and if the user isn't technically initiated, a user-friendly distro might be wanted - Ubuntu excels here - it's a good base system that can be used well in a consumer/desktop environment.

Different systems are used for different things.

So in short, think about where you might want to head. Do you want to get into servers? Or creating/working on a Linux distro in your spare time? Or do you want to get a base knowledge of how the Linux "concept fork" of the UNIX kernel does its thing?

* If you want to head in the direction of the server IT market, learn Debian and CentOS and all the other "popular" stuff first. People use the Oracle database in the industry because it's like a sports car - it's 98% brand name, 2% functionality. From what I've seen, the two aforementioned systems are the brand name of the server industry. So learn those first, and get to know those. Then take it from there.

* If you want to make your own Linux distro, I recommend Arch because I'm biased and it's the only distro I've ever used yet (I only learnt about Linux 2 1/2 years ago or so, and got my first setup around 6 months ago), but try to keep yourself alienated from rc.conf and mkinitcpio and other Arch-specific stuff you'll find here and there. Because you come from a UNIX background you will find differences, so your first port of call when you find something a little out of place is to find out if the difference is kernel-related or Arch-related. If it's kernel-related remember it as a "standard" thing, otherwise an "Arch-proprietary" thing. After you feel like you've had enough of all that (which shouldn't take too long), download everything to build LFS and have at it. When you come to issues like "wow, how does the system figure out how to load all the different drivers at startup?", try to see how different systems handle issues and get an overall view from there.

That's all I can think of for now. Hope it helps.

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-09-09 13:56:53)

Misfit138 · 2008-09-09 14:16:25

I must say that between Arch and Slack, you really can't go wrong.

A few observations:
*Both are of the highest quality.
How many distros can you name that offer the quality that Slack and Arch offer? So-called 'newbie' distros cannot, by their nature, provide such quality and minimalism.
*Slack's solid stability is mainly due to being vanilla, and 'not bleeding-edge'.
A Slack system, once it's setup remains quite 'static'- nothing changes unless you change it.
*Slack requires more hands-on, manual system maintenance.
Arch has more expedient methods of system upgrade, so this comes down to a personality type preference. It depends on your style of usage.
*Arch has many more packages and an official ports system. Adding software in Arch is a no-brainer.
Slackbuilds are nice, but I tend to prefer the more comprehensive pacman and ABS tree on the local machine to the more "Windows-esque' style of searching remote repos through a web interface to add common software.
*System configuration tasks require virtually identical considerations on both distros.
No official GUI tools.
*Both are 'what you make them'
IMHO Arch offers a more comprehensive method of installation, wherein the end-user is aware of, and configures, all pertinent configs along the way, whereas Slack's installer will buzz right through such tasks, throwing a large amount of software from the DVD onto the machine. Again, this comes down to preference, though.
If you feel that most of what makes a distro useful is the pure prolific ability of the installer to jam a complete system onto a harddrive, then Slack may be more appealing.
I'll repeat what I said above. You can't go wrong with Arch or Slack. Both offer their own versions of what they consider minimalist, so it comes down to preference. Invariably, it will be your own personality and computing style which will dictate which is best for you.
As for "If you learn Slack, you learn GNU/Linux.":
It is catchy, and I do love Slack, but it's not true. If you learn Slack, or Arch, you will be pretty well prepared to take on almost any other distro, but they all offer some very unique idiosyncrasies which will require learning and adaptation.
Slack adheres 'very closely' to the FHS...but ALL distros adhere 'closely'. If they didn't, would they even be recognizable as UNIX-like in the first place? Arch adheres closely too, and the subtle differences will not be show-stoppers for you.
Enjoy.

moljac024 · 2008-09-09 14:23:20

Can slackware be installed as a minimal install ? Without KDE and the whole DVD pack ?

Because I can't find such a download on their site. So that's one plus for arch - no need to waste all that bandwidth...

.:B:. · 2008-09-09 15:12:01

Arch is bound to be bulkier than Slack. Slack is very lightweight, Most Arch packages have a lot of deps hardcoded (that's the drawback of binary distros). However, Slackware's package management is ancient - it should have died long ago. People try to patch it up all the time but it's just lacking. Arch, on the other hand, has great package management.

dhave · 2008-09-09 15:16:41

Both. Use one for a few months, get up to speed, then try the other for a few months, then settle on one of them. Switching from one distro to another isn't a huge ordeal.

For learning Linux, I think Slack or Arch would be equally good, for different reasons, pretty much all of which are brought out in other posts in this thread. But the two have enough differences that it will be good to plan on using both of them.

For learning purposes, one slight edge that Slack has is that new packages are often accompanied by comments in the changelog that explain the rationale for an update. For example, look at these recent entries:

Tue Sep 2 15:26:09 CDT 2008
xap/pidgin-2.5.1-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to pidgin-2.5.1.
+--------------------------+
Tue Sep 2 02:11:27 CDT 2008
n/samba-3.2.3-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to samba-3.2.3. This fixes a security
issue where group_mapping.ldb was accidentally chmod 666 (only in -current,
as all previous Slackware versions use the Samba 3.0.x branch which is not
affected). This build also adds the mount.smbfs wrapper script for
mount.cifs, and a link to the wrapper from /usr/bin/smbmount. This may
fix some of the issues that people were having mounting SMB filesystems.
Note that SMBFS is considered obsolete now, and using mount.smbfs really
isn't any different in function using the wrapper than using mount.cifs
directly. For more information on the security issue, see:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cg … -2008-3789
(* Security fix *)
Since this security issue only affects the unreleased development branch,
(aka -current) this ChangeLog comment is the official notification.
For those using older versions of Slackware, many of them got bugfix
updates to the 3.0.x branch. Check the new packages out -- they should
correct some stability issues.
+--------------------------+
Thu Aug 28 15:11:39 CDT 2008
kde/koffice-1.6.3-i486-6.tgz: Patched KOffice to write ODT elements in the
correct order according to specs. This issue was first noticed by Giovanni
Venturi while moving ODT documents between OOo and KWord. Thanks to
Giovanni Venturi for pointing out the patch in KOffice's SVN.
+--------------------------+
Wed Aug 27 21:01:25 CDT 2008
A couple of things slipped through the cracks with that last update. An old
patch was applied to kdenetwork making that build fail. Once that was fixed
kdetoys (previously missing) built correctly. Perhaps it needed a header file
or library from kdenetwork. Sorry about that, and thanks to
Willy Sudiarto Raharjo and Corrado Franco for pointing out the omissions.
kde/kdenetwork-3.5.10-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to kdenetwork-3.5.10.
kde/kdetoys-3.5.10-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to kdetoys-3.5.10.

You can learn a lot from this stuff.

I'd say start with Slack, but that's probably just because that's what I did.

Daenyth · 2008-09-09 17:40:01

I've used both slackware and arch, and the only thing slack will teach you that arch will not is how to compile programs. Slackware _IS_ a source-based distro. If you want commercially applicable linux skills I would recommend learning debian and red hat/fedora core.

dhave · 2008-09-09 17:49:57

Daenyth wrote:

I've used both slackware and arch, and the only thing slack will teach you that arch will not is how to compile programs. Slackware _IS_ a source-based distro. If you want commercially applicable linux skills I would recommend learning debian and red hat/fedora core.

I don't think of Slackware as a source-based distro. As distributed, it's a collection of pre-built and pre-tested packages. It's true that most users find themselves compiling from source from time to time (or even a lot), but that's only because the desired pre-built packages aren't available, or the user wants to tweak something in the config.

rsambuca · 2008-09-09 18:01:52

I am certainly not a linux master by any means, but since I started fiddling with linux 2 years ago, I have sampled many distros, and now have my hard drive partitioned so that I can have 7 installed at any one time (although I usually keep one as my 'main' distro).

What I have discovered as I learn more and more, is that basically all of the distros are the same under the hood, whether they be arch, slack, ubuntu, gentoo... They all run a linux kernel, they load modules, they run daemons, you slap on a Window Manager/Desktop Environment for a GUI interface, and you are done. Now some load modules from the rc.conf, some from other places, but in the end, the basis is the same. The system looks to a particular file to load modules.
In the end, you can learn these basics whether you are running Ubuntu or Linux From Scratch.

The places where the distros really distinguish themselves is in package management and the communities themselves. Arch uses pacman, gentoo has portage, Debian has apt-get... I have found pacman to be excellent, and Arch is quickly on its way to becoming my 'main' distro. The community is very friendly as well. So in the end, pick one, and you will have transferrable knowledge. Don't make picking a distro such a big deal.

lang2 · 2008-09-09 18:11:33

Slackware is good in its own way, but it's sorta loosing its meaning in today's Linux world (desktop at least):
- No decent package management. It probably is the only distro in the world that doesn't do dependency checking. The reason is probably valid back in RH days but not really any more.
- Bit harder to configure than Arch, less out-of-the-box configuration
- No active user base
- No replacement for ABS/AUR. I know some guy developed pkgport or something like that but from what I can see, there isn't enough user base.

If you're prepared to get hands dirty and RTFM and spend time compiling source code then there is no reason Slackware won't do it for you. Otherwise Arch will be your choice, IMHO.

lucke · 2008-09-09 18:17:14

For one, Arch's documentation (wiki) and community (forum, ML or irc) should get you through any possible problems, answer any questions and introduce you to the world of Linux software.

Arkane · 2008-09-09 18:32:29

Actually, I'm kind of curious about what Slackers have to say on this. If you've also posted this on the Slack forums (or mailing lists, or whatever - I actually don't know how you contact the slackware community), would you mind giving us a link to it once you're done choosing?

Sorry I can't help much in answering you since I've never used Slackware. I can only stress how helpful, efficient and fun the Arch community is in my eyes. Actually, while many distros claim to be "community-based" Arch is the only one that really feels like it to me.

Also, another thing that hasn't been mentioned is the fact that Arch (by default) removes most documentation besides man pages from packages in order to save space. It's actually not a big deal at all, because recreating the package with documentation included is as straightforward as it gets, not to mention you usually read documentation online anyway, but if you like fiddling with your laptop on the train with no internet and without having planned ahead you might get annoyed at it sometimes (I do, but then I remember I probably wouldn't be able to squeeze the full OS on my 4GB SSD if the doc was there).

EDIT: yay 7th edit :)

Last edited by Arkane (2008-09-09 19:05:12)

freakcode · 2008-09-09 18:36:46

'Study distroxyz and you'll learn distroxyz, but study Slackware and you'll learn Linux'

They say that because Slackware have low to zero features, so it's pretty barebones, and as so, you're supposedly to know your way around to make it work. I used Slackware back in 2003, but as of today, I find it too archaic for daily use, and too much centralized development - Arch superseded it in my opinion.

That's EXACTLY what I want to do - learn Linux.

That statement is false - every decent distro is an OS on itself. There are similarities: all use some version of the Linux kernel, majority use GNU userland tools, they run the the same software (Apache, Gnome, KDE, Firefox, etc.)... but similarities end here. Most distros include their own software/package management tools, configuration or auto-configuration tools, and so on - even Slackware. Others change radically the layout strucuture or the way applications are installed - see Gobo Linux. So it varies a lot.

If you really, really wanna PLAY with the penguin's guts, I would recommend not even Slackware, but Linux From Scratch. OTH, if you wanna USE a Linux-based OS, and learn the Linux software stack on the go, I would recommend Arch.

Last edited by freakcode (2008-09-09 18:44:54)

KimTjik · 2008-09-09 19:20:19

I don't understand what's going on, but sir Volkerding is going mayhem nowadays! I mean we were running the 2.4 kernel so long it felt like we all had become eremites. And what about now? KDE 4 is available for testing! Has he gone totally mad?

Seriously, I think many of us have a sweat spot for Slackware. Just the fact that it still is going strong, rock stable, makes you think that we already enjoy eternal life, at least Patrick. Anyway, Slackware is what got me starting to discover Linux so I'll always be grateful and I would probably still use it if it weren't for Arch.

About source and binary: Slackware is a binary as Arch, there's just no tools to check dependencies. It pretty easy however to find packages, party thanks to an Italian Slackware repository.

Arkane · 2008-09-09 20:54:18

KimTjik wrote:

I think many of us have a sweat spot for Slackware.

I love this typo.

KimTjik · 2008-09-09 21:38:59

I love it too, so I let it stand. It actually could be interpreted in many ways... like dependency checks turn out to be dependency hell. Hot and sweaty!

Last edited by KimTjik (2008-09-09 21:39:18)

atriya · 2008-09-10 01:21:57

Thanks everybody. Your replies have been of tremendous help. I'm still fiddling around with both distros trying to make a choice, but I now know much more than I did before. And another plus point for Arch - a fantastic user community! In response to Arkane's request, yes I did post the question in a Slacker-heavy forum. Here's the link:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions … ro-668575/

smakked · 2008-09-10 08:07:52

If you really want to learn the ins and out i suggest LFS http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ i am giving it a go now and it is an awesome learning tool. But you will need a spare machine to set it up on.

Arch Linux

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Should I choose Slackware or Arch as my first distro?

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