thelinuxlink.net

In just 2 weeks from today, the one and only Patrick Volkerding, creator of the legendary Slackware Linux will be making his first appearance on the Tech Show. This is sure to be a monumental episode, so I was thinking we could post some questions for him!

- What are your plans on supporting the AMD64 architecture? Do you see Slamd64 becoming an official port in the future?

- Will you be dropping the 2.4 kernel entirely for the next release of Slackware?

- What are your thoughts on the GPL3?

thats l33t. I just downloaded the 3.6gb dvd image (at work ). 2.4 kernel forever!!!!

- will Slackware ever include a default package management tool that handles dependencies?
- have you ever been approached to sell Slackware to a commercial entity?
- will you hever "hand over" Slackware to another project lead?
- besides yourself, how many people contribute to Slackware

Even though I'm currently not running Slackware I'm pretty psyched to be talking to Pat V. The man is a legend and he rarely does interviews. When was the last time you actually heard his voice?

Patrick wrote:- will Slackware ever include a default package management tool that handles dependencies?

How about NetBSD's pkgsrc? It's a portable system that can run on BSD, Linux and other UNIXes too.

Even as an unsupported option, I could imagine pkgsrc being a pretty good fit for Slackware (Just imagining here, I'm not a Slackware expert), because you don't have to just trash the tradditional package format, you could be a very transitional path to something new.



Linc, you've used NetBSD for a while, what do you think of the idea of pkgsrc as package management on Slackware?
(I know I know, Slackware doesn't need something like this, but still, how about it?)

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Patrick wrote:- will Slackware ever include a default package management tool that handles dependencies?

How about NetBSD's pkgsrc? It's a portable system that can run on BSD, Linux and other UNIXes too.

Even as an unsupported option, I could imagine pkgsrc being a pretty good fit for Slackware (Just imagining here, I'm not a Slackware expert), because you don't have to just trash the tradditional package format, you could be a very transitional path to something new.



Linc, you've used NetBSD for a while, what do you think of the idea of pkgsrc as package management on Slackware?
(I know I know, Slackware doesn't need something like this, but still, how about it?)

Actually, I think pkgsrc is a pain to use. It's a slow package management system, similar to gentoo's. What I would really like to see on Slackware is Arch's Pacman system. Something quick with binary packages. i wish I had the time/money/resources. I'd set one up myself.

Yes, this is very cool. There is an audio interview of PV from about 2000 or 2001 floating around out there on the net somewhere. I have listened to it and it's pretty cool, and is probably the last time he gave an audio interview.

Anyway, here are a few more questions for consideration:

- Would he ever add to the setup utility, e.g., adding an X configuration step
- Even though the "huge26.s" kernel is an officially supported kernel that is available during initial boot and installation, why does the setup utility not install the huge26.s modules? That seems to be a recurring problem for new Slackware users who don't know to read the setup text files on the install DVD/CD.
- His wife, Andrea, handled some the kernel compilations in -current in the run up to Slackware 11. What is her official role, if any? Will she be handling all of the kernels in an official capacity or is she just helping out from time to time?
- Currently, Patrick and the Slack Sec Team out of Brazil are providing official security patches for v8.1, released in 2002. Is there an official policy on the life-span of Slackware releases vis-a-vis security updates?
- Eric Hamleers (aka "Alien Bob") a long time Slackware user who hosts stuff on the Slackware site (see http://www.slackware.com/~alien), has done some great stuff with the wireless scripts and his wpa_supplicant has made it to /testing. What plans are there to further refine the wifi scripts? I like how Arch linux has the idea of network profiles, which can call up an ncurses dialog box where you can select from various pre-configured network profiles. Would Slackware do something like this?
- Eric has also made some cool usb/pxe/mini-iso alternative installers for Slackware. Are there any plans to officially support these?

Linc wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Patrick wrote:- will Slackware ever include a default package management tool that handles dependencies?

How about NetBSD's pkgsrc? It's a portable system that can run on BSD, Linux and other UNIXes too.

Even as an unsupported option, I could imagine pkgsrc being a pretty good fit for Slackware (Just imagining here, I'm not a Slackware expert), because you don't have to just trash the tradditional package format, you could be a very transitional path to something new.



Linc, you've used NetBSD for a while, what do you think of the idea of pkgsrc as package management on Slackware?
(I know I know, Slackware doesn't need something like this, but still, how about it?)

Actually, I think pkgsrc is a pain to use. It's a slow package management system, similar to gentoo's. What I would really like to see on Slackware is Arch's Pacman system. Something quick with binary packages. i wish I had the time/money/resources. I'd set one up myself.

Doesn't pkgsrc have a binary package component to it? I read on Wikipedia that it does.

Linc wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Patrick wrote:- will Slackware ever include a default package management tool that handles dependencies?

How about NetBSD's pkgsrc? It's a portable system that can run on BSD, Linux and other UNIXes too.

Even as an unsupported option, I could imagine pkgsrc being a pretty good fit for Slackware (Just imagining here, I'm not a Slackware expert), because you don't have to just trash the tradditional package format, you could be a very transitional path to something new.



Linc, you've used NetBSD for a while, what do you think of the idea of pkgsrc as package management on Slackware?
(I know I know, Slackware doesn't need something like this, but still, how about it?)

Actually, I think pkgsrc is a pain to use. It's a slow package management system, similar to gentoo's. What I would really like to see on Slackware is Arch's Pacman system. Something quick with binary packages. i wish I had the time/money/resources. I'd set one up myself.

Have you ever tried Frugalware? It's basically Arch's Pacman + Slackware, with i686 optimized packages. I gave the most recent release a try last month, and it was pretty solid. It's still at version 0.5, and it shows, but I think you'd really like it.

Tsuroerusu wrote: Doesn't pkgsrc have a binary package component to it? I read on Wikipedia that it does.

Yes, but it doesn't function like it should.

Wally Balljacker wrote: Have you ever tried Frugalware? It's basically Arch's Pacman + Slackware, with i686 optimized packages. I gave the most recent release a try last month, and it was pretty solid. It's still at version 0.5, and it shows, but I think you'd really like it.

I was going to but I ran into some people saying that the newest release wouldn't install correctly, so I held off for a bit. If they can get things squared away it'll be a force to contend with I am sure.

Frugal is sweet. I had a horrendous time getting .5 installed though. I also cannot figure out where the community communicates - the boards are basically dead, and so are the mailing lists, and the WIKI is fairly (extremely) lean. They do have very good install and FrugalBuild docs, though, and the level of polish on the distro is surprising. I did a more thorough review on my blog. I've discovered that tracking -current is probably not a good idea if you have any hopes of stability, though.

Linc wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote: Doesn't pkgsrc have a binary package component to it? I read on Wikipedia that it does.

Yes, but it doesn't function like it should.

I see.

Just curious, what is it that doesn't work? Plus if it was fixed, would pkgsrc then be a good system to use on Slackware?

Sorry about the asking, but if you don't ask you never learn, right?

Wow!!! Great news. This will be an epic show. I may have to come home from work early (west coast) to jump on the irc for that one...

My questions would be more off Slack:
What do you do when you're not working on Slack?
What is your take on some of the popular distros of the day?
What kind of beer do you drink.....

Just random stuff like that....

.. oh yeah, and of course, what is your favorite editor

Ruhar wrote:.. oh yeah, and of course, what is your favorite editor

Linc's favorite subject!

I don't think you have to worry about that one not being brought up.

Tsuroerusu wrote: Just curious, what is it that doesn't work? Plus if it was fixed, would pkgsrc then be a good system to use on Slackware?
Sorry about the asking, but if you don't ask you never learn, right?

Well, the jist of it is that when using binary packages, it doesn't seem like the dependancies are checked at all, or if they are, there are plenty of missing packages, which breaks things. Also, you would think that if the binary package (or dependancy) was missing that somehow they would check and use the source package, and that doesn't happen either. Futher, to complicate things, there are several recent instances where I have used the source packages and had them not compile or had missing dependancies that couldn't be fulfilled. Not to mention, getting the source packages set up and working takes an hour to unpack the sourcetree after you get it.

Now, to be fair, I never really experienced these problems (or not as much) in earlier NetBSD versions - this mess has been relegated to the last year or two.

Would this be a good package management system? Yeah, it surely would if they could get those few things ironed out. In fact, it's probably be easier to run it on Slackware than on NetBSD because Slackware is more vanilla with compile-time patches than NetBSD is.

I still think that pacman/apt-get is the answer.