So, in slackware you get dependency resolution via sbopkg which installs any third party tool, but it’s done by maintaining a list of dependencies for each thing in a file, parsing that and then creating a DAG (directed acyclic graph) as needed. It keeps the system simple and manageable as most tools if not all are bash scripts.

Cons include having to manage it yourself and needing to install the full base to ensure you’ve got all the assumed packages installed.

There is no right and wrong answer tbh kinda just a matter of taste.

The thing that I like is that it since most third party packages are built from source I can force it to compile on my single stack of tools. I don’t need to have multiple versions of a library installed cause a package needed different version of something. Things stay fairly coherent. And maintaining a mirror becomes easy as you only need a couple of GB for a release compared to the terabytes needed for an Ubuntu as you’ll need all the various packages available to resolve all possible dependencies. This to me is doesn’t make sense from a maintenance PoV. Also your system doesn’t do things you’re not aware of.

Tho arch kinda does something similar by offloading third party packages to the aur. Where things are compiled by source mostly

Here’s some thoughts from someone in the community https://docs.slackware.com/slackware:package_and_dependency_management_shouldn_t_put_you_off_slackware

I hope my word salad makes sense!

That makes sense. The world runs on Linux, freebsd and then somewhere down the line macs and windows servers.

Thats fair. That problem only comes into play when you’re dealing with really new hardware like things with NPUs or the amd ai processors.

Hahaha love it! And the anxiety is legit I used to have an NTFS partition for the longest time till I found a way to consolidate things to my Linux partition.

Woo hoo!! Fair warning while somethings have become easier, Slackware is still Slackware tho but better build processes thru slackbuild etc. The rest of the Linux space has kind of crustaceaned with how they do things due to systemd.

If arch seems interesting to you, you can ease setup using arch-install, and you have access to its magnificent wiki and aur that arch provides.

Otherwise fedora is pretty much on bleeding edge and has all the niceties too

Also Slackware current if you want kiss but without dependency resolution and stuff.

That’s fair man! Debian is pretty nice. I haven’t daily driven it but you do tend to get stuck on older versions of things unless you’re on sid (similar with slackware unless you’re on current) Oh damn what were your reasons for moving from freebsd back to Linux?

Also feel free to stop by the Slackware community!

Why not slackware again?

Also welcome back!

This egghead (no he’s not smart he literally has an egg shaped head that’s why you only see his pictures framed a specific way) isn’t even that creative

This clown doesn’t even know his job is the easiest to automate without AI

We should all be bullying companies more… Less bullying people and more bullying companies and orgs!!

Yes people make up a company blah blah blah… Don’t care. Just don’t bully the people working there.