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Interview with Patrick Volkerding - Root.cz
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07 December 2001
could you specify the Begin of Slackware in the effluxion? What's exact "date of birth"?
The release of Slackware 1.0.0 was on July 11, 1993. The first beta
releases were passed around in April of that year to a few people online who helped test.
what was the moving power for creating one of the first linux distro?
The primary motivation was that I wanted a good UNIX-like OS on my own
machine, and there just wasn't anything that reached the level of
quality I was willing to settle for. I had downloaded SLS, which was
really one
of the first Linux distributions, but very buggy. That was the starting point.
does 'slackware' mean something special? or where's the origin of this name?
I'm quoted about this in the fortune database (and no, I didn't put it there myself):
Besides, I think Slackware sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you?
-- Patrick Volkerding
I think that came from an interview in Linux Journal #2 where I was
asked the same question. That was back in 1994, and I really couldn't
remember the exact origin of the name back then. :)
how many contributors and/or package maintainers do you currently have (approx).
Right now, it's just myself. It's not for lack of people trying to
"join", but my experience is that adding people to the team hasn't
increased quality or speed or development, and actually led to several
problems. Here we have a saying about the left hand not knowing what
the right hand is up to, and that's what I'm trying to avoid. The
biggest problem I have with this is that many users are impatient, and
impatient users can act a lot like managers, and they think that adding
more people means faster and better development when really it might
just mean more wasted time.
I just have to quote fortune again:
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of them absent.
I'm sure this will get me accused of having a big ego again. My friends
know I'm just a humble coder, and I do the work myself out of a sense
of responibility to Slackware and the people who depend on it.
I like to use Slackware instead of RedHat or other 'commercial'
distributions due it's ability to change everything and chance to tune
system to fit my needs. When we can expect new version of Slackware?
I'm trying for some time early next year.
what about package management - didn't you ever squint at something
similar to debian or redhat package management? From various echoes I
understood it's a big weakness... (personally I'm satisfied with actual
management)
I think a lot of this is Red Hat marketing. Since the beginning they've
hyped RPM as the greatest thing in the world, and have even claimed to
have invented the idea of package management on Linux even though
Slackware has had it since before version 1.0. But yes, many people do
seem to like RPM and I have repeatedly gone back to consider using it
for
the package format for Slackware and every time have ended up rejecting
it after some testing. My main complaints are that it has no provision
for allowing packages to overlap, and it makes building packages
immensely slower -- where I'd build a package twice (or maybe only
once) to produce
a .tgz, making an RPM .spec involves a lot more work. It's also not
possible to crack a package open, change a couple of things, and then
package it back up.
I'm not a fan of the dependancy feature, either, although I do
appreciate how it backs up config files when upgrading. I do plan to
add that feature to upgradepkg, maybe before the next Slackware
release.
Slackware has done a lot of work - it offers new x-windows, gnome
1.4 and kde 2.2.2 etc.. what will be next steps, eg. new kernels
2.4.14/2.2.20, do you think you (slack) will be possible to offer
patched kernels (as choice)?
I'll offer the newest tested kernels that I can, but except in rare
cases the Slackware policy is to not patch the kernel source Linus
delivers.
Personally, I think it's not good to roll out kernels that contain lots
of untested patches to get additional hardware support or features.
People are going to be using these kernels on production machines, so
it's better to wait until they're actually approved in the standard
kernels.
what about include Ximian Desktop?
Well, Ximian has gone out of their way to not support Slackware, so
it's very unlikely we will ever include their GNOME build. The only
advantage they have (if you want to call it that) over our GNOME build
is that they
use a lot of things that are not declared stable. Again, that's not been the Slackware approach.
I was able to trick Ximian into installing on a Slackware box by
putting a Red Hat 6.2 redhat-release file in /etc, and making rpm a
wrapper script something like this (from memory, so forgive me if it
fails):
rpm.bin -i --force --nodeps $*
do you have something to give a know to our readers/linux community? ;))
Oh, it's time for me to ramble on at random? :)
About all I really have to add here is that I'm incredibly thankful for
the people who have supported the project over the years. It was those
first "beta testers" who encouraged me to make Slackware public. Back
then, I thought I'd just be helping a few people get Linux running.
It's a lot more people now, but the spirit of the project hasn't changed all that much.
Have fun! :)
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