Slackware

[CT_Biker]

I would like to get away from Mint and move to an more Unix-y Linux.

I have had a look at the following Distros:
- Slackware
- Arch
- Kali(I have become curious about using Kali for its intended purpose)
- A flavour of Ubuntu.

Preferably I would like something lighter, with less bloat and a good repo with support with many of the applications needed for Software Dev.

As an aside. If anyone is interested in learning or brushing over some basic Linux, I have a Udemy course you may use. I'll PM you my logins

 

[newby_investor]

I would suggest Arch over Slackware, for one simple reason.

Slackware is great but package management is striclty DIY. It'll be a lot easier to keep your software up-to-date with Arch.

 

[CPTBoy]

I've played with Arch too and it's rolling updates are fantastic.

 

[ponder]

Huge Arch fan, love their package manager & AUR, good wiki & forum.

 

[newby_investor]

Alternatively, if you *really* want a learning experience and don't mind waiting for code to compile, then Gentoo might be interesting to look into. The Gentoo community are also some of the most knowledgeable that I've come across.

 

[ponder]

Alternatively, if you *really* want a learning experience and don't mind waiting for code to compile, then Gentoo might be interesting to look into. The Gentoo community are also some of the most knowledgeable that I've come across.

Meh, you don't learn that much and the compile times suck. If you're into S&M do LFS...

 

[shadow_man]

Meh, you don't learn that much and the compile times suck. If you're into S&M do LFS...

+100

I've been thinking of starting a LFS course for colleagues.

I should go through it again.

 

[Sinbad]

Is Slackware even still a thing?
I've been impressed with Ubuntu

 

[ponder]

Is Slackware even still a thing?
I've been impressed with Ubuntu

Their releases are quit sparse so not sure.

Not a fan of ubuntu, would rather used debian stable.

 

[newby_investor]

Slackware is maintained by basically one guy, so he releases when he feels like it.

Ubuntu is fine, if you can handle Unity. I personally can't, I prefer Mint which is mostly the same under the hood, but the desktop is more sane. For day-to-day use it suits me just fine.

For servers, I use either Debian or Centos, depending on what the application I need supports.

Meh, you don't learn that much and the compile times suck. If you're into S&M do LFS...

You do actually get more from Gentoo than you do from other binary-only distros with the possible exception of Arch. One of my particular favourites from Gentoo days was the compile flags, many packages have optional features which you can compile in, whereas with a binary-only distro you would have to stick with what the maintainer chose. Or install yourself from source which is a pain. I really enjoyed letting Portage handle things.

These days though, I've just got other things to do than compile and tweak endlessly. But I'm glad for the time I spent in Gentoo.

 

[w1z4rd]

Moved from Ubuntu to Manjaro (Arch) full time now, there is a performance improvement. Gaming performance (on lowish spec hardware) is better on Manjaro than Ubuntu.

As people have mentioned, the AUR packet manager is pretty cool. If there is not something in the main repos, someone out there has set it up in the AUR. This downloads, compiles and builds whatever you need.

I find myself dropping to command line less on Manjaro than I did on Ubuntu, but thats most likely because I am more familiar with apt than pacman.

I also find the applications work better. Some of the video editing software I use always crashed on other distros. So far (touch wood), they running fine on this distro.