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Author: Carsten Boysen Jensen
14 May 2009
My journey towards Slackware and why Debian is not for me anymore.
I started using GNU/Linux in 2002. The reason I choose Linux
over Microsoft Windows was that I wanted to go online and I did not trust the security of the Windows operating systems.
The first version of Linux I used was SuSE Linux because it was the only one available in shops near me, although I had to drive 50 km to find a shop that had Linux on the shelves.
All was good and I found SuSE much easier to administer than Windows. But I soon felt the limitations of the user friendliness found in the YaST2 system used by SuSE.
I had heard good things about Debian and Red Hat and wanted to try them instead because they were said to be more hands on to administer. Debian was considered hard, but it was said that most people eventually would end up on Debian. So I downloaded Red Hat because it seemed like the natural step after SuSE. Unfortunately it was the release where they introduced BlueCurve, an attempt to unify the individual desktop environments. I could not tell which desktop environment I used by just looking at it. And I hated that. The update-application was broken too and I felt alienated by the system.
I simply downloaded Debian instead just to see how hard that really was. At the time the stable release was called woody, and it was not hard to install at all. I quickly got used to Debian's way of doing things. I was content.
After more than a year on Debian with a system that did not change, and seeing great improvements in the programs I used become available to the rest of the world, I started to look at other distributions.
I can't remember why, but someone recommended me Mandrake Linux. I think it was at the time of version 9.1. I found it a good system, a lot better than SuSE but I found it less flexible than Debian, so I returned to Debian.
I continued to use Debian for some time. But in 2004 I wanted to transfer our VHS tapes to DVD and I could not find the programs I needed for the task in the official Debian, because Debian rated these programs as non-free because of US patent-laws. I did find an unofficial repository for some of the programs, but not all of them at the time.
I had heard good things about Gentoo, and they had all the programs I needed. I was convinced that the time used for compilation was given back to me in speed. I even installed Gentoo on 4 computers I administered for a youth club, of witch 2 was Pentium II with only around 250 MHz and 250 MB RAM, with distributed compilation to the 2 Pentium 4 computers.
But I did eventually get tired of wasting all my weekends waiting the updates to complete and installed Debian there instead, which was much better for my private life.
At this time internal figting in Gentoo became more the rule than the exception. Some ex-users of Gentoo started to recommend Arch Linux on the Gentoo forums. I tried it, but did not like it at the time, it felt to immature. But it was faster to boot than Gentoo. And so was Debian Sarge when it was released in 2005.
I noticed that Debian had become more automated and it was starting to bug me.
Debian Etch was released April 2007, 4 months later than I expected. I read about the release while I was in Tanzania. I was excited about it.
When I returned to Denmark half a month later I installed it and was very disappointed with it. Way to much automation.
I installed Arch Linux 2007.08 "Don't Panic" when it was released and found that the distribution had matured a lot in the two years since the Wombat release. I felt more at home in this distribution than I did in Debian Etch.
In 2008 I became aware that Arch Linux did not comply with the licence they released their distribution under. This is bad as it as per the requirements listed in the license renders their usage of the license illegal, hence they are not allowed to use the license. This more or less means that they release without a license.
About GPL compliance. This is were it first is noted in public that Arch does not comply. About GPL compliance. The bugreport for Arch Linux. It is also discussed here: Where are the GPL'd package sources?. only code for GPL-ish licensed software, but no link to it from the download page, you need to find the bugreport to get the location. has comments on Arch not being GPL compliant.How about Debian, I thought. Well the GPL states that you must provide equal access to the binary and the source. Debian has source CDs and DVDs on their mirrors, but nowhere are they making people aware of them. No link from the download page and on the mirrors they live in their own directory, which may or may not be due to the multi-architecture nature of Debian. But it is not strictly GPL-compliant.
This really annoyed me. I used Debian and Arch Linux on and off for some time, couldn't decide if the problems in Debian was just in my head. Eventually it throw me into trying all kinds of distributions.
One of the things I really enjoyed about Debian was that I felt assured that I only used Free software unless I enabled the non-free repository. I thought Debian really meant it when they talked about being 100% free. They have more than once tried to make upstream developers change license etc. for the sake of freeness.
Where they loose me with this, is when I hear they don't really believe when it counts. When they were made aware that the kernel included binary blobs they made a General Resolution: Handling source-less firmware in the Linux kernel to more or less exclude the kernel from the requirements, because it would make some hardware useless on Debian. What this told me was that Debian has high ideals but fails to follow them in reality.
At the time it was said to be temporary because it was to difficult to remove the offending parts of the kernel. But scripts existed to do the job. linux-libre and BLAG has description of how to do it and links to a blob-free kernel and the script used to make it.
Today this is less an issue because the official kernel has an option to exclude binary blobs at build-time.
Anyway when Debian Lenny was to be released, Debian made another General Resolution: Lenny and resolving DFSG violations where the winning option was to Assume blobs comply with GPL unless proven otherwise.
Linux is not free software (and nobody cares) has some good comments on this.
I also find Debian less stable on the desktop than it used to be. It is not the upstream code that is untested, because I notice a lot less program crashes on Arch, Fedora and Slackware.
And the last bad thing I see in Debian is that they force the laws of the USA unto the rest of the world by placing 100% Free software in their non-free repository or simply deny to distribute them altogether. I understand that Debian has to comply with US laws because they have headquarter in the USA. But why couldn't they just keep the non-US repository they used to have? Free Software is only about the license used, not about patents. But I guess Debian does not agree with me about that.
Anyway, all this combined with the increased automation, internal fighting and only partial GPL-compliance made me want to not use Debian anymore.
Of all the distributions I tried in 2008, there were only two distributions that were really GPL-compliant: Fedora and Slackware. They both distribute source in an equal easy way as the binary. Source media are available from download page and mirrors next to the binary media.
Fedora is a nice system. But I have a sense that its more a testbed for new technology than anything else. It is good to see so many experimental things actually work in the real world and they help many users. But it is not what I want.
In 2008 I also found out that I had knowledge enough to work successfully in any version of Linux. This was a good experience, but it did not make it easier to choose. I had to find the one I liked best and that was Slackware.
Slackware was the one that really suited me. It has ability to install and update in any way you can think of with or without network. Where it is difficult or partially impossible with Arch, Debian and Fedora to update the system if your internet connection is gone. Slackware not having dependency checking is part of this great flexibility.
I have used Slackware full-time since December 2008 and I have not experienced any drawbacks of this distribution. It doesn't get in the way and it lets me do what I want to do with my computers.
I can't really give any reason for using Slackware. It just feels right. And sure it has no policy about Free Software and Java is included because it is redistributable, but I as the administrator and user has the choice to install it or not. Slackware, unlike Debian and the other partially or fully "Free Software only"-distributions, assumes that I am intelligent enough to make up my own mind about what I consider free enough in terms of licenses to install on my computers. It gives me true freedom of choice. I guess that is the reason I use it.
The contents was last modified on 14 May 2009, at 20:43 (CEST)