Slackware’s package manager is extremely easy to use:
slackpkg upgrade-all upgrades all installed packages slackpkg install-new installs all packages that were added to the repo slackpkg clean-system uninstalls all packages that were removed from the repo
It’s Slackware’s approach to dependency resolution. You don’t need to resolve dependencies on your system if you just install every package in the repo.
The installed size is under 15 GB, and you get a system that works equally well for a desktop as for a server with lots of app choices out of the box.
(Throwing the kitchen sink at you was the common way to install Linux in the old days, before quick Internet)
That’s not really the point. The point this post is making is that third party software is often not available as a package for your distro. It’s been a minute since I used Slackware, but I doubt you can find neatly built tgz slackware packages of Steam or the Nvidia drivers.
I know Slackware has slackbuilds and you can install sbopkg to search for packages and automatically build them, but that goes a bit beyond “just use your package manager”.
it’s 2025, what popular distro makes it not easy?
Nix
Gentoo, LFS, Slackware.
LFS is not a distro and I highly doubt it’s popular as well.
Slackware’s package manager is extremely easy to use:
slackpkg upgrade-allupgrades all installed packagesslackpkg install-newinstalls all packages that were added to the reposlackpkg clean-systemuninstalls all packages that were removed from the repoAnd that’s all.
That reads easy but what’s with installing all packages that were added to a repo? How does that help anything?
It’s Slackware’s approach to dependency resolution. You don’t need to resolve dependencies on your system if you just install every package in the repo.
The installed size is under 15 GB, and you get a system that works equally well for a desktop as for a server with lots of app choices out of the box.
(Throwing the kitchen sink at you was the common way to install Linux in the old days, before quick Internet)
That’s a horrendous approach since probably two decades. They shouldn’t slack so hard.
That’s not really the point. The point this post is making is that third party software is often not available as a package for your distro. It’s been a minute since I used Slackware, but I doubt you can find neatly built tgz slackware packages of Steam or the Nvidia drivers.
I know Slackware has slackbuilds and you can install sbopkg to search for packages and automatically build them, but that goes a bit beyond “just use your package manager”.
popular
if you’re using any of those you can’t complain about having to run a few command lines
For nvidia? Alpine Linux. It’s so hard there is 0 support outside of nouveau
(I mean, Alpine uses MUSL instead of GLIBC, so expected)
For AMD? doas apk add linux-firmware-amdgpu mesa mesa-tools vulkan-loaders xf86-video-amdgpu There, you’re good to go(wiki also tells you that)
Merkste selber
Cry? I friggin prefer to just have everything small AF, it’s extremely easy to know exactly what your system is doing
I’ve been daily driving Alpine for nearly an year now, and I’m just in love with it.
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Yes, but Slackware. That’s obviously intentional
And OP did specify “popular”, which Slackware hasn’t been since the late 90s