Answers to: Hybrid distros?

Answer by tallship

tallship — Sun, 16 May 2010 00:44:48 -0400

I just posted an answer yesterday regarding Google Chrome, and how the SlackBuild is built from a .deb, yielding the actual Google Chrome and not Chromium.

From a package aspect, there are lots of options, and slackware is indeed capable of natively handling RPMs.

Remember that Slackware leaves it up to the Administrator to resolve and ensure the resolution of dependancies, the way it should be, so that you don't inadvertently whack some other mission critical system or application software by things being installed that you aren't aware of - something RedHat RPM based distros are famous for.

Oh, not that they are sure to whack your system when you install something, but moreso, that they install things unbeknownst to you, and with default configs that conflict with other installed software or settings you might not knowingly otherwise permit - but that is another issue.

So Slackware can be hybridized if you like, with the RH/Fedora distros by using RPMs to install (just remember to visit http://rpmfind.net first so that you resolve all dependancies k?).

You can also customize Slackware and respin it - help for that is available at: http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applications_GUI_Multimedia/Cooking_Up_Some_Slack_CUSS

This shows you the internals of how Slackware's installer works, including how to customize even the name of the distribution you are spinning based on Slackware.

Another great distro is SalixOS, which is kinda like Slackware on Steroids. The package management system resolves dependancies, and they have a very robust package repository too.

Unlike other slackware based distros of today and days past, there aren't any problems with linking in with and using the standard Slackware package repositories either, or even SlackBuilds from SlackBuilds.org.

Yet another, and closer to your heart is the merging of technologies between Debian's package management system and Slackware - aptly (sic) titled, Slapt-Get.

Slapt-Get does provide a framework for dependency checking, but does not actually provide dependency resolution - that trait, thankfully, is still left to the systems administrator to ensure that bizzare things aren't going on behind your back when you install packages - like it does when you use RPM based distros.

Slapt-Get also works with Vector Linux, of course ;)

Above was mentioned Arch Linux, you should investigate that distro too, a very fine distro I might add, with excellent documentation :)

And what Slackware distro discussion would be complete without mentioning a quick, convenient, and downright straightforward distribution like Slax?

Well I hope that helps!

Kindest regards,

Bradley

Answer by colejv

colejv — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:05:52 -0400

I think Debian's kFreeBSD and maybe KDE on Windows qualify as "hybrid" (userland/kernel) but everything else just becomes another "distro", Sabayon put packages on Gentoo does that make it a hybrid? The older Sabayon distro's (that had everything and the kitchen sink) seemed that way, you could login to a Gnome,KDE,Fluxbox or Enlightenment session OTB. To me the distro's really boil down to package management and community/developer support, right now I'm rolling Kubuntu but I'm seriously considering Debian and just creating my own userland.

Answer by Emmanuel

Emmanuel — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:29:00 -0400

I can understand why you might want a distro that is the combination of two other distros. That is not really possible to do technically. What you might be wanting is a distro that combines the way things work between the two. A lot of people I know who like Slackware also like Arch Linux. Perhaps you can try that? Arch Linux doesn't have any default apps/desktop/etc, so you can make the Linux experience your own.

Answer by XavierP

XavierP — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:50:36 -0400

Wouldn't this be an LFS type project - take the best of each and combine them?

Answer by tinkster

tinkster — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:28:06 -0400

Curious .. or is it peculiar?

Which aspects of slackware, which of debilian would you like to see incorporated?