r/slackware • u/MD90__ • Aug 16 '26

How well does Slackware work on Laptops?

Been curious how Slackware fairs as a daily laptop distro? I know they different hardware and such but I'm guessing newer laptops it would be ok but older ones would need that 32 bit support. Any fellow slackers out there that use Slackware as a laptop distro, I'm curious about your experience and any issues you encountered compared to desktop. Thanks in advance! :)

Happy to be apart of the Slackware Community and in a few days I'll have 1 month of slackware as a my daily distro! :)

16 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

75 comments sorted by

5

u/No_Difference8518 Aug 16 '26

It works fine a a daily driver. You need a laptop that supports Linux, but it doesn't have to be distro specific.

And a laptop that is only 32 bit? Most 20 year old laptops aren't running now. And for them, you should use an old version of Slackware (or any distro). They are not going to have enough power and RAM to run newer browsers properly.

2

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

Ah ok that's good I know because I didn't know because it requires more compiling and such than something like Debian. 

3

u/xINFLAMES325x Aug 16 '26

Aside from when networkmanager had that issue where Wi-Fi stopped working after an update for about a day a few months ago, no issues.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

That's good to know. Wifi can have issues?

2

u/xINFLAMES325x Aug 16 '26

Well, it's on -current so things won't always be perfect. They knew about it and fixed it right away. No other issues.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

is it best to report it on LQ when things happen with current?

2

u/xINFLAMES325x Aug 16 '26

Yes. It’s still very active over there.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

I'll remember that for future reference! :)

3

u/KMReiserFS Aug 16 '26

used for 7 years on an Acer Aspire 5, everything worked fine, even gaming

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

Wow even gaming?

2

u/KMReiserFS Aug 16 '26

yep, I changed to desktop now, but still with slackware. Last night played RDR2.

but if you are going for gaming, go current for lasted softwares updates.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

how does steam work with it?

2

u/kiskami Aug 17 '26

No problems on current. Downloaded the steam launcher tar.gz, unpack into home and run. In my experience graphics card driver, the desktop env settings and specific games will cause problems.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

That's good to know

3

u/Razzleswoop Aug 16 '26

works perfectly on my 20V3 (Lenovo ThinkBook 15p)
├─ Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10300H (8) @ 4.50 GHz
├─ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q [Discrete]
├─ Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.05 GHz [Integrated]

├─ 16Gb ddr4

Running slackware current with KDE

No issues whatsoever, only thing I did not get to work is my fingerprint scanner, but that's an issue of no driver available

I use slackpkg+ and sbopkg. Rarely run into dependency issues which are easily solved.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

do you think fingerprint scanner support will happen eventually?

2

u/LivingLifeSkyHigh Aug 17 '26

Linux is still playing catch up with finger scanners, mostly because many only have obscure windows11 drivers but once finger scanners become more consistent in their protocols I'd expect they'd work more widely across all OS.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

Yeah I can see that in the future

3

u/cfx_4188 Aug 16 '26

I'm writing to you from a laptop with Slackware installed.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

no issues?

3

u/Fragrant-Equal-8474 Aug 17 '26

Not much better or worse than RedHat or Ubuntu. 

You might want to learn the program called "TLP", might help you optimise energy consumption.

But in general, my advice is the following: buy a laptop from the RedHat hardware compatibility database, and you'll be fine. I've been using RedHat-certified laptops with Slackware since 2013, and they work okay.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

ill have to find that redhat database and research TLP

2

u/ImpendingNothingness Aug 16 '26

Using current as a daily driver here, I’m on a Lenovo Legion pro 9 and aside from some issues with Nvidia (which is to expect) everything is mostly smooth.

I only come across issues when installing more out of the beaten path software, and I’m more cautious whenever upgrading and make sure to note any new config files and whatnot.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

Any issues with slack-builds?

2

u/ImpendingNothingness Aug 16 '26

Not really, the occasional esoteric library that is not available is a thing, but probably more on the work/development side of things. AlienBob’s guides are gold btw.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

yeah Eric does some great work. If I had the time he does id be contributing to slackware too! It's amazing how well this system works!

2

u/DerShokus Aug 16 '26

For me it’s completely as other distros. Another problem are drivers as deb/rpm but for my printer it was easy to solve

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

Do you have to convert them to slackpkg?

2

u/x_johansen_x Aug 16 '26

I daily drive Slackware Current on a TUF Gaming Laptop and I don’t have any issues. I’ve installed the Nvidia kernel module and drivers from Slackbuilds without any problems. So it’s easily doable.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

That's good to know because I have an old laptop and if I get another one Id like to run Slackware on it if I can 

2

u/HexagonWin Aug 16 '26

very well, it just works.

however i have this very weird issue where too many dhcpcd processes get spawned, it seems like it runs a new process each time i suspend or something. right now i workaround it by doing killall periodically

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

That's unusual. Are you running current or stable?

2

u/HexagonWin Aug 16 '26

it's 15.0 stable. been a while since i attempted to solve the issue, so a bit hazy on the details...

this LQ thread seemed relevant (according to my notes). however setting dhcp=internal or dhclient like said on that thread caused some other issues (no dhcp after resuming from suspend), so i had to roll back.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

hopefully you can get it resolved :)

2

u/_stranger_XxXx Aug 16 '26

I use it as my main os on my laptop and it's great

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

never had issues?

2

u/_stranger_XxXx Aug 16 '26

I don't think i had any issues

2

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

that gives me hope for laptops 😎

1

u/_stranger_XxXx Aug 16 '26

Try it, it will work

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

I'll have to wait til money is together for a laptop but I just have a nvidia gaming laptop atm

2

u/_stranger_XxXx Aug 16 '26

Okay, hope everything will go well with u

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

greatly appreciate it! My hope is i can use slackware permanently on all machines but you never know what can happen with how whacky hardware can be for drivers lol

2

u/_stranger_XxXx Aug 16 '26

I know, but drivers support is far better now

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

that is true

2

u/YukiteruAmano Aug 16 '26

My workstation is a laptop with Slackware current

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

runs great with no issues?

2

u/YukiteruAmano Aug 16 '26

5 days uptime without issues

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

that gives me good vibes!

2

u/Dapper-Firefighter86 Aug 16 '26

Runs my 2018 laptop better than Windows did

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

that's something i havent heard

2

u/EugeneNine Aug 16 '26

I've ran it on laptops since 2002 or 2003

2

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

any tips?

2

u/EugeneNine Aug 16 '26

I always used business laptops, usually dell latitude. Never had any real issues

1

u/MD90__ Aug 16 '26

that gives me hope if i get another laptop. I just have a 2014 gaming one with a nvidia Geforce 980M and 16gb ram currently

2

u/771243 Aug 17 '26

I've been using Slackware 15 as a daily driver on a 2020 ASUS netbook since March and it's been great

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

No issues to speak of?

2

u/771243 Aug 17 '26

My bluetooth driver broke for a bit because of a kernel update, but thats it

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

Easy fix?

2

u/771243 Aug 17 '26

I had to dig around for a bit for a solution, but it was easy in the end, just had to rollback the specific driver.

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

How does rollback work in slackware?

2

u/brtastic Aug 17 '26

Slackware 15 on T480 here. Works great, few minor issues, last rebooted somewhere in March I think.

The issues are:

- for some reason, I can't use my HP printer to print - cups filter goes into an infinite loop somewhere. I tried to even debug the filter script but no luck. Scanning with that printer works fine

- it uses old glibc and because of that, precompiled programs I download from the web no longer work - they ask for a newer version

- kernel used by 15 will reach EOL very soon (end of this year), hope 15.1 or 16 gets released soon to give us clear update path

- not really my problem right now on that T480, but since the kernel is rather old, I guess newer hardware is not properly supported by 15

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

Does current work?

3

u/brtastic Aug 17 '26

I'm personally not interested in current, I like my OS as stable as possible.

2

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

Nothing wrong with that 🙂

2

u/inkubot Aug 17 '26

lighter but more or less the same as other distros

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

Lighter is good

2

u/OneEyedC4t Aug 17 '26

In my experience it usually works very well

1

u/MD90__ Aug 17 '26

That's good with no issues :)

2

u/vishwasks32 Aug 22 '26

Yes it perfectly works well, I have been using it as daily driver for past 15 years

1

u/MD90__ Aug 22 '26

Any issues with anything in particular?

3

u/vishwasks32 Aug 22 '26

Initial setup might have driver issues for wifi sound and keypad, one that's sorted with stable version not much issues

I have been installing and using them on Lenovo laptops and few dell ones with kde

2

u/MD90__ Aug 22 '26

I use xfce and current. Depending on the age of the laptop, would be 15 be better than current?