thelinuxlink.net

;i just wanted to say that yesterday was a red letter day for my experiences with linux. i finally got the sound working on my laptop and i got the internal mini-pci wireless card to work as well!

;i guess i just wanted to encourage anyone else out there that's trying to learn linux that it takes time to learn some things, but you'll be so much more comfortable for it. moral of the (long-winded) story: it pays to RTM.

;i also wanted to thank you guys for encouraging new users to give slackware a try, and to try several distros a try while learning. i've tried red hat, yellow dog and debian on ppc, fedora cores 1, 2, 3, and 4, suse, gentoo, knoppix, slax, and slackware, and i really must reiterate: once you go slack, you never go back. and not to put too fine a point on it, but i think the reason for this is that slackware affords you to key freedoms that are both tied into its "vanilla" nature:

• 1. it lets you choose what to install and how instead of enforcing a package management system or software update model on you
  2. it doesn't deviate into its own "distro" model for linux and associate programs--everything works as documented

;thanks again.

;treehead

I'd like to try Slack when I get a spare machine to test it on. I've only got one desktop right now, and Deeebian is running pretty well on it, so I'd rather wait.

I feel the same way as I go about learning with ArchLinux.

I didn't vote because you don't have a valid option for me. I've tried Slackware, but I'm just not into doing that much work anymore.

I like up to date software, and I'm not willing to go back to 2.4 series kernels. I know I can do most of what I want on Slackware if I put enough work into it, but why bother if a more modern distro is set up like I want by default?

If I wanted something I had to configure completely by myself that was suitable for old hardware, I'd probalby go with FreeBSD. I've built my own OS from source more than once (before Gentoo existed), so I know what I'm doing. Slackware is still an option, it just doesn't fit with any of my needs right now.

I've built my own OS from source more than once

LFS, or something entirely different?

Snarkout wrote:

I've built my own OS from source more than once

LFS, or something entirely different?

Mostly LFS (back when they were using the 2.2 kernel). I've also done Pocket Linux, but that's not really usable. It's fun to play with, though.

Gomer_X wrote:... I've tried Slackware, but I'm just not into doing that much work anymore.

;i can see that. i think the "work" factor is precisely why slack is such a good distro for newbies wanting to learn linux (as a system).

Gomer_X wrote:I like up to date software, and I'm not willing to go back to 2.4 series kernels. I know I can do most of what I want on Slackware if I put enough work into it, but why bother if a more modern distro is set up like I want by default? ...

;very true. i wonder if that would follow any demographic for various other choices... say for instance vi vs. emacs vs. pico vs. gedit or kde vs. gnome vs. fluxbox vs. windowmanager, etc. that is to say i wonder if certain distro choices readily correspond to users' choices in terms of ease of use, stability, pre-configuration, etcetera. i for one have been one to do things the quote-un-quote "hard way" all the time (e.g. finding a way to accomplish something via the DOS prompt in windows in versus using the GUI).

;treehead