I have been using slackware for over 3 years now, great community, lot of learning experience, really stable even in -current, but i switch to Arch last week cause i wanted to use gnome 3 and see why is all the fuss about, so far i like it, but as soon as dropline gnome is out, i will go back to slackware, dont hesitate to give it a try, you are gonna learn a lot.

Excuse my ignorance here, but why couldn't you just install Gnome 3 in Slackware?

There is no official packages for gnome 3 on slackware, i'm not skilled enough to just compile the whole thing and have it working by the end of the day.
most slackware users search or contribute software packages in slackbuilds.org, slacky, pkgs.org, etc..., but there is no actual up to date packages of gnome 3 for the lastest slackware version (14.1) as far as i know.

The only unofficial pkg site for this is droplinegnome.org, but they are busy people that contribute whenever they can, so im just pretty much waiting for a beta or something for Slackware 14.1. in the meanwhile I´m learning Arch and getting to know gnome 3.10.

Ah! Thank you.

Will Openbox work with Slack? (If so, then I'll be happy!)

Slackware comes with Blackbox, Fluxbox, FVWM, KDE, WMaker and Xfce preinstalled (full instalation).
There are Openbox slackbuilds available here http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.1/desktop/openbox/ and here http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/openbox/

i recommend you to read the "how to" to learn the ways of slackbuilds, so that you understand what is going on when you compile and install things.

The problem with Gnome 3 is that it nowadays requires systemd as init-system for functions that are deemed by the Gnome developers as non-essential, like power-management including suspend and hibernate. Since Slackware is not a systemd distro Gnome would not fully work, so the Droplinegnome developers not only have to port Gnome, but also systemd.

When I saw the title, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. When I read that you were a noob but wanted to use arch so that you could "have it your way", I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Arch makes some major changes like moving all of the binaries to /usr/bin or switching from sysvinit to systemd. You don't want to be forced to update out of necessity in the future and find yourself trying to work through a lot of major changes at one time.

If you really want a learning experience, then you should try linux from scratch. You'll learn about all of the critical components of a linux system and what they do. That definitely helps you to not break linux or to fix it when it's broken.

What is it what Arch teaches to a newbie that Slackware doesn't - Nothing.
What is it what Slackware teaches to a newbie that Arch doesn't - Everything plus a lot more.

Regards.

I've decided to go with Slackware. Linux From Scratch does sound interesting....but it'd probably be like when I did a minimal Debian install, and realized that I was essentially building a Crunchbang clone- so I said "Why re-invent the wheel"; and wiped it, and just kept using Crunchbang. Arch would interest me too, if for no other reason than the quality of it's documentation. But the constant updates would kill me. Slack seems to be more my speed- stable as a horse's abode; and you could not update it for 10 years, and I'm sure it would still work fine.


I've started messing with Slack (There's a thread over in the Slackware subforum about my misadventures ) and I really like it. The only thing is, though, is that the Slackware documentation is not quite as thorough or as well-written as the Arch stuff. They forget to tell you things (Like when you switch to a generic kernel, you have to edit the initrd.gz file to point to it...)...and I guess they haven't updated the lit. in quite a while, as there's still talk of floppies !- but you are correct- I've learned more in the few days that I've been messing with Slack, than I'd learned in the past 4 years of Linux use- and Slack is an amazing distro, whose philosophy is in line with my own. Once I get everything sorted-out, and get a little more proficient with it, I'm sure it'll become my main OS. (And it's not as daunting as I had imagined! -Ironically, the Slack installed turned out to be the nicest; most-straight-forward; easy-for-a-clueless-newb-to-use installer of any distro, except perhaps for that of AntiX- but that's only because AntiX doesn't really give you any choices and is a much smaller and simpler distro.[It's not a bad distro, either- it just irks me that it's maintained by a communist- and he even uses the distro to push his Marxism....including loading the distro's browser with bookmarks to Marxist websites!]))

Well, if concerned about breakage in any Distro install. Be it Arch, Sid, Slackware, etc;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Plus if not technically trained in Linux Kung Foo (like me)

http://redobackup.org/

Just a dumbed down Clonezilla for yokels like me.

P.S. Anti and me are buds so it pains me when you besmirch some one you don't even know.
You have no clue on what Anti thinks or is about.
Nuff said.

Hey, Maww! Aw could use me one'a them! [seriously!]

Aww, C'mon now! A guy who calls himself "Anticapitalista" pre-loads his distro's browser with bookmarks to such websites as "Lenin's Tomb"; "Jews Sans Frontiers" [I'm opposed to Zionism, myself- but that one's a little "out there", even for me!]; Marxist Internet Archive; Noam Chomsky's site....and you say that "I don't know him"? Oooooo-K.... Maybe he just has an over-the-top sense of humor, and thinks it's funny to pre-load Nazi bookmarks.... [It would be kind of funny to see some people's reactions, I'm sure!]

AntiX is a very nice distro- and amazing, for it's small size- but as an Ayn Rand/Ron Paul libertarian, I was just put-off so much by the Marxism, that I've only booted-up AntiX a handful of times. [I'm "ragnar_danneskjold" on the AntiX forum....wonder if your friend Anti "gets it"?!]

Sumguy/ragnar_danneskjold

Just to keep you (un)happy. This was posted 10 May 2010

http://antix.freeforums.org/post15669.html

Anti,

Same old....same old....LOL- heard it 1000 times before "They're not the REAL communists/socialists...but if WE were doing it...".

The system where the means of production are in the hands of those who produce the wealth is called [brace yourself] " Capitalism". I know...I know...by "the people who produce the wealth", you mean the people who clean the terlits and drive the trucks. But you know what? There's a reason that such means aren't in the hands of such people: Because they're not the ones who produce the wealth. They're not capable of producing wealth; if they were, they'd be doing it, instead of working at a job cleaning terlits and driving trucks; because in a non-totalitarian society, nothing is stopping them from creating the wealth, if they are capable of it.

What you advocate is only posible throug the force of a huige beauracracy. Contrary-wise, in a free market, people can be free to rise to the highest level of which they are capable or care to- which is why the means of production are in the hands of those whosde hands it is in....that is, until that huge beauracracy somes along and starts redistributing wealth and wielding power- and then everyone becomes poor, except for those who control the beauracracy- as is just the case right now in countries like the US.

[Note: This is my thread, and I don't care if it goes off-topic... just in case anyone may be concerned]

Cute. Well, for one, most of the installation, 99.95% of it, in Arch is done by command line(partitioning done with text gui). Slackware uses a text gui like redhat for most of its installation.

That right there says that you are going to learn to be comfortable at the command line in Arch, and will be pampered a bit in Slackware.

Here is the install of slackware 14.1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnVGEIl8X7E

and here is the install of Arch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFzVG4wZEg

Also, slackware will auto install X for you and do all the setup. Arch does not. So you have to look it up, and learn about it, and then install it the way that you would like. So in that manner, you will again learn more from Arch than Slackware.

So there is that.

Of course, the whole idea of a comparison of which will teach you more is senseless. Both distros are complete distro's with most of the same software, and pretty soon Slackware will get systemd, so it will be almost identical to Arch! It's really a subjective matter whether the user will do better on one or the other. The important thing is to try.

So there is also that.

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No we'll still have the AUR and a package manager other than pbkac