Worth the switch?
 

I am using Slackware 9.0 currently and I find it a great distro, but it lacks of a few things. I need kernel 2.4.6 for my Radeon drivers and I am not good enough with linux right now to compile a new kernel and configure it again... I am just not up to it.

I want to switch to Debian, as I know many people use it. I wanted at first to go to Gentoo, but it looked way too difficult to freakin install it! So I need to know: Does Debian come with kernel 2.4.6 or higher in it's CD? Is it worth switching from Slackware to Debian? And can I get a bit more info on this apt-get stuff I am always hearing about? Is that a Debian thing? Also, I know that it coimes with 8,000 packages or something like that - does that include basic things like DRI or ALSA? One last question: How do I permenantly start up eth0 on startup? I always have to enter a long command as root to get it started up :)


Thanks in advance for any help :)

First for the slack network stuff... have you tried netconfig???

And For the rest your post I just can give a big laugh! :p (don't get me wrong, just a little joke to my "old debian friends" :D)
Debian Official release still comes with KDE 2.2!!! How could come with kernel 2.4.6??? Debian has that woody 3.0 version out for too long.... A complain I always hear about Debian (I used it before) is that debian now only takes care about people installing woody (or a basic woody system) and installing/upgrading everything through apt-get.... they don't care about releasing a new official cd version... in the end you would still have to upgrade the kernel by yourself... and you as a newbie (I assume that from your post) I'll have a bigger problem 'cause debian is divided in stable testing and unstable each of them having their own packages.... stable still is in kde 2.2 and kernel 2.4.18 I think.... you would have to choose one of the paths and go through it.... if you mix packages from stable or/and testing or/and unstable you'll fall in the old dependency hell like many friends of mine... And debian installation is hell comparing to slack installation.... "been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, ok?"
my advice: just go to the slackware forum and follow the instructions about kernel recompilation.... any issues come to us ok? hope this helps in your decision....

installing the new kernel is not that hard. i had been on linux for almost a year before i got up the nerve to try debian on a serious note. then once i did that i didn't want to be using the 2.2 kernel and i found a "HowTo" that walked me thru step by step on how to work it. if you look at my sig you will see the install howto and the kernel upgrade howto. i always recommend these two sites when i suggest someone look into debian. read and make sure that you understand all of the instructions

The Radeon drivers (and by that I'm assuming you mean the fglrx ones from ATi's site) need kernel 2.4.6 (or 2.4.8, I can't remember) or higher to provide the DRM headers they need to compile right. Both Slackware versions 9.0 and 9.1 offer such kernels (9.0 has 2.4.20 and 9.1 2.4.22) so you shouldn't run into any trouble compiling the drivers on either version. The one problem you will run into is that Slack 9.0 (I don't know about 9.1 as I haven't downloaded the ISOs yet) doesn't include the source for it's kernel on the install CD and without it, the drivers won't compile right (this is true with all Linuces btw, even if you switch to Debian you'll still need the kernel source before the drivers will compile). Grabbing the source package from the Slackware mirror and installing it with the Slackware tools should be enough to get you going.