im looking for some good reviews of slackware 9

After the registration process, I've forgotten who asked for a review of Slackware 9, but here's my review, anyway. I'm running Slackware Current after running regular 9 for a while. I think it's the best of the distros I've used since switching over from OS X. This last time I downloaded Current without KDE, because I prefer Gnome. Then I put Dropline Gnome on top of it (search for it on SourceForge).

Anyway, I've tried Suse, Red Hat, Mandrake, Free BSD and tried installing Debian. Slackware is the fastest on my machine (900 Mhz Athlon, 768 SDRAM, two 9.1 gig SCSI drives). It's also impossible to crash. Mandrake crashed twice in the short time I tried it. Must not like my hardware.

I'd definitely recommend Dropline Gnome, however. It completely rewrites your Gnome, but when you're done you've got a very well set up system. The only changes I had to make were to download Open Office (get the release candidate of 2.0 to get the good fonts) because Abiword looked like crap and configuring the fonts was a pain. Also, gtkam/gphoto wasn't installed, so I had to do that (another pain). But Totem is a nice little video player, Xine is on there and something I miss whenever I try another distro: a configured xnest. It's such a luxury to open a completely new login within a window. I also install Rox to use instead the usual file manager. Rox is really fast. Now if I could get my usb key disk to show up on my desktop as it does in Mandrake 9.1, I'd be all set.

Anyway, I highly recommend Slackware. It's fast, stable and, once you get Dropline on there, very pretty. It's every bit as nice as Ximian on top of Red Hat 9 (which I used for a month or two and really liked), but faster. In fact, I'd taken to using Mozilla Firebird on Red Hat to get a little more speed, but the full Mozilla 1.4 is as fast on my Slack system as Firebird was on my Red Hat system.

Good luck.

joe f.

so dont use KDE?

and what other packages should i get, im a real newb.

I'm afraid I'm a newbie myself, though I've been running Linux since December. I guess that should put me in maybe newbie-plus, but I still get flummoxed all the time.

I have KDE on Mandrake that I can boot when I want (it's on the second SCSI drive), but I really don't use it. This slackware installation is the first system that I've left it off of, actually. I just never used it, and the site from which I downloaded slackware current had one ISO with KDE, one with Gnome (I guess the size wouldn't let them include both). You can go with either and get that slackware goodness, I'm sure.

I think I listed everything I use all the time. Nautilus is fine as a file manager, but Rox is really fast and I like how it works. It does take a bit more work (you have to tell it what to do with each type of file the first time you use it on one) to set up, but it seems worth it. If you have a faster machine, Nautilus tells you more. But then, KDE seems to have more bells and whistles overall, so you might be better off with that. Gnome really reminds me of a tricked out Mac OS 9 machine (like the one I used to use) with the OS X stability -- better, actually.

The only reason I went with slackware current instead of slackware 9 is the fonts. It has newer versions of other stuff (mozilla, evolution, etc.) but you can always download the newest ones. I'd get regular slackware 9, go to sourceforge.net, search for Dropline Gnome and download the installer. Install Dropline (assuming you have a cable or DSL connection, it's hundreds of megabytes) and see how you like it. If you write a lot, I'd get the latest version of openoffice (1.9rc) and install that, just to have the pretty fonts.

Then if you feel you need a newer version of a particular program, just download it and install it. The installer with slackware is easy, even though it is in the terminal. Really, the two big things I had to do to get along in Linux was to learn where things were (how do you tell Mozilla how to open the MP3 file if you don't know where XMMS is?) and to lose my fear of using the command line. It really is nothing. Installing programs in the tgz format slackware uses takes one command. Compiling them takes three. Easy.

Anyway, if you have particular questions, feel free to e-mail me.

Good luck,

joe f.

that wassup man, thanks alot. hopefully the installation of slack will work. cuz suse, freebsd, and redhat worked, but i want linux like slackware.

I'm a TOTAL Linux newb...and, for personal reasons, there was no alternative except for Slackware 9.0...it was my only choice. I wanted the challenge, and I wanted the speed and stability.

As Joef has said; Slack 9 with Dropline Gnome...mmmm mmm good.

Aside from a little newbie-adaptation frustration with compiling and such, I have not a single complaint about Slack 9...I HIGHLY recommend it. Give it a shot...worse case scenario, you don't like it and go with another distro...I doubt that will happen.

Slackware RAWKS!

yeah if everything works, then i would stick wit it. i just needed some reviews

any more reviews?

linuxquestions has a whole section dedicated to reviews (click the top right site navigation button, where it says "reviews").

slackware 9:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...ort=1&thecat=6

I've searched these forum for the fastest distro because I'm now running Red Hat and I find it very slow! Slower than windows!!

The reason I got Red Hat in the first place was that I'm a Linux newbie and everyone was saying Red Hat is the most userfriendly distro but I really don't like it that slow...

So after searching these forums I concluded that the fastest distro would be Gentoo. But I don't want Gentoo for now. It's too difficult to configure for a newbie. I've seen a friend of mine installing it on his machine... he has been installing it for days!!!

So the second choice was Slackware! Maybe I'll go with Slackware but I need your help making this decision. My question is: how difficult can it be for me (a Linux newbie) setup and configure Slackware? Will it bu much different from Red Hat?

!

Installing Slackware is easy, though very different than installing Red Hat. Configuring is another question. That kind of depends on what you've got and what you're going to do with it.

The text-based Slackware install is easy. The only thing you really have to know how to do is partition your drive if you don't have existing partitions (if you're installing on top of your RH system, you can use those partitions and Slackware will reformat them). Slackware 8.1 was actually the very first install I did and it went fine. Of course, if you have unusual hardware all bets could be off.

Configuring Slackware can be a bit more involved if you're into things like usb thumb drives and digital cameras. Usually it's not much more than finding a good how-to on the net and following the directions, but some things are a pain (as they are in Red Hat). Though I use dropline gnome I go into KDE and use the control center to do most of my configuration. It has some nice tools that make things easier. Dropline Gnome does a lot of your desktop configuration for you, such as menus, installing some programs (totem, etc.) and then leaves you with a very pretty desktop.

Installing packages in Slackware is actually very easy. You type one command and the name of the package. It's not click and go, but it's not hard by any stretch, either.

If you're after the very fastest Linux, I read an article that said Vector Linux is faster than Slackware, even though Vector is based on Slackware (and you can use Dropline). I used it for a week or so, and it was quick, but then so is Slackware. Even though I saw a noticeable difference between Red Hat and Slackware, the window manager you use also makes a difference, as does the programs. For a while I used BlackBox with Rox as my file manager and then Firebird instead of Mozilla, Abiword instead of OpenOffice, and so on. My new machine is much faster (Athlon 2800 versus 900), with a Gig of RAM and so on, so bloat don't scare me now. But I stick with Slackware. It is the best of the 10 or more distros I've tried.

Good luck,

joe f.

Thanks! I've decided to switch to Slackware as soon I get some time to do it.

ITs just great, Its cool its super it's (you know what i'm going to say)