I've been happily using linux as a secondary computer for some time now. I am almost ready to buy a new computer, and as it would be blindingly amazing, and all I've ever wanted, i'm taking some time to choose my OS. I am fairly certain it will be Linux! Yea! I'm taking the plunge. I'm proudly buying it without an OS installed. I use RH9, but I had some questions/issues.

I have the linksys wusb11. I installed the atmel wlan drivers, and get semi-random kernel panics at bootup. Once, my computer had an _amazing_ crash. I rebooted 4 times, and it was fixed. I really am beginning to like the words "Reassociation Response".

What distros allow you to get and install programs from a command line? I've heard its neat, and I might want to check it out sometime. I am not so sure I'll use redhat on my upcoming super-box. Can I hear some shouts from the Slack Community? I want an OS I can 'grow into'.

I dont think ill miss windows much. I have all my mp3s (ill start ogging, i think), I mostly play MUDS (just gotta get damn tiny fugue to compile) and the wonderful people at splash damage have a linux version of wolfenstein enemy territory! Yes!

Thanks a lot.

well

you'll probably get a few answers to this one

gentoo has apt-get for downloading software from the command line and mandrake has urpmi
i managed to get apt-get to work on rh8
though i prefer urpmi as i prefer Mandrake 9.1

If you want a Linux distribution where you can tweak everything from the command line, you may find yourself comfortable with Slackware.

Unlike others, Slackware doesn't get in your way if you want to try something completely different. such as changing /etc/rc.d/ (your boot scripts), compiling from source, or omitting a dependency, because you want to install that component from source. The expert-setup even says "I'd recommend to... <snap>, but then again, it's your system"

As of Slackware 9.1, it has a great auto-upgrade tool called "swaret". (but I've installed swaret at my 9.0 system, and it simply upgraded all my packages to the latest version)


..I hope this doesn't sound to much like a commercial

if your looking for single command package install, including required dependencies and personally requested feature compatability, then take a quick look at portage for gentoo. It is totally cool.

Actualy the blurb from gentoo about portage is here...
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml

In truth, I'm not so sure I want/need to configure everything from command line. Not yet, at least. Gentoo looks interesting, as it seems to get rid of a lot of the hassle of software installation ( Did I get that right? ) Gentoo looks interesting...

Hm.. How is Mandrake? It seems to be 'one of the easy distros', and I dont think I really have a problem with that. The interface should, IMO, be easy to use. Ease of use is key, but so is being able to use high-power features and the commandline.
I have some test computers, so I'll see what happens.

My Gawed.. Emerge looks so damn cool.