Fedora Core 1 ------------------> Slackware 10.0
 

Hi,

I am currently working on Fedora Core 1. I've been working with Fedora Core 1 for quite sometime now and feel very comfortable with it. And also with the great community support of this fantastic site I've been able to resolve most of my problems quite easily.

I've heard a lot about Slackware and would like to try it out. But before that I have a few questions

I am a student so my basic purpose is to learn deeply the working of operating systems apart from wanting a cool O.S.

Here are my questions :

i) Is it a good move to migrate from Fedora Core 1 to Slackware ?
ii) How is it different from Fedora (a brief outline). I know it does not have rpm but what are the basic things in which it might differ from Fedora ?
iii) Any specific problems that I might face ?
iv) Which is the best place to download the Slackware distribution and other software.
v) Any other information which you wish to offer ?

Thanx in anticipation.

Hello there, just a few little answers, just my two centimes worth, I am sure others will have more and contradicting views, just remember all, this is not a distro flame war!!

i) Is it a good move to migrate from Fedora Core 1 to Slackware ?
Why migrate straight away? You can have multiple Linux Distros on your drive you can also keep your home partition and mount it
ii) How is it different from Fedora (a brief outline). I know it does not have rpm but what are the basic things in which it might differ from Fedora ?
Slack is the oldest distro on the net and is very stable, that said I keep away from it due to the lack of RPM, I am not a student or an IT professional, I just want a computer that is virus free and does what I want it to! Don't expect anything like anaconda to install your system, the slack install requires some more computer knowledge, but I managed it so you should be fine.
On the plus side many people claim that Slack is much faster because all programs are customised by the user rather than the pre-set configurations in RPM files
iii) Any specific problems that I might face ?
Dependencies RPM tries to always work around this by linking to locations of other RPMs that need to be installed ie. prog a may need components b c and d, RPM would try to sort this out for you, Slack will just tell you what is needed, it will be up to you to find em!
iv) Which is the best place to download the Slackware distribution and other software.
From the slackware site! Other programs can be downloaded in source code from the net and compiled on your computer
v) Any other information which you wish to offer ?
Personally I believe that whatever distro you are using, if it does the job and you are happy with it, stick to it. That being said I do keep trying other distros out now and again but I find Redhat and Mandriva to be the easiest to use. If you are looking to learn more about Linux then, yes, Slackware is a good choice although Debian is very popular too and has the deb package management

Oh yes, also Slackware 10.1 should be available now, just a bit more up to date

Is it a good move to migrate from fedora core 1 to slackware?

I'd say stick with one distro. Why not consider upgrading to fedora core 3 instead? If I'm you, I'd keep fedora core 1 while installing slackware on other partition. If you think you can't stand it, then you always have the option to go back to fedora core 1. For me even an upgrade to a newer version of the same distro is kind of hassle, I would say there will be many problems migrating into an environment that you're not familiar with. And with Linux, there are lots more thing to learn rather than jumping from one distro to another, which for me is kind of waste of time especially for student like you and me. I'm pro for sticking with one distro you're familiar with, and I found that everyday I'll find something new with my distro even though I think that I'm familiar enough with it. This is just from my point of view from my experience installing other distros which I removed just after 1 week or so :) There's no harm trying another distro as long as you keep the current distro while trying another one.

Hi,

I appreciate your suggestions to stick to one distro.
I am also in favour of that becoz that's the only way you learn something. Changing distros frequently leads to nothing and you end up just wasting time.


But that's what I have done. I've stuck to one distro (Fedora Core 1) for more than a year now!!!!!!
It's the only distro I know. I tried Yoper for one night and in the morning I was back to Fedora Core 1.
I didn't even try Fedora Core 2,3 coz I just felt comfortable with 1 and didn't find any need to upgrade.

My aim was to learn more and more about Linux (Yeah its highly addictive) and I thought Slackware was the best option.
It is not that I may completely switch to Slackware (yes indeed if I find it better). I always have the option to revert back to Fedora.
Moreover I can only realize how good Fedora is once I try other distros.

Also I think keeping two distros on the same machine won't serve the purpose. It hampers the learning process becoz as soon as you get stuck somewhere you are inclined to use the other one instead for finding out the answers.

Thanx a lot people for your suggestions. I feel I could do with some more.
Thanx again in anticipation.

hmmm, distros are kind of like girls, aren't they? ;)

distros don't move out of your hard drive when they catch another one there.

switch, by all means, if you really want to learn a lot about linux in general switching between distros is very helpful to the process. especially when you're switching from a redhat distro to anything that isn't.

if you've used redhat, slackware, debian and maybe gentoo, you'll be prepared for nearly any distro, with some not difficult to overcome exceptions. just be prepared to put some time into it if you have to.

Incidentally, there is quite a decent package-management app for slack. Maybe it ain't rpm, but rpm's sure have their own problems and quite frankly, I think sorting out rpm dependancies is a heck of a lot more hellish than sorting out slack's.

slapt-get.

Also - there's a (what I perceive as major) benefit to switching from something like fedora to something like slack, gentoo, LFS, etc. You get a _whole_ lot more control over your system, which means you will learn a lot more. They might not have a lot of GUI's and stuff to help you along, but really...do you want to learn how to click a checkbox or do you want to learn where your config files are and what they do?

Three cheers for mikejac69's #iii answer! You'll almost always be able to either find a slack .tgz package for a particular app, and if you can't find that I don't think I've ever seen an app that doesn't put out source installation tarballs. I've seen a lot of people complain about source installation, on the grounds that it's "archaic" or some such nonsense, but really now. I used Mandrake for a solid couple of years, and still have it on my laptop, and I don't think I've ever had an rpm work for me. They're just too specific! Change one library, and you're borked for good. Guaranteed, something is going to conflict with something along down the road. Now source installation...ahhh *sigh of content* :)

Hmm....true, sort of. I agree that rebooting stinks, so dual- or triple-booting is sometimes a pain. On the other hand, it gives you a really quick way to figure out which distro you like better: whichever one you find yourself not wanting to reboot away from is probably The One :) And yeah, I suppose if you get stuck and are determined to take the easy way out you could just reboot away from the problem. But if you're in this to enjoy yourself _and_ learn something, then you'll figure it out no matter what. (and if you're really stuck, i.e. you borked your network config or X or something, then you'll need that other distro or LiveCD :P)

*chuckles*

If learning is what you want, give Slack a spin. Packages aren't hard to find. www.linuxpackaages.net has a huge assortment of Slack packages to download, but I always use Pat's official ones when available and linuxpackages when they aren't.

Slack doesn't use a lot of automatic GUI configure tools, most of the configurations are done manually by editing the config files.

It may be something of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it you'll find you have far more control of your system.

I don't use slapt-get. I use slackpkg as it is the only one included in the Slack distro itself. You can find it under "extras". It doesn't resolve dependencies for you, but you'll find that's not the horror many seem to think it is.

I run Slack current and have virtually zero stability or speed problems.