Slackware vs. others distributions
 

Yes, I know this question has been asked a million times by now, but I think I have a different need not answered by previous posts.
OK, I am not exactly a newb at linux. About a year ago, I installed Slackware. I was in aw of the amount of free tools I could get. I wanted to become a power user. I can still remember when I conquered my computer with DOS, and now, I want to conquer Linux because no one conquers windows XP (well for correctness, maybe one or two people).
Any ways, I need a distribution of linux that I can tinker with. Is Slackware the best distribution for this or are there better ones?

the distro doesn't matter, try doing first everything you do in windows with linux software.

I forgot to say that I also recently installed Fedora 3. I have not had much time to play with it, but it seems to lack a basic command prompt. I know it has one if you select safe command or something like that in the boot options, but I can't shut down X windows or anything like that. Matter of fact, bash seems to have completely disappeared, very discomforting. That is the kind of stuff I'm trying to avoid.

i think this is not true....IMO bash is standard for any distribution & what do you mean you can't shutdown X windows? killing the apps or killing X ?

when you click on a terminal icon, you get a prompt. There is nothing wrong about using GUI applications. I am using firefox right now and i could be using lynx or elinks, it really doesn't matter using the cli every time, commands are not always the same(or even exist) from a distro to another :
service httpd start (redhat/fedora)
invoke-rc.d apache start (debian)

Get Gentoo :D, www.gentoo.net

I think Nz_Boy_2004 is right. Because on the homepage of Gentoo, they say "We produce Gentoo Linux, a special flavor of Linux that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Extreme performance, configurability and a top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience. To learn more, read our about page." That sounds like what I'm looking for. Thanks.

Gentoo is a fine distro, you can you can use it and be sure you've chosen well; however, it is not for nothing that Slackware is (correct me if I'm wrong) the oldest actively supported Linux distro. It doesn't sacrifice control for automation. Excellent for tinkering!
Once you go Slack, you never go back!


Rik

binary -

Also in Fedora you are booting into runlevel 5 and GDM (usually), so getting the command prompt without x is as simple as '/sbin/telinit 3' at the command prompt as root. It may look like it halts after a short bit...just hit enter because it is waiting for your input (that is not really apparent).


mrcheeks -

Can't you start your services with '/etc/rc.d/<service> start' in most any distro? I know the directory varies (init.d or rc.d), and that a lot of distributions make "quicker" functions for this, but I thought that was pretty much a standard.

yes you can do it. Most people usually look for the service command learning all specific tools by heart. For example one guy would want to install rpm in slackware, find the service command etc. What i mean by that is lots of people learn specific distros ways...

Thanks everyone. I went back to Slack already. Fedora is nice, but I like Slackware a little better. Anyways, all this talk about distribution specific ways of doing things, leads me to another question. Is there a standard way of doing things, and where can I read about it?

Any Linux can be tinkered with to your hearts delight, but if you really want to tinker Linux From Scratch is you best bet. Slackware comes in at a close second:D

For the standards part check out the Linux Standards Base Project

debian.......slackware............gentoo.................those are hardcore linux distros

arch...

debian.......slackware............gentoo.................those are hardcore linux distros..

what about LFS? (linux from scratch) I love slackware.

and shouldn't this be moved to the distro's forum? It's not really a newbie question, more a distro question- binary- report your post to the moderator and ask for it to be moved if you like- (but don't make a new post in distros)

titanium_geek