ok.. i just finished my last exam (java) and have no school till september now, so i have alot or free time (besides work) and i want to try linux YET again.

i have made many, many attempts at a variety of distro's.. and have come to decide from the ones that ive tried that i seem to like ubuntu the most.

initially, it was running [somewhat] fine.. then the problem arose with playing mp3s and that is a necessity so i have something to listen to when breaking my install
i have reinstall ubuntu many times, and one more time recently with the new 5.04 release of ubuntu.. and have the same problem and cant play mp3s. i posted afew threads about this over the past few months and couldnt get them resolved.

i was wondering if i should give slack 10.1 a shot? i have installed it once before [prior to trying ubuntu] but my network card and mouse werent detected so i didnt dare try and fix it but delete the partition and forget about it.

whats so great about slack? is it only for the true x'ers and the hardcore? i have the impression that its well liked for its stability and user-control over the system... how come it isnt higher ranked on distrowatch? oh well, thats not relevant.

tonight i want to remove ubuntu yet again and start over with my slack cds i burnt.. but im just asking for some insight about this from people who have maybe tried slack and ubuntu.

i dont want to install it if im just gonna end up removing it again!

first of all.. where would i start trying to get my mouse to work once i install slack? last time i installed it, the cursor showed up but it wouldnt respond to my mouse.

for my network card and soundcard problems would the best thing to do be to download the [linux] drivers from my motherboard manufacturers' site and try and go from there?

for all the guru's out there:
if you think you can help me out with my current problem with xmms let me know i can give you a link to the thread and that would prevent me from having to start over [again]

thanks for the input...

everybody's got "their" distro, you just have to try out different ones and see what works for you. More or less, if one distro supports a certain piece of hardware another one will ( there are exceptions to this, but as long as there is a driver available, you can get it to work - some distro's expect y
ou to do this yourself, some do it for you).

network, mouse and sound - need to provide a little more info, like what are you running? a good thing to do if ubuntu has the hardware correctly set up is run "lsmod &> drivers.txt" - this wll create a file called drivers.txt with the modules ubuntu is loading, which will help you alot if you don't know exactly which driver is needed for your hardware.

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MP3 support in Ubuntu is broken by default, but I am sure if you search on their wiki or forums, you will get a solution on how to enable it.

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i prefer

slackware 10.1
and kubuntu(with pacakges frm ubuntu)

regards

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Yes, you should, and you should also give any other distros that you might be interested in a shot as well. You won't know what you might be missing until you give those distros a chance, and I think you'll be better off deciding on a distro based on your own personal experience with it rather than what you might hear or read about how good/bad a distro might be.

As for Slack's rep as being "hardcore", personally I don't see why people consider it that way. It's not hard to install, and it is very, very stable. The main difference I think is just that the installation procedure uses a fairly primitive-looking menu system rather than a fancy GUI. Check out this excellent Slack installation tutorial for some screenshots and helpful instructions.

Good luck with it, regardless of which distro you decide is the right one for you -- J.W.

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hey J.W

that sems to be good tutorial
specially for those who think slack is not easy to install

regards

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Agreed, the tutorial is excellent, and as I mentioned before the Slack installation isn't any harder or easier than any other distro (at least from my perspective). Thanks for the feedback masand. -- J.W.

The only reasons that Slack is considered to be difficult or hardcore is that Slack doesn't use a lot of auto-config scripts or package manegment in the same way others do.

Slack is easy to install, it just doesn't use a fancy GUI for the installer. Where people are put off and think it's "too hard" is when it comes to installing additional apps. The offically recommended way to do this is manually. You download the needed packages and install them using installpkg or upgradepkg depending on what you're doing.

There is no dependency checking so it's up to you to download and install all libraries needed by the app if they aren't included in the package. Some people consider this to be too difficult to deal with, but it actually is quite easy.

Mostly Slack is considered "too hard" by lazy people. Most configuration is done by manually editing config files instead of relying on some script to do it for you (and possibly bork your system).

While there are some 3rd party tools for package management for Slack but they aren't offically supported and you run the risk of borking your system. Use at your own risk. Some folks have problems (careless IMO) and some don't (paying attention).

As for MP3 playing, a lot of distros including Slack, Ubuntu, and Debian do not include the libraries needed to play Mp3 or encoded DVD due to license and copyright restrictions. It's pretty easy to add them to your system though.

For Ubuntu, read the "Unofficial Start Guide" which contains good info in how to enable multimedia playing in Ubuntu. This same info applies to other distros as well although the details will be different depending on the distro.

Any distro will play multimedia once the required apps and libraries are installed.

I highly recommend Slack if you aren't lazy and want stability and simplicity.

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slack does not play mp3s??

slack has the all the packages for that by default

regards

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True Slack does play MP3 by default, but not encrypted DVD. I was speaking in general terms regarding multimedia. Libdvdcss must be installed before Slack will play encrypted DVD.

After re-reading my post I could have worded it better. LOL Debian and Ubuntu (among others don't play either by default)

i tried debian and it could again play MP3's, cannot say about ur DVD thing
and yes ubuntu cannot play MP3s
so i prefer kubuntu over that

regards

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