Well I am totally new to Linux and have never used any of the distros before. Now I went over to the slackware homepage and was reading about something called "ZipSlack" and it really caught my attention.
Since I can tell that ZipSlack is not a full fledge Linux distro I was thinking of giving it a try before I decide to do anything else. I would appreciate it if any one could give me some more info about ZipSlack.


Does anyone know any website(s) where I can download the full documentaion for the different distros out there ? SuSE , Slackware , Gentoo ?? I am really interested in wanting to read them.

Any good Linux books that you guys would recommend for me to read. Any books that you have read or online tutorials which I could download ?

What distro would you recommend to someone like me who has never used Linux before ?

Thanks

Those last three questions are asked extremely frequently and you can get a lot of good info from using the search button for this site. The first one isn't asked so much. *g*

ZipSlack's a small version of Slack that installs directly to a directory on a FAT filesystem. There's no repartitioning of a disk or messing with a bootloader (as such). You unzip it and execute a DOS batch file which launches loadlin - a DOS program that boots the Linux kernel. This then runs on a umsdos fs which converts some extremely strangely named files into proper names and the system runs. It's not a 'busybox' system which, while a great achievement, can be misleading as the 'programs' don't work the way they really ought to. With ZipSlack, you get the authentic tools - just not so many of them and not running on a proper filesystem. But it's a painless way to experiment with Linux and give you a valid idea of what it's about and make transitioning to the full Slackware easier. People tend not to recommend Slack to first time users but, depending on your attitude and expectations, it can be ideal, as you wouldn't waste time messing around with junk. Give it a shot.

I think you have the right idea by wanting to try Linux out a bit before making the switch. An idea would be to get yourself a Live Linux CD (like KNOPPIX or similar). Depending on your hardware, this could give you a fairly good start at what Linux is all about.

I think ZipSlack may be a little on the hard side for a first try. I just don't know how hard-core about trying Linux you really are...
...ZipSlack doesn't have an X server (graphical interface) by default. This means that you would be getting just the Command Line Interface functionality that Linux has to offer (i.e. a bash prompt). That may be cool to you, or it may not.

Most distrobutions have /some/ sort of documentation. I'd check out the official sites and see what they have to offer. Slackware has a book (both HTML and printed) that you can look at. SuSE offers printed books with their distro bundles (the reference book alone was nearly 450 pages...).

You can always check out the reviews section of this site to see what folks think about the distros they use.

Good luck, I hope this info is helpful.

Zip Slack won't give you a real good idea of what linux is like. A much better test drive is to use one of the live-cd distros which run off a bootable cd and write nothing to your hard drive. Knoppix is probalby the best of this lot and was one of the first to popularize the bootable linux cd distro. There are now many others out there like it. You can read about knoppix here:

http://www.knoppix.net/

To get a feel for the many different linux distros out there, check out this link:

http://distrowatch.com/

As far as a recommended distro for newbies, the usual suspects are mandrake, red hat and suse.

Well, yeah, a live CD would be a good idea, too - and there's even a Slackware Live-CD. But, really - adding X to ZipSlack isn't hard - just grab the files out of the X directory, installpkg, configure, startx.

Too true, getting X on ZipSlack isn't hard.

I actually found that learning how to run Linux was better w/o X. I came from a UNIX background, however, so that path isn't for everyone

Thanks to digiot,kilgoretrout,tbranham for answering my questions.
My apologies for not having done a search before asking my questions.

But thanks for the help.

when you download slackware live remember to burn it as an ISO IMAGE FILE

lol i just downloaded, burned, and ran it a few minutes ago

unfortunely i had to burn it twice because the first time i didnt burn it as an ISO IMAGE FILE

and of course after you play around with slackware live get the actuall slackware

you download it and burn it the same way you do with Slackware Live

since Slackware is pretty big it comes in 2 discs

disc 1

ftp://ftp.biochem.uthscsa.edu/pub/li...re-9.1.CD1.iso

disc 2

ftp://ftp.biochem.uthscsa.edu/pub/li...re-9.1.CD2.iso

have fun