Slackware vs Mandrake

I use MDK9.2 and am (possibly) holding out for 10.1, however, I have heard that Slackware is the best distro available.
I've heard that Mandrake is bloated and that Slackware isn't for newbies(as I concider myself one).

Could someone please tell me the major differences between the two. The main points I am concered about areinstallation, hardware detection, configuration, and package installation. When I installed MDK9.2, I did it first shot, it detected everything(all old components), the Mandrake Control Center is easy to use, and RPMs install nicely most of the time. I have nothing against tars, infact I'm starting to prefer them to RPMs.

the main difference is that slackware doesn't come with any graphical configuration tools... this means that you configure your system using a text editor...

it's the best distro if you want to LEARN linux...

http://www.slackware.com/book

As I haven't used Mandrake in quite a while, I can't offer a proper comparison. Hopefully the information I can give you will help.

First, Slack isn't too harsh on newbies. It may not be a good choice for your first distro, but if you have experience working with Linux, you should be just fine in Slackware. I jumped straight over from RedHat to Slackware without a hitch, and learned a lot since then. Slackware will definately teach you some new tricks.

Slackware offers a text based installer. It's really easy to use. You may end up messing up the first few times like I did, but if you run that installer enough times, you can use it with your eyes closed.

Slack's hardware detection isn't bad at all. There may be a few pieces of hardware you'll have to tell it about, but for the most part, it can figure out what you have.

Configuration is where you might run into a little trouble in the beginning. Slackware expects that you can configure things by hand in a text editor. The man pages come in handy here. Google searches also help. Just starting out with a fresh install, however, you may find you don't have much, if anything, to configure. The most I ever do on a fresh Slackware install is edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules to make it load the hid module for my mouse, then run xorgconfig(xf86config on Slack 9.1 and below) to set up X. I also run alsaconf to get my sound set up if it isn't already.

Package installation is very simple. Packages come in .tgz files. The programs installpkg and pkgtool can be used to install them. They work a lot like RPMs, but they don't look for dependencies. This is a good thing if you like to compile programs from source. When you do a full Slack install, typically, the only dependencies you'll find yourself chasing after are the SDL libraries, which can be found easily.

Which is best all depends on you. Do you want to install the distro with everything set up for you. Do you want to be able to use graphical tools to do stuff. Do you want or need to learn Linux, how it works, what it does. Do you want to be able to easily install programs that are already built into binaries. Do you want to have dependency checking that was designed for the distro. Do you want an update method that is built into the distro. Do you know how to properly use google. Do you enjoy searching for an answer. Can you read and understand. Much of this depends on your personality. After you think about these questions for awhile and be honest with yourself, you will know what you need to do.

Thank you all for the help. I've still got a lot of thinking to do about this topic but your responses have given me some insight into it.

i started my linux-life with slackware 9.1 on desktop/server@home without any knowledge whatsoever about *nix and have never looked back. i use quite a lot my home computer via gprs-ssh with powerbook, my wife does some writing in kde/openoffice.
just look at the amount of posts on slack forum compared to others. you definetly find answers to all your questions and problems. these guys here are the best.

I have tried a few distros, Mandrake, Redhat, Slackware, and SUSE. What I have found is that more graphical tools and flashy stuff they do... its cool like SUSE is pretty wicked how it does just about EVERYTHING for you even managed to get hardware acceration for my ATI radeon just by ticking a box in the control panel.

Thats all cool, but I also find that lots of the configuration files (as they must be setup by pros) look bloody complicated or confuse me. Where as with slack they are generally well layed out and simple.

Oh yeah and what do you have to loose?? Dual boot it or install it and then try another distro if you don´t like it!

Good luck!

I tried Mandrake on my pc's and its a nice easy system, but it really hated my last 2 laptops, so I moved on eventually settling on Slackware, I used to consider myself a noob, but not anymore,, not since using Slack.
(Which taught me more about Linux in the first weeknd using it than I learned in 5 years using other distro's).

The hardest thing about using Slack as pointed out is that you have to configure it by a text editor,
and even that isnt hard as every question you could ask has already been answered here by these guys,
some of the config files are in a differernt place, but again its easy to find them using the "whereis" command from the terminal as root.

Slack is tops (not tough)

Agreed with all of the above. You heard the opposite of what's really the truth. Mandrake's only as bloated as you want it to be. When 10.0 came out, it was arguably the most powerful and quickest desktop around (out of the box). Slackware is not particularly hard on you. The installer asks you what you want installed without making any assumptions (but you can make it as bloated as any distro by picking everything).

If you like Mandrake Control Center, you'll miss it with Slack, but pkgtool is not too bad, really. They're both great. They're both free (as in freedom). Urpmi is a nice tool for installing those dratted rpms, but if you install swaret, you can get the same functionality with Slack. I'd say flip a coin!

Ummm..actually I´m using Mandrake 9.2, too. I already downloaded the first CD of Slackware 10 and half of the second one, but when I read that Slackware doesn´t has KDE...is that right? or have I read wrong?
I don´t have any problem with command lines and consoles, because I had to configure manually my Network-Card on Red Hat 9 (my first distro). I didn´t even use DOS under Windows but I learned pretty fast without Internet and one week later I was soooo happy that I got into the Internet with Linux by myself that I got in love with Linux and use it since then much more than Windows , Windows is only for Games now.
But is it really necessary to install KDE manually? I mean:
Many people think command lines and non-graphical environments is the best but I don´t think so...I mean computers are fast enougth today to run a Graphical User Interface! Of course its right to use command lines for configs and other stuff but who wants to use a command-line text editor if he could use OpenOffice perfectly, as fast as the other one? I don´t know if you understand me...
But I will try Slackware anyway. I want to know if it´s really that great, but the Community really is one of the best!!!

Slackware has KDE, it is on disk 2. By default when you boot up it goes to console, but KDE is just a "startx" away. Alternatively you could boot to a *dm and never even see the console.

Why anyone would want to run a Desktop computer and not have a GUI available on a modern system is beyond me. Server I can understand, but not desktop. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

when you install slackware on a desktop, you can leave the default categories and do a "full install"... you'll get the works... kde 3.2, gnome 2.6, etc...

Personally I dont care much for the slackware installer; however, Vector linux is based on Slackware and is quite easy to install and use. Check it out at www.vectorlinux.com

Have to say, I started out with Mandy 7.0, and was faithfull to it up to 9.2. Then 10.0 came out and totally screwed my box. So I installed Slack 9.1 and have since upgraded it with very little problem to current. As with most OSs, it has it´s own problems, but they are always, and I mean always resolvable via this forum. And unlike Mandy, at least you can chase around the shell scripts to see what is going on. Can´t say I´ve booted into Mandy now for myself for well over 6 months, although my son uses M10.1 on his laptop, (because power management works) So, all in all, a great distro, not for the faint hearted, but neither for the real geek. And above all, ¨it just works¨

Originally posted by fedivh Ummm..actually I´m using Mandrake 9.2, too. I already downloaded the first CD of Slackware 10 and half of the second one, but when I read that Slackware doesn´t has KDE...is that right? or have I read wrong? I don´t have any problem with command lines and consoles, because I had to configure manually my Network-Card on Red Hat 9 (my first distro). I didn´t even use DOS under Windows but I learned pretty fast without Internet and one week later I was soooo happy that I got into the Internet with Linux by myself that I got in love with Linux and use it since then much more than Windows , Windows is only for Games now. But is it really necessary to install KDE manually? I mean: Many people think command lines and non-graphical environments is the best but I don´t think so...I mean computers are fast enougth today to run a Graphical User Interface! Of course its right to use command lines for configs and other stuff but who wants to use a command-line text editor if he could use OpenOffice perfectly, as fast as the other one? I don´t know if you understand me... But I will try Slackware anyway. I want to know if it´s really that great, but the Community really is one of the best!!!

You can directly load GUI (window manager) when slackware start up by changing setting in /etc/inittab after you installed slackware. Read this thread
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=230406

It will show you step by step.

You can change your default window manager by typing "xwmconfig" in command line(as regular user (not as root)).

Enjoy!