buying slackware, do i need source CD's
 

I am stuck with dialup internet so i dont realy have a choice about downloading stuf, if i want a big distro like say slackware, im going to need to buy it. i went to a few of those cheep linux CD sites, and this is what I have found; the 2 install CD's for around 9$ or i can get all 4 CD's for around 20$.

my question is; What is included on 2 the source CD's, is it source tarball's or is it some special soruce format? like how redhat's source cd's just contain many RPM's.

so what do you think i should get?
O yea, forgot to mention, the reason im converting to slackware is cause I'm looking for a more source freindly OS which can be tweaked a little easier. I'm coming from redhat 9.

Rule of thumb -- if you don't know what the source CD's are for, you don't need em.

Apparently they're for geeks only. You can get all of the packages you need on the first two cds in precompiled formate, I believe. So only bother getting the first two.

Sometime in the future though, you might be interested in tinkering with the source code. So if it's not too much trouble, get the source CD's just for the heck of it.

But to answer your question: They're completely unnecessary.

Depends on what you want to do. The standard SW distro is 4 CDs, of which you only really need the first one. The first one is the basic bootable install CD, with all the packages, including Gnome and KDE. The second CD is also bootable, but has the kernel source and some extra KDE stuff. If you want to build custom kernels, you need the kernel source. The kernel source is about 33MB total, you might be able to just grab the install CD and download the kernel source. CD 3 has the rest of the source, and CD 4 has yet more source, retired packages and ZipSlack.

Damien

I believe the kernel source came with the install disk-1 as well. According to the www.slackware.com, disk-3 contains the source and slackware book. (Plus point of getting all four disk).

If you know someone that has DSL or T-1 Line you can go to http://www.linuxiso.org/ , and download the distro and burn it onto CD...

I also have question for carbon copy: Is the Slackware book on Disc 3 up to date? Just curiouse, if so I'm spending the $40.00 and supporting Slackware some more this year...

I haven't had any problems so far with the 9.0 book. 9.1 came out in the last week or so. Haven't seen CDs for that yet.

Damien

PS Have you considered going to an Internet Cafe with a decent bandwidth and buying an hour to download and burn the CDs? Bet it's cheaper that way.

The book is for Slackware 8. :) But not much has change interms of the main structure. So it does still apply.

re:
 

go to www.yourlinux.com

you get slackware 9 on a single cd.
I got my slackware cd from there and installed slackware9.

It is about 1.2 GBP (great britain pounds) i.e. 2.01 $ and shipping

Just FYI, Slackware 9.1 install is on the first two CDs. If you want Gnome or KDE, you'll need disc two. Slack 9.0 install only takes up the first CD.

I suggest you support Slackware by buying 9.1 from the Slackware Store. I have the CDs downloaded and I've installed 9.1, but I'm still buying the CDs from the Slackware Store so Patrick and continue his work. Since I don't have the time or expertise to support Slackware by directly contributing packages, I support it with my money.

when did 9.1 come out? and whats the diference between 9.1 and 9.0.

cause i went to the slackware store in the link above, and it said "pre-order" slackware 9.1, it said that its set to ship in late september, i thought it was already out? how can the cheep CD sites have it if its not yet out?

9.1 has been out for about a week. The Slackware store doesn't have the CDs yet because they wait for them to be professionally produced, but Slackware releases the ISOs as soon as they are ready. There's usually a two week lag. That's how I used the CDs I burned (using swaret) to install 9.1.

I have a subscription to Slackware, and my credit card has already been charged for 9.1, so I should get it in the next couple days. I think the subscribers get priority for the new CDs, so they may just have not yet released the CDs to one-time purchasers.

My guess is if you order it from the Slackware Store, you'll get the CDs inside of two weeks, likely in one week.