For learning purposes and tinkering: Slackware/Gentoo? (8 m.o newbie)
 

Hi all,


Background: I am a newcomer to computing, and also to linux. My knowledge of computers/computing prior to 8 months ago was, I would say, worse than average. At that point I was introduced to the idea of free software and its implications and downloaded Ubuntu 9.10 and have recently been using 10.04.
In spite of the fact that I have enjoyed Ubuntu greatly, I my interest in learning Linux is for the learning itself, and the Free Software philosophy, not for any particular software/usability.

Situation: At this point, I am ready to try another distro (and yes I am sure down the line I will try more) as the learning curve for Ubuntu has flattened out and I dont feel the need to learn as much as I did at first.

Question: If you were to chose, which distro, between Gentoo and Slackware, would give me the greatest chance to learn, configure, tinker, knock down, build back up, and be a long term learning tool etc? And Why?


Note: My admin skills are not great but I learn quickly. So far, I have mainly messed with Apparmor, configuring firefox, privoxy, conky, wicd-curses, etc. I have no fear of the CLI, but I am not experienced. And I have no background in programming, though I have started to learn C.

Note1: While I have never taken the time to configure Slackware, I have practiced several installs and I have no fear of text based install/partition etc.

Note2: Down the line I would like to experiment with *BSD and so perhaps thought that Gentoo, with its portage, might be helpful.

Edit1(addition): One question, clearly Slackware is very stable as a community and I have heard of "infighting/instability" with Gentoo, how did that play out and how did it impact the distro? Is there good Gentoo Documentation like I have heard about for Slack/Arch etc?

do both
or Slackware

Gentoo has a significant learning curve. I think it would make more sense to get familiar with Slackware first *then* try Gentoo.
Slackware is an excellent choice, it is what I prefer and run. Prior to attempting Slackware ensure that you read all of the support documentation available on the CDs/DVD. Also, read the slackbook, linked in my signature.
Have fun! :)

In my personal experience the Gentoo learning curve was too steep for me to get into. Its something I'd like to have another shot at, but not for a bit. I couldn't get it to install following the guide step by step.

Slackware on the other hand still provided an ample learning curve, but has a beautiful simplicity about it. I got it installed the first night and am still configuring away to no end :)

Have fun

I would say give Slackware a shot and if you feel like you aren't learning anything or if you feel like you reach a plateau, then move on. The good thing about Slackware is that it's complete and ready to go in minutes vs. having to compile the whole system which will takes hours to days depending on your machine. You will learn plenty about compiling using Slackware so that later adventures in building your own system such as Gentoo or LFS will be more easily absorbed. Of course, I'm basically saying what I personally did, so my answer is naturally biased. Most importantly, HAVE F UN!

Also Arch is a good system where you'll learn a lot, it's a lot like Slack from an admin point of view, but it is definitely harder to get going... Probably somewhere between Slack and Gentoo (admittedly I've never used Gentoo).

Agreed. Arch is a good learning experience albeit harder to get going than Slackware. I've run Arch 3-4 times, but, have settled on Slackware as my primary OS. I've tried Gentoo before (crash and burn).
Debian may be a good choice for the OP as Ubuntu is based on Debian. I'm a long time FreeBSD user. The OP may find that interesting. The FreeBSD installer (sysinstall) is very Slack-like. :)

Good advice here above. I wanted to add I like the volume of packages a full install gives you with Slackware. When learning and getting familiar with Linux it is nice to see some of the software solutions out there. I agree with the above statements try a bunch. I am absolutely slanted with Slack but have fun.

Many thanks to all of you.

Hitest, while just getting used to Linux I feel, from a learning-tree standpoint, it might not be best to launch into xBSD (might you agree?). Obviously you are a seasoned user, can I ask what about Gentoo yielded a crash/burn? Was it some admin task that was difficult or was it native to the install etc?

Basically, I plan to keep running Ubuntu as a backup, but I am looking for something on which to learn/tinker, while being usable (no LFS etc project just yet).

my experience with Gentoo and a couple derivatives; Calculate Linux and Sabayon Linux, was very similar to other source-based distro's I've tried including SourceMage and Lunar Linux.

Basically, it takes a long time to initially compile the system, then periodically you gotta rebuild the whole system, and sometimes it gets caught in dependency loop or something similar.

with Slackware and ARCH, you can do both, binary and source packages, especially via sbopkg.
I favor Slackware because it's very simple, has an eternal identity, and making packages in Slackware is very simple compared to others.

source distro's aren't bad or anything, it's a time-consuming hobby though compared to others
and if the system breaks, then a reinstall is that much longer.

but, pre-assembled derivatives like Calculate and Sabayon are great starters for Gentoo

Hello Ubunoob001,

Slackware was my first distro and I've learned much with it. Last year I gave Gentoo a shot and about 2 month ago I tried Arch.
The great advantage of Gentoo and Arch is their excellent documentation. I agree with hitest that reading the documentation is very valuable and necessary as well. But due to my experience it is much easier to quickly find an helpul manual applied to a certain topic when looking at the Arch or Gentoo documentations.
Otherwise, when looking for an explanation of a topic which is not related to a specific distro, all of the mentioned distros provide the appropriate manual.
The slackbook doesn't cover any of the modern concepts in Linux (e.g. udev or hal), one can just as well read the manpages instead of the slackbook.
Slackwares big advantage is that if you perform a full install, in most cases everything will work out of the box.
For learning purposes I'll recommend to dualboot Slackware and one of the other mentioned distros. I found it a great benefit to compare how different distros work.

Markus

That's the point I was trying to make as well. Building from source is definitely something you want to do if knowledge is what you are after, but because compiling an entire system from scratch is so time consuming, and there is just a TON of downtime while a build is going, you do a lot of waiting compared to the amount of time you are doing things which lead to learning. With both Slackware and Arch there will be much building from scratch because that's one of the chief ways of adding software to the base system (more so in Slackware). It's really a cost/benefit ratio in my opinion. Also the bleeding edge nature of Arch might make it hard to tell if the repositories are broken temporarily compared to Slackware, where even -current is going to be reasonably stable MOST ;) of the time. Having said that, something tells me the recent updates in -current make that statement a little less true at the moment.

I just really think Slackware (stable) is a great distro for learning because you are forced to learn a lot of basics just to function, but once you've gotten the hang of those basics then the distro itself stays out of the way and lets you poke and prod to your heart's content with a reasonable amount of confidence that you'll be able to fix what you break, which ultimately is probably the best teacher there is.

From there, Arch and Gentoo will be much more accessible I would think.

no, this is not the case. Once my Gentoo system was up and running all updates (compiling) is running in the background while I can use the system for my normal work. Moreover there are few packages which take more than some minutes to compile (e.g. openoffice about 5 hours on my laptop). I don't have any downtime with Gentoo due to updates.

Markus

Linus/Others, I suppose one question question re: Slackware is that it seems that the Gentoo people make it seem as though there is a very minimal Gentoo install. And that then there are a huge number of options regarding packages etc to install to create a workable system. Whereas on the surface, Slackware [full] seems to create a full system that requires configuration but not "design".
1. It seems like this minimal+your design in Gentoo would be better for learning design whereas the full+configure in Slackware seems to be better for learning maintenance/daily admin. Thoughts?
2. This is probably my own error and something I can learn in Ubuntu, but it seem that by default Ubuntu installs config files/apps/etc in SO many different places with little consistency that it makes it hard to keep things clean. Do you find that either of these Distros are in anyway by-default "cleaner".

How long was it till you got up and running though and what kind of hardware were you dealing with? I was speaking from the time I power on the machine with the intent to install to the time I'm working in a full system. I'm by no means speaking ill of Gentoo. Just that it's a deeper investment in time.

From my personal experience I did not give Gentoo the needed time to fully use the system. I failed. That is not a condemnation of Gentoo, rather a reflection of my own inability. Gentoo is more difficult to use than Slackware. If you want something more difficult than Slackware try Arch or FreeBSD. You are obviously curious and interested in learning more about GNU/Linux. When you are prepared Slackware will show you what a solid OS looks like. Slackware is more difficult to use than Ubuntu, but, it is a good stepping stone for you. If you need help setting up Slackware we will be happy to help you. :)

It's not that long to get running. Gentoo now starts with a stage 3 image, versus the stage 1 images of the old days. (Getting X up is a little more annoying until you remember to emerge xterm, xclock, and twm in addition to X11.)

If you are already running Slackware, just use qemu-system to create a VM and fiddle around with Gentoo in there.

I just try xubuntu 7.10 and xubuntu 8.04 then debian, I don't remember exactly which one but was like two years ago, then i go to slackware. But i read a lot of documentation of Arch and Gentoo because in some point I thought in try them and as far as I can see is that with Arch and Gentoo you spend the time configuring your system how the documentation of each specific distro said (Arch/Gentoo) in Slackware you make your initial install, the 99.9% works very well out of the box, and then you go directly to the source of each application for configure the system. For example: if you want to configure lftp you will go to lftp documentation; if you want configure xchat you will go to xchat documentation; if you want configure irssi you will go to irssi documentation, and so on, in other distros like Arch and Gentoo you will go to the documentation of each one and configure the application in a Arch or Gentoo way, i mean that is the idea for that is a big very good documentation.

So in my experience I learn more in Slackware about GNU/Linux because I learn the things most of the time from the source just like they are and not how other people like or think that are better. Although you could install Slackware and play with Arch and Gentoo in the same time in this way you will have a more complete GNU/Linux experience.

Hello together,
well, I am dualbooting Arch and Gentoo on both of my computers. One desktop with an Athlon dualcore (march=K8) and a Laptop with an Intel Dual-core (march=core2), both with 4GB of RAM.
I have a running system (Arch) from which I build Gentoo and can do my normal work meanwhile.
Well I have build Gentoo a couple of times, so I can go straigthforward: partitioning, creating filesystems, downloading and extracting the stage3 and snapshot, then configuring make.conf and the rest of the system may take about 2-3 hours.
At first I emerge vim (since I cannot work with nano), the kernel, dhcpcd, ccache and (on the laptop) wpa_supplicant. Then the system is built which takes about 3-4 hours where glibc and gcc take by far the most time to compile.
Rebooting. Building xorg-server takes about 20 minutes, then fvwm, xterm and some others, some minutes.
Configuring X (as easy as in Slackware, one has to make hal working). Building firefox takes a longer time since it pulls a lot of depending packages with it, 1 hour.
This is the moment when I'm able to work with the new system. And then I go along with building additional packages (thunderbird, gnome, pidgin, openoffice....), this may take some days until everything is working well.
One thing which is easier with Gentoo than Slackware is the localization. I need german language support and in Gentoo once I set the Useflag "nls" (national language support), configured /etc/locale.gen and set "LINGUAS" to "de", I don't have to deal with this anymore, all programs which allow for german language support are automatically build with it. In Slackware one has to adapt each program by hand, e.g. firefox needs a german xpi-file for every new version. Many programs run faster with "builtin" language-support.
this is true, but Gentoo and Arch as well are very clean systems which are easy to configure. It is a little more special than with slackware, but otherwise quite easy to transfer a configuration from one of those distros to another.

Markus

On my Linux machine I dual boot Arch and Slack. Arch really is great for seeing how it all pieces together. It's very similar to Gentoo, but without all the compiling.

I say for what you want you should use Slackware. This is mostly because with Gentoo you will probably spend most of your time compiling programs instead of configuring and learning. Also, Gentoo is very much automated, you can learn plenty from it still, but not as much, and it isn't setup like Slackware, it isn't as easy, IMO.

Agreed. I think that Slackware is a logical first step forward in order of difficulty from Ubuntu. Slackware is harder to use than Ubuntu, but, if you read the support documentation you will prevail.
On Friday I finished a week long experiment running Arch Linux. It is a good distro albeit harder to set-up than Slackware. I'm also a long-time FreeBSD and Debian user. Slackware meets my needs; it is my operating system. :)

Arch is very good. Its base installation is small and it's got loads to recommend it, e.g. the Arch wiki is great.

I wouldn't say Arch is hard to get going though. If you read the Beginners' Guide, it boils down to installing it, configuring some files and downloading some software.

I'd go with Slackware. If you need to do anything in Slackware, you'll end up learning something about Linux.

Most importantly, Slack runs the best out of any distro that I have used. I can honestly say that Slackware is the only distro I've used with which I've yet to find some shortcoming, however minor.

I've not tried Gentoo.

Once you've had Slack, you won't go back ;)

Okay, yeah its this "how the pieces fit together" part that I find at least attractive regarding Gentoo (and it sounds like also Arch).

You guys have been great!

Two quick follow up questions

Q1. Just a quick follow up question: it seems that the Gentoo people make it seem as though there is a very minimal Gentoo install. And that then there are a huge number of options regarding packages etc to install to create a workable system. Whereas on the surface, Slackware [full] seems to create a full system that requires configuration but not "design".

do you guys think that is a fair assessment?

Q2: What is all this talk about instability of the Gentoo community /infighting i hear about? Its mentioned on distro-watch etc with no details.

A full install will give you a system that in most cases "will just work." The text-based ncurses installer that Slackware uses will guide you through configuration and set-up. The one thing that new Slackware users sometimes find difficult is that you must manually partition your hard drive.
When you boot up your computer using the Slackware install DVD or CD log-in as root. I suggest that you use cfdisk to partition your hard drive. The command will look like this: cfdisk /dev/sda
This stuff is all covered in the support documentation and the slackbook.

Well, you could argue that a full Gentoo installation would have an almost ungodly amount of software in it. (Not to mention the amount of time it would take your machine to compile it all.)

I think that it is safe to say that a full Slackware install will allow users on that system to perform many useful tasks without adding additional software. Now that Slackware has slackbuilds.org, it is almost as easy to add software to a Slackware system as to a Gentoo one.

I have fiddled around with a Gentoo install in a virtual machine and I believe that if I ever decide to stop using Slackware, I will switch to Gentoo. (Note that "fiddle around with" is not the same "do useful work with". However, a former colleague of mine in my old job used Gentoo on his desktop and I was impressed with his ability to create a system that was fine-tuned to have exactly what he wanted.)

Indeed, I think I was thinking of this too much as a mutually exclusive scenario. In looking through the Gentoo install docs, it does indeed seem that I may get frustrated trying to learn so much during the install rather than after I have a working system.

I shall take your, and the majority, advice here and go with Slackware for now. And if I feel that I am ready for another challenge after that, move to Gentoo.

hitest, thanks so much for the offer of future help, im sure ill need it from time to time :) if anything, the slackware users on here are VERY helpful.

Thread solved, but might update on my progress regarding the install tonight.

Thanks again and again.
Ubunoob001

You are very welcome! Take a moment before you do the install tonight and read the slackbook linked in my signature. In the slackbook they use fdisk to set-up partitions, which works perfectly. A more user-friendly way to partition your hard drive is to use cfdisk as I mentioned previously. The slackbook also has screen-shots of the installation procedure. The installer is text-based. You will primarily use your tab and enter keys and space bar on your key board. Have fun and enjoy the process! Welcome to the LQ Slackware forum.
We will be happy to help you.

Hitest, thanks so much. I have practiced a slackware install on VirtalBox, but havent on my system-proper. And I never got to config. Anyhow Im pretty excited. I think tonight ill just read some documentation and save the main install for tomorrow.

your gonna install it beside Ubuntu and let Ubuntu's grub2 handle the booting?
just do "update-grub" as root and it'll find your Slackware install, or if your installing Lilo to MBR, then you must setup your /etc/lilo.conf, it's up to you...

it's all very easy if you remember that it's really all about the various text config (.conf, .cfg) files that are edited for various purposes.
it's easy, you'll see

Also, you gonna do a full DVD install of 13.1? I guess yes

yeah im thinking just leaving grub, and yeah DVD 13.1 32bit

Okay this will be my last post here as I don't want to hog user-specific help rather than question-specific. Anyhow, I do have a question about my fresh partition layout: i just deleted Vista (gasp!) :) etc, so as to have a fresh layout for a reinstall of Ubuntu and for my new install of Slackware...here is the link:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...indows-839175/