On a side note: you could do this sort of thing with RHEL/CentOS 5.x by booting the text mode installer using "linux text". For mysterious reasons, this great installer was severely crippled starting with RHEL/CentOS 6.x, where the only remaining option was automatic partitioning. And the 7.x installer was even more of an abomination. Try to setup RAID 5 with four or more disks, you'll be pulling your hair out for an afternoon.

Niki

Thanks kikinovak.

I thought I was losing my mind there.

On second thought, since I already HAVE lost my mind, maybe that's a 'slight' exaggeration

But I KNOW that [Alt][F2] used to work in the CentOS Installer.

I did try the Text Mode Install as well, but not only did [Alt][F2] not get me to a command line, it REALLY borked my screen where it was impossible to continue to the fdisk screen.

Lordie, I love 'riding' Slackware which comes without training wheels and which includes lots of rope with which I can hang myself if I so desire

-- kjh

I really appreciated your comment here about how nice ncurses is. I did, however, disagree with the idea that Slackware is not something that has been, and what appears to me also the implied idea that Slackware should not be, recommended as a first distro. I think Slackware is a perfect first distro.

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Slackware was my first distro (not the first I booted, but the first I "switched" to from my previous non-Linux OS). It has been my primary distro ever since.

2 members found this post helpful.

I don't think that slackware is restricted to only certain kinds of users.
It's not that hard to install it.
If it's your first time, you just have to extract the minimal
essential info on how to prepare your disk before launching the installation (fdisk, etc.).
With the ncurses interface, your text input is minimal. Most of the times you just need to press OK.
There are just a couple of places that might be confusing (lilo, etc.).

Once you have a slackware system running, anybody should be able to use it.
I remember, a few years back, I installed slackware along a windows system for friends
who had a 7-year old boy. He had no trouble getting there and playing games
(Mr. Potato, Frozen Bubbles, ...).
Now the average user might occasionally encounter a problem (printer, network).
The slackware community is very friendly with complete noobs...

3 members found this post helpful.

Way back in the days of Windows 95 I had a cheap 586 desktop that crashed every other day or so requiring a format and reload to get it to work for a few more days. It was my first computer and I was a middle aged man with no computer training. I didn't know squat about linux and didn't even know that it existed.

I was at work with a co-worker and a suffed shirt with a laptop in the elevator and was bitching about my computer. The business type exited the elevator with us and booted up his laptop to demonstrate Slackware Linux which was his sole operating system. Man, what an introduciton. He showed us the beautiful desktop he had with Fluxbox and loaded his browser and a few other programs such as an office suite to show that it was a full-featured operating system that could replace Windows. Never saw that fellow again.

I went on to download and install Slackware and found it very confusing to configure. The manpages read like an unknown code to a beginner. After beating my head into the wall for awhile I tried RedHat and didn't like it at all so went back to Slackware and ended up with a dual-boot computer. Over the years I went back and forth from Slackware to Windows until I finally made the big junp about 10 years back now.

My point is that I did it and struggle with some stuff but will not give up. If I can do it anyone can believe you me. There is no way I can think that a point and click world would be satisfying to me. In fact, I try all kinds of live linux and am disappointed to see that most of the ones at DistroWatch are spawned by Debian or an offspring of Debian

Slackware is a GREAT choice for a first distro especially these days. Things are not as hard as they were in the days of Windows 95

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Sweet Jesus. From the article...

Yeah. The move from the 3.x kernel to the 4.4.x kernel is not worthy of mention.

When I looked for LXLE, one of the first things that I see is "Always based on Ubuntu/Lubuntu LTS." And the author wonders why it isn't in Slackware.

Even more depressing is that dugan's comment is actually correct.

I got the impression the author only cared about changes readily visible from the user interface (DE changes), except to criticize Slackware for not caving in to the systemd fad.

Slackware's most compelling feature is its strong bones, not its fair skin, so of course he'd come away unimpressed.

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I gave CentOS 7 a try on one of my boxes yesterday and was surprised that it was impossible to customize my partition scheme. It is a nice distro, but, I reverted back to Slackware after kicking the tires on CentOS.
Slackware is and always will be my default operating system. I also like how easy it is to dual boot Slackware with my favourite BSD.

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impossible to customize a partition scheme during the installation, hm?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6nUQ7sNVn0

I love it when Slackware users share their quality opinions about other distros and at the same time (in the same thread) complain about reviews that are made about Slackware.

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Thanks for the link. I stand corrected.

I still miss the days of what was it '15' floppyies. Wondering if floppy number 11 would be bad.
I love Slackware
Like the NRA says "You will have to pry it from my cold dead hands"
LOL
John

1 members found this post helpful.

Nice to see an old timer here on the forum. I started with Slackware 10.0 when it came on CDs.

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Fun fact(s)... Slackware was first offered with CD ISOs back with 3.0 (released Nov 1995) and first offered with DVD ISOs on 11.0 (released Oct 2006). 12.0 (released Jul 2007) was the first release that did not support booting off floppies (except for PXE installs).

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Ubuntu was my first Linux and I didn't like it.

I tried Salix after that but after a while I decided why not the Real Thing? The fdisk/cfdisk thing was off-putting for awhile but now is no problem for me at all. I had horrific experiences with FAT's in the DOS days so I was leery for awhile.

I had a reason to install Arch a couple of weeks ago. Arch is a much more difficult install than Slackware.
My experience with Slackware helped me much to understand what to do to get Arch going.

I find that Slackware is better suited for me than is Arch in general but Arch does have some in-depth documentation which is a good thing because it is not easy to get it up and going the first time.

I've had some bad crashes with LILO and some things dont seem to work as advertised, but I have found a method that works well for me and it is no problem now.
I was doing some hard drive swapping in and out at one point which was giving me fits but I finally learned what was going on.

The Only problem I have with Slackware presently is that it is very difficult to set up an VPN and hard to find out how to do it.
Now that I have Arch installed for that other project now finished I will try to set up the VPN with Arch so I can learn how to do the VPN in Slackware.