Hey guys,
I'm really interested in Amigo Linux and now especially coming out for windows xp im probably gonna get it, right now im operating on a win98se/Damn Small Linux box and with the way this is ill probably go to a winxp[amigo] box. I really like linux and ive been looking for a small distro that works inside windows. But the thing im looking at really is the
application installation method i know debian is a bit easy and from what ive read slackware is a million times more easy, can someone please give me a brief explanation of the installation methods (to me all it looks like is put the tar into the / dir unzip it and just add the commands or whatever to your wm menu)

Slackware package management is primitive in that in does NO dependency checking. You have to find out yourself what is needed for a pkg to work. The advantage of the system is that it allows you complete control. You can add or delete anything, in any order.
The dependencies for what is IN Amigo is very carefully worked out. You won't find much 'fat' lying around. See my last post on 'network settings' thread for how to install packages. It IS easy.
Slackware itself doesn't have aptget either, although it has been 'ported' to Slackware and there other 'autoupdaters' as well. I DO NOT recommend the use of ANY of them, unless you are prepared to reinstall and reconfigure your system each time it gets 'broken' by one of these utilities.
Lots of Linux users are a bit hyper about keeping everything updated. I'm a "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" type myself, or at least that's the way I think a normal non-geeky computer USER looks at it. Probably 25% of all computer users don't even know how to install a program, even under Windows!

To directly answer your 'how different...' question concerning Amigo, details on Amigo installation can be found at its "How to Install" page, http://amigolinux.org/docs/inshowto.htm.

To contrast Slackware and Debian-based distros: Debian and debian-based distros rely upon dselect and 'apt', the advanced package tool, for installation and upgrades, e.g., apt-get. Slackware itself initially uses 'setup' in installing packages, but then afterwards relies upon the fairly straightforward 'pkgtool' and 'installpkg' commands (actually, if I am not mistaken, the initial Slackware 'setup' uses 'pkgtool' with a specific command-argument for first-time installation).

IMHO, Slackware and Amigo both, rely to a similar extent on the command-lie interface (CLI) as does Debian. I myself would recommend reviewing the issues raised above with dependency-checking during installs and upgrades, both for Slackware, for Amigo and for Debian-based systems.

-nycace36

Debian's Apt-get is much vaunted for settling dependency issues, but be warned, it's only really reliable if you use Woody (Stable). If you run Testing or Unstable it will break your system sooner or later.
The trouble with Woody is that it is now very old. Slackware uses a much later kernel.

nycace36, when pkgtool is run from setup, it works on the mounted target drive. This actually provides a real safe way to do a complete upgrade of Slackware. You just fire up 'setup and mount the / partition you want to upgrade, then run pkgtool and remove all the old packages and install the new ones. Best actually to still do as the Official Upgrade Howto says and first install the new package, remove the old package, and reinstall the new package.
One of the ideas I have thought about for Amigo is a small 'rescue & maintenance' system in an initrd, that could always be at Amigo's side. This could even be done so that people could load modules before continuing to boot (for SATA support, etc).
I am also planning to hobble together some scripts that will help find dependency INFO, and still let you act on the info manually.