Why is Ubuntu and its splinter distros so popular
 

The thread title holds the question. What's so great about Ubuntu (and its splinters) that makes it better than the other distros like Mandrake/Mandriva, Redhat, Debian, SuSe, and Slackware?

The question implies that Ubuntu and its splinters are "great". What is the basis for that? Undoubtedly they are popular in the sense that many people do install and run them. Perhaps the real question is "Why is ubuntu so popular?".

Given that Mandrake hasn't been around for quite some time, the question sounds a little like an long-outdated computer-sciences/homework assignment (no offence intended at all, if you are actually just curious).

Ubuntu is not better than Slackware, but that's just my biased opinion. Some distros are less suited to certain things too, IMHO (for example, most people probably would not run a production server made out of Ubuntu-- some people probably do, yes, but most don't). Here's a story:

My roommate, she is not biased towards Slackware like I am. She wants a desktop that *works*, and is easy to use. She recently switched to Ubuntu 9.04 and wiped Windows away for good. She was quite happy for a time. When 9.10 came around, she upgraded, and discovered stuff that used to work, now did not. She went back to 9.04. When 10.04 came out (beta right now) she again tried it out: It took forever to boot up, and then she found that not only did the stuff that was broken in the last release, not get fixed, but it was more bloaty, and slower than ever too. She tossed Ubuntu and switched to PCLinuxOS. Now she's happy again.

Indeed.. "Great" and "popular" are very different, and "great" is entirely subjective. Ubuntu is a truly great replacement for Windows, definitely. But a replacement for Slackware? No. ;)

When did Mandrake become extinct?

http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS3254578534.html

Based on the above article, somewhere around 2005 :/

@Grapefruitgirl
I know the company merged with Conectiva and went through the name change as well as the product name change. The Mandriva website is functional and offers a link to download its 2010 release. Thus extinction is only semantics.

I would like to understand the differences in the distros. and I don't see or understand what sets Ubuntu apart from any of the other distros other than that it is popular. From my current experience with 9.1 desktop is that it is a waste of a blank CD.
See why here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...esktop-796990/

Somewhere between 2003 and 2004, I pitched switching to Linux to replace a large chunk of the server environment for a mid-sized non-profit. I found Mandrake and Suse to be the easiest of the distos to use at the time. My demonstration to the IT staff was made using Mandrake and they liked it. The large chunk of server environment translated to approx 30 server boxes across 9-12 sites. Actual migration probably would have been done with Red Hat and support contracts and some server consolidations.

Another demo of Linux as a desktop replacement to Windows XP was done with Mandrake. This time it was done for the not so tech savvy middle and upper management staff. Everyone liked it but they were cautious. The organization lost funding/income streams and the project died. Lots of lay-offs in all areas of the organization meant Linux wasn't top priority for people. Most were so concerned with not getting laid off that they had no interested in taking on "risky" projects.

So my original question still stands.

It is you who is characterizing Ubuntu/Kubuntu as the "latest and greatest" and then asking here what makes it so great. So, how about telling us why you think it is supposed to be the best. Are you willing to try other distributions, or are you determined to use only the so-called "latest and greatest", [K]Ubuntu in other words, and are going to declare Linux a failure if you can't get those two working on your system?

I think the number one factor making any software popular is the perception that it already is popular.

By the time you know enough about Linux to make an informed choice between distributions, you don't need to anymore; You know enough to customize any distribution into being what you want.

So when making that uninformed decision about software, most people look at popularity as a measure of quality. So being popular makes software more popular.

I'm not entirely sure how Ubuntu became super popular. Now that it is so popular, that is a factor keeping it so popular.

That said, I think Ubuntu is actually superior to Redhat, Debian, SuSe, and Slackware for a desktop (not server) Linux system and especially for a Linux beginner.

The number one thing making Ubuntu superior is the existence of Debian. Debian is a great foundation on which to build a Linux distribution. A whole lot of the work of building and maintaining a distribution can be simply inherited from Debian. Those who maintain a distribution such as Ubuntu can focus on just a fraction of what it takes to maintain a distribution while delivering a complete distribution.

Ubuntu is better than any distribution not based on Debian because Debian is a better (especially more complete) base.

Ubuntu is better than Debian, because Debian has a bit too much open source fanaticism for the good of the end user. Maybe Debian is legally and/or morally more correct and maybe their approach is better for the long term health of the open source community, but at any given moment more compromise on those issues is better for the end user.

Ubuntu is also better than Debian because of the things Ubuntu has added, especially toward making Linux a little more beginner friendly.

I think Mepis has done a slightly better job of layering a few beginner friendly changes on top of the Debian base. I think Mepis is a better Linux distribution than Ubuntu. But at the level of a comparison against Redhat, Debian, SuSe, and Slackware, the difference between KUbuntu and Mepis is almost invisible.

Ubuntu also has a big support team that less popular distributions such as Mepis lack. That is a second way that popularity leads to more popularity. Popularity tends to increase support resources, which increases popularity.

popular != great

It's popular because it's very much like Window$, and it appeals to n00bs. (go ahead, flame me)

No, he/she is not.

Ubuntu is demonstrably the most popular linux distribution. For example, according to a poll by Linux Journal, some 31% of respondents, or 2848 people, used Ubuntu. The next higher number was Novell/Suse with a mere 983 votes, or 11%.

The poster is obviously noting Ubuntu's popularity and asking why is it so popular, why it gets so much attention, when in their experience, there is nothing special to recommend it. To which I have no particular answer.

I characterized Ubuntu/Kubuntu as latest and greatest because it seems to be quite popular. The same could be said of Mandrake, SuSe or RedHat in the past. Its been at least 5 to 7 years since I spent time with Linux and its time to get reacquainted. I'm open to trying other distros. However, I would rather not go through a lengthy trial and error process only to discover the information gained could have been obtained via a handful of replies to a simple forum post.

So I'm asking the community for advice and insight. Ubuntu and [K]Ubuntu v9.1 desktop distros fail to boot after installation on hardware that is 6 to 12 years old. The hardware is in good working condition and was pulled from safe storage. It might be that I'm overlooking something or that simple fix/workaround is available.

So let me ask more specific questions (from this point forward in this post I will refer to Ubuntu and [K]Ubuntu as just Ubuntu)...

1- Can anyone point me to an objective analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Ubuntu v9.1 desktop and server distros?

2 - Can anyone point me to an objective comparison of Ubuntu v9.1 desktop and server distros against any of the following distros (stable releases only): Red Hat, Fedora, Slackware, Mandriva, SuSe, OpenSuSe, Gentoo or Debian.

3 - Can anyone list reasons for and/or against choosing Ubuntu v9.1 desktop/server based on their own experience?

4 - If you had to choose desktop and server distros for a series of large scale deployments, in a business or US federal government environment spanning multiple geographic locations, and you had a budget of $800 million US, which distos would you choose and why?

a couple reasons for
ubuntu is relatively simple to install/configure (though the same can be said of several modern distributions)
ubuntu is based on slightly older but known to be stable packages as opposed to bleeding edge but less tested packages
reasons aainst?
not many i can think of

as for a deployment THAT big i would probably go with an enterprise grade linux like redhat or suse enterprise because they come with support packages

Yes, he did. He referred to another post about the same topic where he says, "I'm picking up Linux again after several years. The last version a Linux I had was Mandrake v9.1. However, in looking to get the latest/greatest Linux I downloaded Ubuntu and Kubuntu." I reject the idea that the most popular is the best. If that's the case, let's all dump Linux and use Windows.

This is a slightly pointless conversation, but, I still think this is mis-characterizing what the poster is saying. Especially since the poster clarified with, "I characterized Ubuntu/Kubuntu as latest and greatest because it seems to be quite popular." Which is what I'm saying - he/she looked at what's happening in the linux world, saw Ubuntu was crazy popular, and is wondering why.

I agree with you on this. But neither I nor the poster said said that what is most popular is best.

Thank you guys your replies are quite helpful.

I can't objectively evaluate Ubuntu because it fails to boot (on my hardware). If its failing to boot for me it is quite possible that its failing for others. The fact that it fails to boot after a fresh install lead me to the question of how is this distro (product) so popular if one can't use it. I tested the hardware with Microsoft's products and there are no problems. The old Mandrake v9.1 recognized the equipment as well.

My expectation is that the Linux install scripts and hardware detection would have improved greatly in 5 to 6 years to the point that slightly older main stream equipment would be usable with little to no end user involvement.

I agree most popular does NOT equal best. However, there is no ONE best distro for every set of equipment and every end user. More popular does not equal best but it does imply better community support, and a greater amount of shared knowledge of the product.

If Ubuntu is quite popular then support should be quick and easy to find. Anyone care to take a stab at my other post? -->
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...esktop-796990/


Also Reed9 pegged it with: "I'm saying - he/she looked at what's happening in the linux world, saw Ubuntu was crazy popular, and is wondering why."

When I started my last reply, his clarification was not yet posted, so yes at this point it could be said to be slightly pointless.

He arguably did in his other post, but as you said, it is pointless to argue about it with his clarification above in place.

To the original poster: If you are having trouble getting it to boot after installation, how about posting what specific hardware you are using. It would also be useful to know exactly what is happening when you start from a cold boot. It could be that someone here has a solution for your specific setup. You might save yourself the needless distro hopping you say you want to avoid.

[edit]
[/edit]

So, there is no more confusion or need to refer to other posts, here is his other post.

IMHO, the reason for Ubuntu's popularity is marketing. They put out a new release every six months with a catchy name like "Karmic Koala." This makes for good press releases. Let's face it, "Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Released Into The Wild!" is a sexier headline than "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Still Works Okay Three Years After Release."

Thanks. I updated my other post with all the related information including hardware specs. However, I composed and posted the info in the other thread prior to rechecking this thread. I apologize if there is any confusion or any forum violations based on sequence of my forum posts. Instead of double posting the update here is a link to my other thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...0/#post3907926

@snowpine: Thanks for your insight...
Also Reed9 pegged it with: "I'm saying - he/she looked at what's happening in the linux world, saw Ubuntu was crazy popular, and is wondering why."

Reed9's comment is the point of my original post. No response from the Ubuntu forums. :-(

Agreed, about the marketing aspect of Ubuntu's campaign. "Lucid Lynx" (whatever that is) has a nicer ring to it than let's say, "Groggy Polecat" or similar.

However, I disagree about the clockwork release cycle necessarily being "good" by definition. It *could be* and *has been* a 'not-bad' thing for Ubuntu (at least, it hasn't been explicitly a *bad* thing historically) but of late, it seems to be shooting them in the foot a little bit.

I've mentioned this already, yes, and I'm not harping (deliberately), but if a person is inclined to follow the news stories that float around the net on the myriad news 'channels', it can be seen that "Ubuntu Inc." kinda dropped the ball with the last release or two, in more ways than one:

-- that broken wireless stuff wasn't helpful for users.
-- not fixing it for the next release was not helpful either, for the users.
-- the above two things, combined with a release of a competing MS product around the same time, was not helpful for Ubuntu Inc.

I have read on these very forums, of long-time *buntu users being quite irked by the last few releases. At the very very least, I would see what sort of reception the next official release gets, and how well it works, before making a decision on going that way, or another way.

:twocents:
Sasha

P.S. - I don't see any 'rules or forum violations' by the way/sequence you posted your posts. It's all good ;)

it seems to me that really any distro can be a " desktop" or "server". Popular DOES breed more popular. and i think marketing has played a big role with ubuntu. the times i have tried it i thought it was over rated. i am in no way a linux guru. I am just learning my way around. however, in my first week i started to see how to get around at the prompt, use 3rd party repos, compile my own installs, etc..hehe i even star5ted paying attention to updates to see why something would stop working. ubuntu seems to try to BE MS Windows open sourced artsy fartsy counter part. debian...rock solid for the most part. moreover, 30 mins of sourting can have your multimedia stuff working and whaat not. i think what most people go in for is ease of use ( or rather implied ease of use) a system that automagicaly gets a missing codec for you for example.

Ubuntu has had one hell of a great branding manager behind it from what i can tell. perfect color combinations with a touch of the " one love" thing. I just dont think ubuntu would be my choice if i wanted to set up my own box MY way. not because it couldnt be done , but because it would take longer ( for me at least ) to cut through all the added extras and remove scripts and daemons that need not be on MY box. However, if I wanted to introduce my cousin to linux ( which i have ) i would use ubuntu as a crutch. if i wanted to remain FOSS compliant across a large range of machines in a production environment...i would go with something that has shown it self to be reliable in that role.

Why would i care about a new gui and backgrounds every 6 months with fixes to things that already worked in order to dumb it down just so distrowatch shows that i have a steady release cycle? debian lenny been stable version for awhile now. i have installed it on 5 machines which all worked from the gate. slackware 12.2 and 13 are also good examples that i have had personal hands on with. now i use fedora / redhat because i wanted sometihngn that had a base install conf of selinux so i could get to know it. when i tried ubuntu it was so i didnt have to mess with nonfree sstuff one week when i was in a hurry.
persoanlly, i think if pat had someone pimping out slackware with a really cool logo and some catch phrase that was the color of week then it would the latest and greatest until everyone found out that " o hey...what's a dependency?"

anyways, distros are like undewear...some like tighty whities, some like butt floss.....and yet others like boxers.
bad analogy huh..lol

A very IT-literate colleague wanted to try Linux, having had many performance and stability problems with Vista and Windows 7. Ubuntu is popular hereabouts and he asked if he should install it. Given that his primary objectives were stability and performance but his experience is with GUIs, I suggested Salix -- pure Slackware under GUI additions. Too early to report how he's getting on.

Ubuntu was among the first to "bring Debian to the typical ordinary desktop user." I have chatted with quite a few people who have tried to switch to Debian (because of something they didn't like in Ubuntu). Most of those who succeeded, credit Ubuntu with giving them the ability to learn about Debian "hands on," but with the Ubuntu safety net in place to rescue them if they messed up.

There is a lot not to like about Ubuntu as well (short release cycle, stuff rushed to meet a deadline before it's truly ready, Beta software by default (in a "newbie friendly" distro?!), the benevolent dictatorship of one man, etc), but Ubuntu's one-size-fits-all approach appeals to "the typical desktop user" better than the more specialized distros that cater to more specific users.

-Robin

Any distro/marketing that brings people to Linux and away from Microsoft is a winner with me. Ubuntu and Canonical get my utmost respect for expanding the user base of Linux and long may it continue.

That's the part I have most issue with and what I was alluding to in the post about recommending Salix instead of ubuntu. Many Windows users are interested in Linux because they are looking for stability rather than price or FOSS ideals. How many have tried ubuntu, found the grass less green and given up on Linux?

@grapefruti: HI!
@dixiedancer: "occupied CSA" hehe so true...but its from further south that we've been occupied.

@spampig> your right, its cool its increased the user base. but the whole beta by default is a good point. its like they are trying to do to much. which kinda wraps back around to " general" vs. " specialized" as dixiedancer stated.
anyways...this conversation is like beating a dead horse in the middle july. you just aint gonna come out ahead.

I get the 'beta by default' wrangle, but put it like this - Vista was BETA all the way :-)

Personal experience:

I spend all day at work compiling/supporting RHEL/CentOS/Fedora servers here at work along side with Sun (Oracle?) Solaris servers as well...when I get home...I want my desktop/laptop to "just work"...with LinuxMint (i.e. Ubuntu)...it does :)

:twocents:

Thanks guys I really appreciate your replies and insights. I did some additional reading of reviews decided it might be worth it to have a look at a several distros. I'm not looking to fix Unbuntu v9.1's issues right now and so I'm going to skip that release for the moment. I need to get better familiar with Linux before attempting to tackle the problems I encountered. I'm hoping that will be part of the fun and a better experience.

From what I've read much of Ubuntu's popularity is due to the success of the v9.04 Desktop edition. So I pulled down Ubuntu v9.04 to test it out. After Ubuntu v9.04 is up I'll probably try Mepis and Mandriva.

FYI, I've never installed Vista, never wanted to install Vista, and since it didn't offer me enough reasons to move from Win XP Pro I didn't. I'll be grabbing Windows 7 because I know I will encounter it in the business world. However, I'm betting more individuals, organizations and businesses will warm up to Linux and open source software because of economic reasons. I would like to be ready to pitch Linux solutions when the opportunity comes along again.

I grabbed another box to place my Linux learning curve on. Here are the specs:
- Asus P4PE motherboard
- 1 GB RAM
- Pentium-4 2.4ghz
- (2x) 200 GB IDE Harddrives
- Lite-On IDE DVDROM
- Plextor PlexWriter IDE CD Burner
- nVidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400 AGP video card (4x AGP I believe)
- standard 1.44MB floppy
- Standard 101/102 keyboard (with Windows key and Windows menu key)
- Microsoft Blue Optical Wheel mouse
- NEC Multisync FP955 monitor
- Asustek/Broadcom 440x on-board 10/100 NIC
- on-board: AC-97 Audio, Firewire ports, USB 2.0 ports, serial, parallel, PS/2 Keyboard, PS/2 mouse

On my other box P4 1.8ghz I might later try a GUI less linux install as a server.

Do you guys for see any pit-falls or potential issues with the P4PE box?

i have ran linux on a 1.7 p4 with great results. maybe the only thing I could think of hitting a bottle neck might be if you want try out compiz. Rather, you will end up playing with the nvidia driver thing. its not hard. you'll find tons of folks and older post that could help you out here.

the only other thing might be the integrated audio: not sure what chipset its based on. so you might have an issue. but then again you can work around that to (8u)
all the other stuff looks kinda straight forward.

the AC-97 audio chipset is by Sound Max... I'm heading over to their website now.

Alright I made it to the desktop in Ubuntu v9.04 desktop. Yay!!! /happy-dance
The update manager is showing a large number of updates for me. So I click the Install Updates button and... /bonk
I don't have the root password! LOL

was just wondering if i could make a suggestion. as far as distros go ( and i am like you in that i am NOT an expert) I have moderate success with fedora 12. the cpu your using looks like it could be the old 32bit only p4 like mine is in the other box. so you may not have to look into the whole 64 vs 32 debate. anyways, back to what i was saying: fedora and debian have both been kind to me. i guess by kind i mean : install is straight forward, large repo of software to try out, easy to get used package managers, multiple place to get free support ( LQ. ect..). I really think you might be more satisfied going with a more in-depth ditro. not ubuntu isn't, but i think i saw somewhere in this post ( b4 the digression) that you had already had some experience. while the learning curve with linux in general may seem to be steep>>>you always go faster on steep hill when your skating. i have a feeling you'll end up moving to something that's more of a solid base ( fedora/ debian ) that's already being used in production.
environments.
(braces self for full blown flamerizing) fedora and debian from my experiance ( friends that use it in production ) are used more than Ubuntu ( which many of them to view as a novelty ) I have no idea why. being that ubuntu is based on debian>> why not just get as close to vanilla as you can while getting a ton of software to choose from AND get hands on experience with a stable and widely used distro. ubuntu has tons of little things in the background that you may not run into in the workplace i THINK.

any one else smell that?

I ran with Ubuntu v9.04 because the reviewer at Tom's Hardware was running it before he went through the review process of v9.10 desktop. He eventually went back to v9.04 desktop because it was much more stable. Similar sentiments about v9.04 being very stable are echoed in other reviews and in forums. I would rather get my feet wet with a cooked distro of Linux than roll on the rocks of Debian in the raw... at least for my first go 'round. However, while installing Ubuntu v9.04 on my P4PE box (32bit P4 CPU installed), I was downloading Debian, Knoppix, and Mepis.

I quite enjoy 9.04 although I prefer Slackware. It has a definite spot on my laptop for work. And on the "family computer" that my wife and kids use, Ubuntu is a nice choice, and if run with fluxbox instead of Gnome it can actually be quite quick on old hardware.

cool. did you get passed the no root thing? that was one of the things that drove me nuts with ubuntu.Slackware was actually the first distro i used. i changed due to never being able to get all deps together for multimedia stuff. learned a crap load real fast with it though. and got lots of help along the way.


EDIT:@OPoster> try this if you still dont know your root passwrd
Press ESC at the grub prompt.

Press e for edit.

Highlight the line that begins kernel ………, press e

Go to the very end of the line, add rw init=/bin/bash

press enter, then press b to boot your system.

Your system will boot up to a passwordless root shell.

Type in passwd username

All you have to do to enable root logins is to set a root password. To enable graphical root logins, you then set it kdmrc/gdm.conf and again in the login window setting under "administration" It's a pain that you have to do that, and Ubuntu people always act like you are asking how to cut your nose off when you ask, but once you know how to do it, it's really quite trivial.

There is no need for a root password in Ubuntu. Just use your "regular" user password when prompted, and "sudo" if you need root privileges from the command line.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RootSudo
http://xkcd.com/149/

I agree 9.04 was a pretty decent Ubuntu release. The only 2 drawbacks IMHO are: 1) All the software is about 1 year out of date; 2) support will end in October.

Distribution popularity, no matter which technical forum or blog you read, is nearly always one of the topics asked about. There should be no wonder or surprise about this. The availability of such a great number of choices alone is the primary reason this happens, and one reason it continues is that there is never a strong consensus of opinion about any of it. Let's get that clear immediately - what is the best distribution is always a matter of opinion. When you further qualify the statement and the conditions, that narrows it somewhat, but ultimately it still involves opinion, but as you categorize what you are looking for in a system - a server, a desktop, a general purpose system, easy, flexible, very stable, or the very latest software instead? These kinds of questions can isolate the appropriate systems somewhat, but even with a smaller list, the answers are still full of opinion.

Ubuntu is popular for a number of reasons. One is that it is one of the few efforts that actually has a marketing budget. Limited in size compared to Microsoft's marketing budget, it is still a few million dollars stronger than most, if not all, Linux based distributions. The fact that Ubuntu is based on Debian helps. The core, because of that, is rock solid. Some people like the fact that every six months you know that there is a release available. Those who want the latest software can follow those releases, but they do tend to be fairly volatile, and for some people, that means an increased chance of encountering problems. Sometimes one version works and another doesn't.

Distributions like Slackware, Debian, SimplyMEPIS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and a few other conservative releases tend to lag the latest, most current software, but in return, they reward you with a very stable environment on which to base your desktop or server configuration.

My comments alone suggest that while Ubuntu COULD be a good choice for some people, so could other alternatives. Deciding what features and attributes are the most important for your needs and purpose will at least help you narrow down the list.

Trying out either Live CD based systems and/or creating a Virtualization server environment (using Virtualbox, VMware, QEMU, or some other "Hypervisor" technology) is a good way to try out a lot of alternatives in a fairly short amount of time using a moderate amount of resources with a relatively low associated level of risk. I think that is one good way to personally evaluate a lot of systems to come out with your own short list of "best systems". The Long Term Support (LTS) versions of Ubuntu could make it on that list since they are neither as risky nor as volatile as the other regularly released versions of Ubuntu that come out twice a year.

Just talking about personal favorites for a moment, my own highly opinionated and PERSONAL favorites have one thing in common - a Debian base. My favorites come from 1. A Debian Stable core: SimplyMEPIS and Debian Stable (right now Lenny), 2. A Debian Testing core: antiX and Debian Testing (currently Squeeze), and 3. A cutting edge Debian Unstable core: sidux and Debian Sid.

Most Popular? Ubuntu?
 

I've got Ubuntu 9.10 here on a flash stick and use it sometimes on my netbook. While it looks ok and configured nicely, I can't brag about it to anyone. I can and do brag about the Puppy Linux distros, especially ShepherdPup and the Acer Remix, which are based on latest releases of that distro. I find that they, while having the ever-present hazard of running in root, are still a vastly superior replacement for windoze. Shoot....if that's so big a problem for linux newbies and others, one can always get the multi-user version released recently. They are also more likely to run on a variety of systems than ubuntu, especially considering the failures of latest releases. That said, I abandoned Puppy on my netbook a few days ago and put Debian 5.04 on it, between the Windoze & DesktopBSD partitions. My desktop also now sports the aforementioned puppies, along with Debian & DesktopBSD, making both systems rather easy to use. Where then, does that leave Slackware? Well, I'm not installing it on these systems at this time, and probably not in the future. While I have absolute faith in slacks' reliability and rock-solid nature, I'm currently more interested in showing others easier-to-install/use versions of linux. This is also the reason I haven't installed any FreeBSD or Slackware on my systems in a number of years. My next desktop machine, preferably a tower, will most certainly have slackware on it, as I'm most familiar with it, having fooled with it, along with freebsd, since the early or mid-90's. My family is seriously challenged with a point/click interface, so why scare them off with all this stuff they don't want to learn. As always, everyone's mileage varies on this, and I hope to try out my old friend again in the near future. Slackware users are, indeed, in the small minority, and I suspect this is due to the fact that most folks want to claim some kind of "hacker" status without really having to learn how to do so. I just want folks to migrate from buggy, overpriced bloatware! Even a live distro is preferable to that. Thanks for this great forum!

73 de Mike