well so far i've tried RedHat 7.1 and Mandrake 8.0

RedHat 7.1 is really good but i can't get internet with it. Mandrake 8.0 works great but it's like MacOS in that i can't go to console, as soon as i log off it goes to the login screen which leaves me forever in a laggy environment.

slackware seems pretty popular.......does it come with KDE? can i have it boot into console without changing some file? can i actually go to console after being in KDE for a whie?

Slackware is a non-RPM based distrobution similar to Debian. Slackware comes with KDE, GNOME, WindowMaker, and Elightenment I believe. You can do everything you do in Red Hat in Slackware.

by non RPM do you mean it does not come with RPM or do you mean it can't actually USE RPM?

RPM is super important...... Wine is RPM, WineX is RPM, tons of stuff is RPM.

Its not RPM based (which is good IMHO) but that doesn't mean you can't install it. Also 8.0 you can specify for it to install RPM.
I personally take any RPM that doesn't have a source file and turn it into a source file as I don't depend on RPM or use it.

ok, thanks for all your help

what do you mean by based though? no Linux distro really relies on RPM, all Linux distros can use tar.gz and all distros use the same command, i think my friend said it was something like "tar zxvf (filename)"
using the console in KDE is great for learnin, i'll be sharp with them commands in no time heehhe

It's not RPM-Based meaning, it doesn't use RPM by default.

what does it actually try to do when it encounters an RPM file?

No idea. My burner isn't working right now so I haven't been able to burn to Slackware 8.0 ISOs.

well it doesn't do anything special with rpms.

rpm stands for redhat package manager. So if you have this installed on your slack system, then you use it like you would on any other distro.

Slack has its own package manager, which unlike rpm doesn't have any depencency issues. What that means is that it doesn't check if the dependices are installed or not, it just installs the software straight away.

The Slackware packages look like this, package.tgz, and you use the follwing commands with it:

installpkg
removepkg
updatepkg
explodepkg
makepkg
pkgtool
rpm2tgz

and so on, check the man pages for a description of what each of these commands does.

Also about what you said:

yes they come in rpm format, but you can also compile from source, which in my opinion is better, but that is my opinion If you like rpm, you can stick with it.

Also about the:

yeah that is right, but is not the complete set of commands you need to use. That only extracts the files, like you would use winzip on a windows system to extract the files from a .zip file.

You will find a number of posts on this forum about compiling software from source, which is what you were talking about above.

One last thing, you will be happy to know that Slackware boots to console by deafault, so you don't need to mess with any file to do that. Once you are done with KDE, you can logout of it, and it will take you to console again.

well actually with Wine you NEED to download the RPM. EVERYBODY says that the tar.gz source compiles wrong and it just does not work.

Yep, compiling from source is what I prefer. I never did like RPM, actually to tell you the truth, only gave me problems when I did use it ever. Got to love that rpm2targz in Slack, use it all the time when I only find RPM...

Also, yeah, check out the forums for compiling from source, also I have added tar and gzip to the Glossary which might be of some help. Anything else let a Mod or Jeremy know, trying to get as much as possible on there eventually.

can you configure the default GUI from the installation to be KDE? i don't want to have to manualy configure something in the console........i hate CHANGING stuff in console. i have no problems running stuff in console, just changing stuff.

Yes, it should ask you during the install and by default it is KDE as Patrick prefers KDE I believe.

*click* *click* *click*

i'm downloading slackware 8.0 right now eheheheh, both CDs will be done in 1h 30min
man i love DSL

Once you start using Slack, you'll never turn back...