I've been using Linux since early August and have gererally been happy with the distro I've been running for 3-4 months, JAMD. But JAMD as a distro/company is going through some issues right now, and I'm also having a few issues with how the distro runs on my computer, so I'm looking for a new linux...and it's quite overwhelming.

I've tried Lycoris (fonts are beyond horrible, at least on my machine), Redhat 9 (no matter how many installs, I get the same dhcp errors time after time), Suse (tried to install via ftp, but figuring out the network module to my webstar cable modem is beyond me), College (a bit wonky) and JAMD.

I'd heard good things about PClinuxonline, but it's a 700+ MB CD and I'm not too keen on buying a 20 dollar spindle of 800MB CD's for that.

Anyone have a suggestion on where I should go next? I'm not a complete newb, but nor am I a linux master.

Thanks for anything,
Trinity

You could pick up a Slackware CD for 0.99cents.. I thought I saw an add on LQ about that.
But, if you're commited, and have maybe some time, give Slackware a try

I'm about to try Slackware (sick of Red Hat 9 too ) and archlinux looks promising.

debian unstable (not stable as the packages installed are really old, and unstable is really stable).
you can install it with a floppy. install the stable woody system using a floppy, and when ur done, apt-get upto unstable, and *poof* ur on a kick-ass system.

Nothing like slackware.

Simple. Elegant. Fast. Stable.

www.slackware.com

I've heard that Slackware is good My issue is that I've heard that the install can be a bear if one is used to graphical (read: easy) installs. Is that true?

Trinity

Slackware is a great distribution. I have used it for years. I still use it on my server but I moved to Gentoo this summer on my desktop system. My reasoning was the package management system and ability to upgrade from version to version smoothly is a lot better with Gentoo.

Gentoo has a wonderful package management system called portage. It is almost like a cross between BSD ports and Debian apt-get. It also compiles everything from scratch for optimizations specific to your system. Bigger packages are availible in binary if you don't want to wait for them to compile.

Slackware is finally implementing a dependancy checking package management system and I will continue to run it on my server but because of the speed the Gentoo guys get the cutting edge new stuff into the portage speed I will stick with that on my desktop.

Anyway, that is just my opinion

can anyone tell me why finding a Slack .iso is like trying to find a four leaf clover? holy cow.

ibiblio doesn't have it, something is up with the version on linuxiso..... and the places I see to buy it are really expensive. hmm. :/

Trinity

The official slackware servers are trying to conserve bandwidth.
here, this server has the isos and is pretty fast.
http://ftp.man.olsztyn.pl/pub/linux/...kware-9.1-iso/

i suggest gentoo, but if you think slackware is hard to install then gentoo will be a project, but after switching to gentoo i have not looked back, it is the easiest distro to administer ive ever had and portage is wonderfully convenient, one of my favorite things about it is that, the only downtime you ahve in switching distros is one reboot because you can install it from chroot, also installing gentoo may very well teach you quite a bit about your system, if you do choose gentoo do a stage2 install because stage3 will be overly old and stage1 only gains you minimal performance gains and only temporarily as stage2 and stage1 systems are the same after a few months

also, if you dont go with gentoo try debian, i havent tried it but have heard wonderful things and it will be the next distro that i try

Try distrowatch for some download sites:
http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php...tion=slackware
http://www.slackware.com/getslack/
http://www.abnormalpenguin.com/slackware-mirrors.php

I've been using Mandrake since 6.2. Mandrake 9.2 is great, however I have installed Gentoo on my laptop and I love it. The software management system is called "portage" and uses a program called emerge. Emerge resolves dependencies, downloads source code, compiles and installs software for you. The entire system is based on custom compiling everything for your computer. Makes it run very fast.

http://www.gentoo.org/

Just so you know. Slackware has Swaret. It is about as easy as package management gets. It checks dependencies, and will update everything (if you want it to).

It's as simple as " installpkg swaret* " to install it after downloading it.

It's as simple as " swaret --upgrade " to upgrade packages.

Good stuff.

Slackware + Swaret = Best Box

ah much thanks, all. I did pull off disc 1 via ibiblio (the only one that would go through) and hunted for mirror for disc 2, found one in UofC but was pulling 20kb a second (I have cable 'net), but thanks to the link from timdsmith I'm pulling 70kb, which will make my early morning run to Wal-Mart for CD's much earlier :P

Trinity