I hear that Slackware doesn't support Pentium 4. Is this true? What can I do? I have Slackware 8.1, does 9.0 fix this? Is there anything AT ALL I can do to rectify this compatability issue?

Sorry, not an AMD fan...

Thanks.

EDIT: Someone said Slackware 7.1 Supports P4... zat true?

Thanks... Again.

Pentium 4 still can run Slackware or any other distribution but you won't get the full features that your processor has.

UNIX/LINUX is open source so this means the programs that you use will be a mixed of 16 bit and 32 bit. INTEL processors are not fast when it comes to 16 bit programs but they are fast using 32 bit code.

After you install Slackware or any other LINUX distribution, you have to recompile your kernel for your processor. AMD users don't have to.

I don't know if Slackware 7.1 has P4 support. You may ask the developers or read documentation.

Slack 7.1 was based on 2.2.16, a kernel that's now... oh, about 3+1/2 years old, no of course it didn't support the P4, but neither did RedHat 6.1 or Mandrake 7.0 or anything else at the time. You ran accross some old, old news man.

Hmm... Redhat, Suse, Debian, and Slackware all compile for i386 or i486 optimizations, which means that the code will run clean on a 486 or any chip above, AMD or Intel. Mandrake optimizes i586 (pentium 1 or greater... just to be weenies I think). Is the machine slower for it? Yes... Can a human being notice this difference: maybe, personally I don't buy it much, a custom compiled entire Distro like LFS or Gentoo is pretty rockin' fast though, but that is as much that you didn't compile nearly as much software as the big 5 just give you.

Slack 8.1 is 2.4.18 based, and Slack 9.0 is 2.4.20 based and as the kernel is all that matters in hardware support, that makes Slack currently the most advanced distro out there (well, including gentoo).

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks for straightening me out. I was so CoNfUsEd!

Thanks Again!

Just buy an Athlon XP and get it over with... It'll outperform any P4 and is cheaper. ;-p

-AquamaN