well said namaseit! i agree completely. oh, and the RUTE guide is well suited to accompany you on your journey of discovery.

I just installed Slamd 64 (unofficial Slackware 64 port for AMD) on my laptop. I think that installing Slackware (I just did a 10.1 install not long ago and it is pretty much exactly the same) is easy. If you want to make it simple, do the whole hog install (3 gb of software) and remove what you don't use ays you go.

Really the challenge in Slackware isn't the actual install I feel. It's once you have it installed. And even that is negligible. Tools like slapt-get and swaret make most tasks quite simple. However, understanding your init scripts is a good idea. That was a good refresher for me. I would say installing slack is as easy as most distros. Then again, I do not care for GUI based installers, so I would feel that way.

I found installing slack to be easy if you just choose install everything, it's only like 5 gig so what if you don't use everything.

first dist i ever used and still do use is slack, so if it is complicated, then it just ment i learnt faster

Well i cant even install programs on linux, yet i was able to install a fully working copy of slack 9.1 and its as speedy as hell

Well, installed slack about 6 months ago, have felt NO need to change distro, apart from maybe slamd64 (i'm in the process of saving to build a new rig, and it'll be AMD64)


Even vaguely considering looking into the process of poossible creating a slack distro for the zaurus sl-c3000 (tis a while off though), I love the simplicity, and want it on my PDA so badly.


simple, fast, and as long as you read the docs, easy as hell (the only time i didn't was when i hosed an install with swaret, i then learnt what i did wrong and now i use it fine, but i'm tryign to replace it with slackpkg)

Happy Slacking!

-0-

I was first introduced to linux (or forced :-)) 4 years ago because i needed linux for my university projects . The Postgraduate student who was responsible for the projects and was a linux fanatic, adviced me to use slackware, but i was afraid to touch it. After switching between suse,redhat,mandrake and fedora, I tried slackware 10 3-4 months ago. I was already a linuxquestions member and I was aware of shilo's "How I did it all" guide. Installation went really smooth, and i become a slackware fanatic my self. Slack is my main desktop. I had to update one time and do a clean install in a friend's of mine PC. I never encountered any problems on installing slackware.

Thanks for the support Unfortunately, being 13, I'm just a touch young for a pint at the bar :P

I'm bogged down in school projects now, so it will be a while before I probably even boot Slack again (I still rely heavily on Windows for school work). I've compiled many a kernel on Fedora, Mandrake and Gentoo, so hopefully I won't have any issues.

And yes, Canberra is nice. And being an orienteer, I plan on getting me some daylight soon enough.

All I got to say is that tutorial posted by tw001_tw is where its at!

http://www.bitbenderforums.com/vb22...?threadid=60154

where it's at is apparently not where it is...that link is broken =(

Psssst just copying the text of a link doesn't work :P

http://www.bitbenderforums.com/vb22/...threadid=60154

Compared to installing Gentoo from stage1, I found the Slack install to be pretty easy and straight-forward. Good info provided in each screen will lead just about anyone short of a total illiterate through it no problem.

Until I finally broke down and tried Slack I was a Gentoo fan, but honestly got tired of the long compile times for everything. Slack rocks!

the only drawback I can think of to slackware's installation is that it doesn't check to see if you have enough space
for all the packages you're planning on installing before you attempt to. On modern hardware this isn't a problem
at all. However it can be a huge pain in the ass to install slackware on an old pentium 1 with a 1gb or smaller HDD, you can finish the installation only to learn that you tried to get just a little too much stuff on there, and have to restart the whole process.

also, menu driven console stuff is alot less complicated than fancy GUIs in my oppinion, I still think that
the old Headstart 8088 that my family got when I was in 2nd grade, with it's menu driven front end to dos,
was the easiest system I've ever used.

Slackware is definately the way to go if you want to learn linux tho. If it's your first linux distro, it shouldn't be
any harder than learning any other distro from scratch, but the stuff you learn in slackware is most likely going to
be alot more useful to you if you ever have to deal with any other systems.

learning how to use all the nifty utilities like harddrake in mandrake will be useful whenever you're on a mandrake
system. But learning how to use all of the different config files in slackware is going to be more useful if you ever have to do any configuring on any other *nix type system.

so I guess I'm saying, it's alot easier to switch from slackware to another distro, than the other way around. . . . but oddly enough hardly anyone ever seems to leave slack.

Lots of breast beating here I see.
O.K., here's an opinion from a Gentoo user.

Yesterday I decided I needed to entertain myself on my Dell Inspiron 1100 (laptop) at work - quiet day and all that.
Never tried Slack, and I *won't* install GUI based distros for myself, so why not Slack ???.

Installer was o.k. for me - in fact I liked it - bit verbose, but o.k. Maybe I gotta stop selecting "Expert" mode every time I get it offered as an option
For people with a modicum of nous re Linux I think they should be able to bumble through.

X on the laptop was a problem - found a reference to xorgsetup (???); cute, very cute.

So - thumbs up.
Except ... 2.4 ???. What a bloody joke. I'll get 2.6 on it and see - at this point I can see it staying on the box for some time.
I'll reserve judgement on package management for the moment.

As for the comments re Canberra.
Mmmmm - I'll be heading down to the cold in a couple of weeks for LCA (Linux Conference Australia).
Need something interesting to drag me back there ...

It is interesting that people always compare Gentoo and Slackware. It seems Gentoo has been very done very well in growing it's user base. It is a nice distro. I find it odd how I am always influenced by the enthusiasm of fellow posters at various forums. This site is very pro Slackware. So much so, that there is a link to it from the slackware home page. And that enthusiasm was enough to convince me to give it another try. I'm enjoying it. I am however, tempted to give Gentoo another go on another machine.

At any rate, I think what kernel is included with a distro is highly irrelevant. Anybody installing a distro like Slackware will want to re-compile the kernel anyway. I find myself on any fresh GNU/Linux install compiling a new shiny kernel everytime regardless of what was included with the install and regardless of distro. Bleeding edge is extremely over rated in the GNU/Linux community. I really don't understand why people are so into that when it comes to GNU/Linux. For improvements to the kernel, which make the system run better, well then of course, that is a logical choice. But there is a certain percentage of GNU/Linux users who just think that running the latest and greatest is like some sort of social prerequisite. And a lot of these people aren't developers. They don't help debug anything. I don't really understand that portion of the crowd. I should point out that what I have just said is not directed at anybody. It's just a observation about what I see on various forums everywhere. Why I continue to subject myself to slashdot I don't know. It's like a sickness.