I ordered the cd set, with the guide book, plus a pretty cool looking t to wear while I try to boot up.

I've been researching different distros for the past couple of weeks whenever I had spare time, and really even when I didn't, and the amount of info both helpful and contradicting makes for a real head spinner.

Honestly, I probably should just continue reading all of the material I can find until I am entirely certain of a decision, because that is the smart thing to do.

However, researching until I am bored, then going with my gut, is more of my style, for better or for worse.

What is important to me though, is to be able to sum up in a short and simple phrase, highlighting my rational, why I chose what it is I chose. And in this case, it is choosing slackware for my first linux distro.

I am a minimalist computer user, who wants stability from my os, and to learn linux while wearing a sweet lookin T.

Besides using my computer for my own ends. I do have a small project I wish to complete, and that is to create a super simple desktop enviroment, with large text and icons for my grandparents to use. They probably only use 5 apps total.

Has this been done? Senior citizen oriented GUI ?

My MLED project provides various addons for a stock Slackware installation to make it newbie-friendly. I've successfully installed it for several older (75+) users here in our little village, and they love it.

http://www.microlinux.fr/mled.php

As for your choice of distribution, I think it's a good idea you go with Slackware. Rock-solid, reliable, great community.

1 members found this post helpful.

Xfce might be a good place to start. Its got a lot of tweaks and it's easy to use larger fonts and icons for easier reading.

And thank you for supporting Patrick and Slackware. I think I'm going to order me off a shirt soon too. I really liked the Mayan Calendar style one.

One important thing to know about Slackware is that it is rock solid and stable (well, that's two, but what the heck). Slackware does not follow fads, does not include a lot of fluff (and does not "brand" software -- you get what the upstream developers intended). There is no "release early and often" with Slackware, no constant barrage of "updates" and "upgrades" (daily in some distributions). It's Linux -- when security problems are identified, they're fixed, tested, and released (and you get notified of those if you subscribe to the Slackware Security mail list at http://www.slackware.com/lists/).

As mentioned above, Xfce is a good window manager to use. There is also KDE and a few others but KDE tends to be full of eye-candy (unnecessary in my opinion) where Xfce is simple and elegant (IMHO) and has appeal for old folk (at 70, I'm one of those). It's easy and comfortable to use.

KikiNovak's software is well done and quite useful and might be a good place to see what's available for your audience.

For you Slackware is, with a little reading and a little thinking and a little asking for help here when you need it, a good choice because your maintenance task will be minimal. Maybe a little less so for initial set up and configuration (nothing major, it's just that you have full control and that requires just a little bit more of you than other distributions might).

It's a good choice.

Hope this helps some.

1 members found this post helpful.

I went w the Mayan calender T, I really like the graphics on both sides. Already have a Mayan hieroglyph tattoo so it's perfect.

kikinovak, that's a real nice looking setup. Good job w that.

I was leaning towards xfce, I think all the ss's I've seen all look real good, and it's not too hungry. I'm excited to for my install cd's to arrive

Welcome to Slackware. I think you will find it meets your desires. Folks here are knowledgeable and helpful, well except for me. I don't often have answers.

Welcome to Slackware! Yeah, you can get there from here, Slackware is excellent for BYOS. And I can attest to the Slackware Mayan calendar t-shirt (14.0) being awesome, I have one, myself.

Besides welcoming you to Slackware, I do feel that your goal is still a little far away.

To the point, Slackware is a great distro to learn Linux, and can be used (quite easy) to achive your goal by an intermediate user.. It's just not that easy from the start...
I would use SalixOS or http://www.microlinux.fr/mled.php (both Slackware based distributions) to speed up reaching that goal.. And keep Slackware for your use and for learning. After a while, you'll get to love it.

Have fun!

I started with Slackware quite by accident (the first distro I forget what it was that I tried to install didn't like me) and am glad I did.

Welcome to slackware, the hardest part in my opinion is setting up your particians, if you will read a little and do a full install you probably won't have any problems. Slackware has been around so long and there is so many great people on this forum that google and this forum will get you going if you have problems. When you do a full install you will have quite a number of different desktops and window managers to choose from, just choose kde,xfce,fluxbox or whichever you like.

Welcome to Slackware! You will have a successful first install if you thoroughly read the support documentation provided on your install media and also check out the Slackware book: Slackware Book.
Possibly the most daunting task for a new user to Slackware is having to partition your hard disk. The partitioning tool cfdisk is a bit more user friendly than fdisk.

i bought the book with the install cd's (and t). hesitated on dvd vs cds and went with cds.
im going to read through first, then let it all sit for a minute before I touch anything.

today is my first day on new laptop w windows 8. Does a good job of compounding the idea of trying Linux.
The laptop itself seems alright so far. Lenovo Ideapad z510. Not a touch, so I don't know how useful that windows 8 desktop alternative is supposed to be. seems like a waste for some reason.

What are the basic requirements for a computer to be able to run slackware, with some of the more common programs an average person uses. (email, web browser, word/office types, maybe some others im not thinking of)
My semi-elder lady coworker has an emachine t8408 with intel Celeron 340.
She likes ancestry.com. web browsing. emailing. typing documents.

Back to installing slackware. This forum has had very possibly the fastest and thoughtful average post replies on any forum ive been on. at least that I can remember. So come installation time, im not too worried about getting hopelessly stuck

Greetings and welcome to Slackware
Since you mentioned your minimalist leanings I should like to point out an important concept, but first an urgent recommendation. When the Install offers to "Install Everything".... DO IT!

It is important to realize or remember that Linux is not windows. There is no registry nor centralized "windows installer", no need to drop s few files into the "Windows" directory, no need to pre-load and on and on.

Simply put installing everything in Linux will NOT bloat your system, especially in Slackware which defaults to "services off" unless you choose to turn them on. All it will take is some hard drive space but no other resources and it serves an important purpose. It is easier to have a package manager that does not even attempt to deal with dependencies if essentially all dependencies are already met. Slackware releases are coherent systems and really should be installed with that in mind.

Sure you can strip it down to where it is essentially an embedded system on your PC but the gains are incredibly small and the cost, in flexibility alone, is very high. To start out take Patrick's advice and install everything but only enable at startup exactly what you need. That will serve both needs handsomely.

Welcome to Slackware. I also highly recommend MLED, though I have been doing a full slackware install with MLED installed and then I switch between XFCE, KDE, and Fluxbox. I suggest researching your hardware and seeing what drivers are included in the kernel and what drivers you may need to find. Other than that installing isn't too difficult if you read through things ahead of time and know what to expect. Good luck, and remember if you run into issues there are a lot of knowledgeable and helpful people here to help you through it.

Welcome to Slackware! You'll love it, because if it's the ability to tweak an OS geared toward a specific group (such as pensioners, as you've said) then Slack is perfect for that. I offer a bunch of tips and little helper scripts for multimediaticians at http://slackermedia.info , for example; it's not a "distro" or a fork of Slackware, it's just using Slackware as a basis for steering the user in a specific direction.