A few weeks ago I got frustrated with Mandrake. I kept bumping into the package management system which was preventing me from doing what I wanted. Lots of people rave about Slackware so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about.

I was a Mandrake user but I did manage to learn a few things using it. Also I use Tru64 Unix and HP-UX at work, so I'm comfortable with Unix command lines. This proved well; I have heard people saying that (contrary to popular opinion) Slackware is good for newbies. This may or may not be true, however, I would say it's even better for people who know (at least a little) what they're doing.

I still feel fondness towards Mandrake, and I will defend it against anyone who disses it without knowing what they're talking about.

However. I got going slowly, but I have come to really, really, *really* like Slackware. The package management is sensible and straightforward. Example: I wanted to remove the xine installation so I could install the latest version from source and it let me do it without telling me I needed to uninstall half my distribution. No problem. All the things are in the right places, it has a very no-nonsense feel to it and it seems very unixy. It is, in fact, everything I hoped it would be. I have got everything working now; even to the point of direct rendering and installing Return To Castle Wolfenstein (that game rules too).

I do not think I will be needing to try any other distributions; unless, perchance, I want to go really hardcore and install Gentoo. (I do like running programs I compiled myself, you see. It feels more appropriate). Anyway, there's no shortage of threads praising Slackware. Please accept my apologies for adding another one. I just wanted to get this off my chest.

Let me be the first to welcome you to slack.

Muchas gracias!

Welcome to the Good Linux ;}

The big difference being that portage will do the
thinking for you (by default), in which case you
could have stayed with MDK as well ;) ... and you
always have the choice to re-compile whatever
you need in Slack as well ... and, who knows,
maybe you'll come to enjoy the 5 to 15 day
recompilation frenzy! :}


Cheers,
Tink

Could you explain that for me please?

welcome aboard


and be sure to check out Enemy Territory, too

I will. I'm playing the single player until I become proficient with the controls before I launch myself online. Once I do that I will certainly try ET.

I can try ...

Gentoo has everything pre-set. All you do is choose
the package, and rushes out and compiles it for you,
getting whatever it feels is required to run. Package
decisions are made by a maintainer. :) In effect, Gentoo
is as much of a no-brainer as MDK is, just without the
comfort ;}


Cheers,
Tink

Thanks Tink.

Welcome aboard the wonderful boat of slackware. May your journey be .....................................oh well have fun with slack I ran out of pointless things to say. Hope you find this community to your liking

Slackware is great, this is true. I started on Linux about a year ago after my friend, a Unix admin, kept telling me the praises of Linux and atrocities of Windows. Being one who likes a challenge, I started out slow with an install of Redhat 9.0 and peaked my interest. Being a geek at heart but financier (sp?) by profession, I totally jumped onto the bandwagon and began delving deeper into the open-source way. After a two month binge of rushing home after work everyday to install a new distro, I finally tried Slackware on my main desktop system. While my first experience with Slack on my test machine (Toshiba Laptop) was frustrating to say the least, I tried it out on my main box as a way to kill a Sunday afternoon and found it to be the Holy Grail I've been searching for. Up to this point I was a staunch fan of Redhat/Fedora and used nothing but on my main system, and I was totally content with it's abilities and limitations. I think it was the geek in me to put the extra effort into *forcing* Slack to work, but in the end I now have an awesome system that does everything I need it to. What proves most satisfying is Slack is the culmination of months of research, frustration, endless installs and a newfound knowledge of what an OS can be and should be. Just my two cents. Anybody interested in my exploits check out my site, http://www.davidjsnow.com/linuxdocproj.html

awe that link is 404

edit: nevermind, i think something was screwy for a minute i guess....

I love Slackware, too, and for the same reasons. Tinkster's
posts are one of the primary reasons I considered it, and
now I'm a Slacker for sure.

But I didn't come here from a Unix background, but rather
from the darkside. I've found most of that knowledge tends
to confuse me when I'm learning Linux with Slack.

So, since you seem to have a perspective of looking at this
Linux system we call Slackware from a slightly different point
of view than us "Windoze converts," could you please point
me to some resources where I could learn the fundamentals
of Linux? I have quite a few already, but always like to add
to the list. This seems to be what always hangs me up - the
only foundation I have came from the darkside, and doesn't
transfer very well to Slack.

Good posts, and glad to have you in the Slack community!

Well, I didn't really learn from books. I mainly picked it up using the web and the Unix knowledge I had from work. (This knowledge can be summarised as ls, cd, grep, find, rm, mkdir, rmdir, ftp, vi and cc). I bought one book, the "Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition," but I'm sure you know about that one already, and to be honest I don't use it that often. Google is the main source. Particularly googling for "my search terms site:linuxquestions.org" which is much better than the LQ search (because of the high number of threads with undescriptive titles). In my experience, if you're already comfortable with Unix then the internet already has all the information you need to get to grips with Linux.

So untrue. Please read about USE flags:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...?part=2&chap=1

And that is only one of the many layers of customization that gentoo affords you.