Actually, I did the exact same thing. Technically I quit installing because my laptop was overheating from the compiling, and I set it to use pre-compiled version of very large programs, but it still took forever. They usually tell you to leave it over night ... I don't know about that.

i really want to advice you.
use ubuntu.
because i am really enjoying it.
you know that its applications are competing with windows toooooo

0 members found this post helpful.

As a confirmed Slackware fanboy, I can share that space, as they used to say.

When my old laptop was in its dying days and I tried to upgrade my Slackware install, I couldn't--the CD drive was on the way out and couldn't deal with inserting disk two for an install, so I did a Debian web install. I really liked Debian. (The box died about six months later; that's when I got my Dell 1545n.)

Right now, I have a Ubuntu laptop and Ubuntu netbook, because they came with Ubuntu from the factory, the wireless works flawlessly, and if it ain't broke etc.

I'm typing on a SLackware desktop right now, but, if I were to abandon Slack, Debian is where I would go.

After all of the time I spent installing Gentoo, I think I'll keep my Gentoo partition around. I definitely want to try the latest Slackware though--I wasn't all that happy with the buggy KDE 4.2 in Slackware 13.0.

Gentoo disadvantages?
1) The 32-bit chroot implementation on Gentoo amd64 is not nearly as elegant as Slackware's multilib implementation; it was easier to build 32-bit packages in Slackware multilib. For example, it would be much harder for me to build a 32-bit Firefox on my Gentoo install because there isn't a package available for it in the 64-bit repository...I'd have to build it in my chroot, tar it up, move it over, and do the same things that Alien Bob's convert-compat scripts do.

2) It's a shame, but the forums are not as helpful and bugs stay around for quite a while. Maybe they have less developers than Slackware? They still haven't closed a bug yet in the installer; just to install Gentoo I had to use a Slackware CD because my mouse and keyboard driver were not enabled in the kernel for the stage 3 tarball.

3) Slackware's firewall implementation is easier to use than Gentoo's firewall init scripts.

On the other hand, Gentoo is the most powerful Linux distro I've ever used. I specify global build flags and every package I install compiles with my processor optimizations (if available). I specify the use flags I want for each package and it takes some of the guesswork out of reading ./configure --help. The package manager is excellent: you can break dependencies if you want to, it doesn't automatically overwrite config files (you have to overwrite them manually), and it can even help you install 3rd-party packages like VMWare. It'll be interesting to compare it to slackpkg and SBO when I get around to installing Slackware...

I used debian for a few years, and it did brings to me lots of software and easy to install, use!
but I feel that slackware is much more easy to use, and stable, clean. very suit for me.

now, I am a newer in slackware, I feel like that I like slackware much more and more!!!

All distros which take to much care for resolving dependencies have the same problem.
Instalation is very easy - but deinstalation may be very painful.

Once I tried uninstall pulseaudio from ubuntu - imagine that installer
resolved to remove all gnome desktop - completely crazy.

Still I have some apps on ubuntu I cannot remove for installer is unable properly
resolve dependencies - say I want to remove A so I have to remove B and C and after that (as I don't want B and C to be removed ) I have to install again B and C (B and C needn't A to be installed)

So, Have fun

I would like to know what the OP has chosen to do.

Well he hasn't replied to this so I guess it was a flash in the pan. Whatever makes him happy at the end of the day. I choose Slackware for the way it is. No doubt he will choose whatever he feels comfortable with.

Slackware is the first linux distro I ever tried. It will always be the first one I choose for a server and since 64bit came out, my desktop. I do have quite a few different distro's installed in virtualbox. I enjoy trying out different distro's, I always learn something new. But I always come back to slackware, I just love the freedom I have with it.

PS: Dive I love your sig. Every time I see it I laugh at the pain and suffering I had when I was learning vi.

Ditto!

WoW! First distro? I love Slack, but I probably would have gone back to windows if I had started with Slack. It took me a while to get used to it after starting with something easy like Mandrake. Now, Slack just seems to make a lot of sense.

Chet

Yes. Hell, why not Ubuntu . . . 10.04 is nice, and even easier and quicker to install and configure than Windows or Mac OS.

Hey if you try to tell that ubuntu is as good as windows then I uninstall
ubuntu immediately.

Ehemm...

Nothing strange about Slackware being a person's first distro. It was my first, too, but then again, I first dabbled with Linux around 15 years ago, so there weren't many choices then.


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I have only a small and valuable suggestion "linux is all about experimenting!!"
Experiment with different distro, use the one you like most. Thats the freedom you have with linux. Free as in Freedom.