The OS name is a dead giveaway, unstable by definition :D

Must be their hardware. On a couple machines here, it took 15 and 20 minutes to install Slackware.

I liked their 13.37 review; especially the last paragraph:

I totally agree.

Quoted from the article:

You need to install Guest Additions for higher resolution. If the CPU on the host doesn't support hardware virtualization or if it isn't turned on in the BIOS the performance of guest VMs will be s-l-o-w.

DNA
AKA mrascii

Couple of things were indeed strange in the article but the most striking was first the installation time (they should replace or at least clean the DVD reader so that it would get more that 3 files off the disc per minute) and second the virtualbox performance. I suspect that the second issue is directly related to memory given to the image. I run Slack extremely well in virtualbox myself but I must allocate at least 1.5 gigs of RAM to it or it will start swapping when I run all the servers and stuf I use it for. It is well known that any Unix will become almost unusable once it starts to swap. So be sure that all your stuff fits into the memory and your performance is excellent.

And still people find it unbelievable that dependency checking is missing. I for one like to have all the missing library errors until I personally have installed all the necessary stuff to my box so that at least I know what version of what library is in there. This knowledge is absolutely critical if you want to be in control of your box.

BTW recently I gave up the Git GUI tools and started to use it from command line exclusively because those GUI tools are not reliable, I don't know which commands they issue and I've managed to almost mess up couple of my git repos with Eclipse Egit plugin. Never again! Command line FTW. Git is too complicated tool to trust some GUI tools into it. You really noeed to know what commands to issue and in which order to get things done. Yes it requires a bit learning but as said elswhere - every learning curve is rewarded with understanding.

Yeah right... :rolleyes:

What? :scratch:

But he just did. :D

Other than that, 3 hours? I have multiple Slackware installs in VBox and I don't remember any taking more than half of hour. Probably even less. But it could make sense for mobile processor not to support Virtualization. Sad news for Apple and MS, but desktop is not yet dead. :)

Btw, nice comment kikinovak. :) I like the dinosaur bit. :D

They're referring to stuff like using "rpm --nodeps" I guess, or apt 'pinning' and other equivalent mechanisms

Agreed. And another quote from Niki's comment:
:)

That whoami command is very useful. You wake up after a session of overindulgence in alcohol and/or strange chemicals, look in a mirror, think ?!?!?!?!?. Get on your compuer, run whoami - mystery solved!

I was guessing they meant that. Well, I guess you already know the difference. First, there is no option to disable automatic dependency tracking system wide. That's per package setting. Second, they would have a "fun" time disabling it, even if there was. Simply because system is not designed for manual dependency tracking. :)

Further down bellow he compared sbopkg to Ubuntu Software Center. :D

Funny guy. :)

I agree and the comment on VirtualBox resolution indicates he didn't install the additions. Slackware 14 does run peachy on VMware :)

Thanks for the alert... on my way over there to check it out.


Agreed... none of the portable computer solutions that I've tried even come close to giving me the enjoyment and satisfaction derived from using a full desktop. Hopefully, desktops will always be an option for computer users.

Member Response
 

Hi,

From: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?is...121015#feature
The above excepts do seem to indicate that 'Jesse Smith' was doing two different installs on separate hardware. Even one hour for a install seems to indicate that either hard disk or DVD reader could be the issue. Not comparing apple to oranges but most installs for me are 15 to 35 minutes. Which does depend on hardware, some use 'SSD' with a good reader, 4-8GB memory footprint usually AMD except for my new Dell XPS i7 which took about 12 minutes to install for a 'SSD' & mounted ISO to loop.

Even for Jesse's Laptop to a VM seems excessive install time for that class of machine.
From: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?is...121015#feature
Here is where the reviewer is lacking in knowledge let alone understanding. If Jesse wanted or needs optimization then he should say so. Not knowing the multiple platforms Slackware will install too is one thing that should be noted within the reviewers context. Lack for understanding of code base or LSB is another region that Jesse most certainly lacks or chose to ignore out right.

The old saying 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' holds true for this Slackware review by Jesse Smith;Enough Said!

Not having dependency checking sounds scary when you come from distros like Ubuntu and Arch, but the secret is that once you have your OS set up, you really don't need dependency checking. I set up my Slack14 install the day it came out, had all my 3rd party installed and configured by the next day. I haven't thought about any of that stuff since then.

Not only that, but one way you can fool yourself with a distro like Arch is to say "Well I'm the admin and only things that I install are on my machine". That sounds great until you're running without gnome, and want to install a program from the repo that requires the entire gnome install as a dependency. On Slackware I really do know goes on my machine, because the dependency checker is me.

Not that I'm completely trying to discount the idea of having dependency checking. It does help out greatly when you're a new user and/or don't care about all the fine details of what is actually on your machine.