would any of you recommend slackware 9.1 for the average desktop user?


i want to:

1) use internet and instant messaging (licq and amsn. can't stand gaim or any other universal messenger that lacks any feature besides chat)
2) set up home lan with other windows xp machines
3) play all types of video files (dvd, divx, avi, wmv, ogg, mpeg, svcd, etc)
4) play all types of sound files (mid, wma, mp3, cd audio, etc)
5) connect to file sharing networks for music/video downloads
6) a useful feature-full bit torrent client
7) use my printer: epson c62 (and also share it to other computers on home lan)
8) burn cd's/dvd's
9) office suite

what can slackware 9.1 do after a fresh install?

how about after using swaret to upgrade everything?

i will most definately need to download and install a large number of extra programs to do the above, right?

and finally, is slackware a good choice for someone like me, or am i better off with mandrake 10 official? thanks in advance!

You should beable to do all of those things with a default slack install with no problem. Hear are just a few of the programs that come with slack that will help you accomplish all of those tasks: gxine, totem, mpg321, konqueror, mozilla, galeon, ephinay (spelling error), cdrecord, cdrdao, etc. There is a good bt client in the extras directory, but azureus is a feature rich one that works well for me. There are hundreds of applications that can help you accomplish all of those things, but the hardest part of getting them done, is picking an application that you like because there are so many.

-tank

Yes to all of the questions asked.

I'm no guru, I work in HR, but I have an incredible love of computer and linux.

Slackware rocks, and I'm so happy that I replaced my Red Hat with it.

Try it and you'll never look back.

so the only new things i need to install are:

licq
amsn
mplayer
xine
xmule
bit torrent gui
smb4k
openoffice
k3b

can anyone tell me what packages i need to use cups printing for an epson c62 printer? i noticed on slax (this slackware livecd) that cups 1.1.20 alone isn't enough. i read some help pages that i need ghost something, or maybe even gimp-print drivers? anyone know?

also, how do you share a printer connected via parallel port on a slackware computer to other winxp computers on the home lan? thanks in advance!

This is a great question.

I have a zip drive, scanner, and printer, all connected daisy chained via parallel port and can get the zip drive to work, but not the other two.

Any ideas on how to do this?

thanks

You won't have to install all of those. Some of them come on the Slack distro.

Printing- go to the cups web site, also linuxprinting.org they should give you some help if no one answers you here.

I think to share your printer, you are going to have to run samba. If you search this board you can probably find some discussions on this.

I do exactly what you are talking about and really all you need to do is just install slackware off the first cd and then upgrade packages with a tool called swaret located at swaret.org.

Oh.. and I recommend compiling a custom kernel for your machine. Believe it or not that is actually a very easy process.. It's as simple as the following commands (if you have qt installed which you simply do with swaret --install qt)
make clean
make xconfig <- choose what you want built into the kernel.. leave everything default except what you can figure out. Most of it's fairly easy to figure out, things like your video card support, support for your motherboard chipset.. if you know what brand it is and what model you'll have no trouble and these are generic choices so you don't need specifics in most cases
make bzImage
make install (it'll have some errors sometimes with lilo.conf, but you can fix that when you are done)
make modules
make modules_install
then edit lilo.conf with...
pico /etc/lilo.conf and simply change the vmlinuz line to vmlinuz-2.6.6 (if you are using the newest kernel) or you can copy your old kernel entry and do this so you can still boot up with the old kernel if you have trouble.
then this command..
lilo <---- sets up lilo and if it doesn't give an error you are good to go.

To get samba set up, you can read the online O'reilly book: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba2/book/toc.html

I like to run dropline GNOME instead of the vanilla GNOME that ships with Slackware. Easier to update and compiled with optimisations for i686. Also ships with some more cool apps and lets you play encrypted DVDs using libdvdcss etc. It can be downloaded from www.dropline.net/gnome

hi

i started slack couple of weeks ago with almost 0 knowledge of linux. although a n00b i managed to get everything working on my laptop within 3 days. playing music, installing openoffice, playing dvd, surfing the net (+updating browser) and all the rest. i have dual boot with winXP but i just switch over to play some CS sometimes.

slack all the way

**edit**

i use fluxbox window manager, fast loading, fast working, and plain simple.

go you.