Slackware convert
 

I've pretty much been a Red Hat and SuSe user since I started using Linux. I ran a SuSe Openexchange mail server at a credit union I used to be a net admin for, and had used Red Hat on and off since RH 4. I'm currently using Fedora 5 as a web server from home, but decided to look for something to possibly replace SuSe on my workstation. I read several posts in this forum about Slackware, and it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for.

Now, a couple of weeks since I first started looking into Slack, I have 2 workstations running it. I absolutely love it. I don't really have anything against SuSe or RH, but they just keep getting more and more into spoonfeeding, which I'm not crazy about. I love that Slackware doesn't hold my hand through anything, especially the install.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to all of the informative posts in this forum. They convinced me that Slackware was the way to go, and now that I've been using it, it's by far the best dist. that I've ever used. I think I'm hooked for life.

Yes these guys here in the slackware forums really helped me out too. I'm starting to question what is better, slackware or it's user-base...I digress.

I too started with other distro's and was bewildered how people who posted questions in the other forums here, would get answers like "well I use Suse, so if I were you I'd open YaSt and do XXX.. but since you use Ubuntu I can't help you." Plug in whatever distro you like there in that line, it's all the same effect. One distro of linux user not being able to help out other distro users.

But I come here and the answer is go to cli and tell Linux what to do....and then Linux does it. These guys know Linux...not just a distrubtion of linux. To that extent I get mad at myself because I thought I knew computers as I used Windows...when really all I knew was a distro too.

That is the best desciption I've heard.

Very well said

One should never fear the command line, but untill package mangment/GUI front ends 8-) are universal enough newbies will continue to ask how do I do this & this? Some professional will say open a xterm and do this & this, take two and call me in the morning. Or be forced to know allot of distro based /or common tools if one would want to provide tech support.

Common Desktop users arn't going to want to use ls, grep, cat, vi:@, cd, touch, echo, tar, fdformat, e.t.c. They are going to want to be told how to do it in a GUI if thats all they know, and have no intention of learning the CLI. Thats why I'll try to proscibe to "Fast" way I use, and the "GUI" way they might prefer when possible.

Only I reckon on a Linux Distro you can't tell them to pkg_add -r a GUI Frontend for it if they don't want to use term. But the command line seems to be mostly standard between systems:)

I strongly agree on that topic, and give many props to the entire slack group for all the help in the past and most likely the future as well. It has been that help that has inspired me to come back often to help others that are going through some of the same things that I went through.

this is why I tried out slackware in the first place and god reading all of this makes me really proud of all my fellow slackers! *applauds*

I'm obviously biased as I use slackware, but all the various distro's with the different package solutions, wizards, gui's ...it's not linux, it's just splitting up the community and confusing as hell to new-comers.

All those items are not Linux. They're not in the kernel. And the people that use them don't know Linux.

In the beginning, I too was lost. I honestly do not blame people for questions like:

-what distro is easy
-what will work on this pc
-how do i update

Linux is in such a disarray, as all these distro's battle it out for the "distro of the year" in hopes that they get advertising fee's from their web-site.

Yet our little slackware sit's idly by hovering around number 10 week after week on distro-watch, just waiting for someone who really wants to learn the operating system, and not be caught up into the distro battles of package management, linux on the desktop, gui, wizard world.

LOL, I don't even think Pat used any other color than black and white on his web-site. If that is not a true representation of what this is all about I don't know what is.

I just hope that Bill Gates' team keeps thinking that Fedora, Suse and Ubuntu's are Linux and he never tries out Slackware. I'm ok with this being our little secret. :D

The 'S' logo is blue.....

lmao

True, I was hoping no one would notice that...but you get the point, lol

At the risk of repeating a cliche:
Totally true.......

Like most people I first started out with the nice GUI distros, I first started using Redhat, then mandrake for 2 years then went to SuSE for a year or so then fedora then tried slackware since we were using it a college. I have now gone back to Suse for a while since it was still on one of my computers. But I have now started a little project to make my own distro based of slackware 10.

I did try a LFS system which did teach me a bit, I find that slackware is a really clean distro, clean I mean it doesn't have bells and whistle, not saying I don't like them. But everything is in the original place, distro like SuSE and mandrake tend to move and split files up into many different files.

All in all I found slackware to be a really nice distro to use

The reason for my starting this thread is pretty much everything that has been mentioned. With Slack, I feel like I have a very clean install, where with the other distros I use, I feel like there's just far too much going on. Slack is much faster on the same hardware. I've always preferred the CLI to the GUI. I know if I want to learn something, I have to actually learn it, rather than poke around and do it without really learning anything. There are more reasons, but those are the basic reasons, and more than enough to have made me love Slack.

I went with Slackware cause a friend recommended it to me, as he was trying it out. We kinda learnt together, but he gave up and moved on to another distro, but I liked Slack too much. Then I got my laptop and thought I would try something "easier" to get it running 100% fast. I put Ubuntu on, and it installed and everything worked. But it wasn't "mine". I dont know how to describe it but it felt weird using it after running Slack for a few months on my old desktop. Plus it doesnt have make installed as default. When I found that out I stuck Slackware 10.2 CD1 in the drive and rebooted.

With much help from these forums, and cwwilson in particular, its running fine now (although I lose my screen when I go into sleep). I am considering dropping Gnome for XFCE, but I haven'tdecided yet.

WOW you actually know someone who uses LinuX !!!!

Everyone including my Old Lady here thinks I've gone off the deep-end cuz I'm so full of piss and vinegar over this OS.

LOL, she thinks I'm about to take up arms and perform a "coo" of a small country or something cuz I'm so fired up. Who needs viagara when you got Slack.

GL HF

-FOGIE