well its over. ive finally had it with red hat and the rest of the other bloated distros. i always felt much more comfrotably using these bigger ones because i thought their extra tools would keep me safe. as time moves on however i realized ive been doing almost everything from the command console.

my problem was i would always try to use gui tools to accomplish basic tasks (like connect to a windows share) but realized i was better off just using the command line.

now what im doing is searching for a new much smaller distro that will allow me to customize it to my preferances yet still be usefull for day to day things (games, school, music).

i know slack is pretty hardcore, but im also thinking gentoo. any thoughts.

Go with Slackware 9.1! The first distro I ever tried was Debian woody but after about a month I switched over to Slackware and it's great. It's not nearly as hard to learn as some people say. I have never tried Gentoo though so I can't say anything about it. My vote is for Slack.

Slackware is great in that you learn to rely on the command line for everything. The package management tool is also useful, because it doesn't check deps for you - Why is that a good thing? Check deps before you install stuff. It'll help you maintain a slimline install. If you have the deps for one program already, why go with something else that has 4 other deps that you don't have (Unless it has features you need)?

I also like it because working in Slackware feels similar to working in FreeBSD.

Slackware is, in my opinion, the best way to learn Linux. It's not limited to that, though - I have a step bro who runs Slack in a business dept (I believe he works for the state labor dept). Many will say Slack is one of the few distros that stays true to the Unix-like motto.

Gentoo is loved by many, however I wouldn't recommend it for someone wanting to learn Linux itself. With the emerge system you really lose a lot of the experience - It may be more efficient to an extent, but note the dependancies statement made before on package management.

As for size - Slack can be stripped down pretty darn good.

Would it be right to say that Slack is just like any other distro but with the GUI tools removed?

i was also wondering what kind of problems i might run into using some kind of off the wall distro. something like vector linux or freeBSD. its probably a stupid question but is there software that wont run on either of these machines? window managers wine ect?

sporkit: With FreeBSD, you will obviously want to look for freebsd packages rather than Linux software. In general though, you can install Linux software in FreeBSD (Btw - FreeBSD isn't a distro, it's a whole different OS, but it is very similar to UNIX).

Generally speaking, software won't be distro specific (except for a program like swaret, but that's understandable). Of course, debian packages are designed for debian, and redhat packages are designed for redhat, but if you can't find a package for your distro you can almost always find the source code to compile from yourself (which is the way most people install software).

sausage: Well, no.. There are quite a few differences that I really am not qualified to explain. Sorry :/

I don't think saying that Slack is the same without the guis would be accurate. The start up scripts are different from other linux distros. They are more similar to the BSD system. (FreeBSD Is not an off the wall linux. It is a BSD Unix) Also there are several package management systems. Redhat, SuSe and Mandrake (and others) use rpm to distribute and install software. Debian and its variants use deb packages. Debian big forte is its apt-get system. It can be used to update your system, install almost any software package known to man. And if you think that swaret does the same thing, you have never used apt-get. The biggest thing I like about Slackware however is the file structure. It just seems like everything is kept where it should be. Some distros have altered the naming system of devices, some put xf86config or other files into other places that can be hard to find.