Heh. Did you ever hear someone call himself 'elitist' in any context?

Guys, let's stop being silly. Console-only Ubuntu users/programming Ubuntu users are rare, not impossible.

Ubuntu is NOT TARGETED at the more sophisticated user. It is targeted at the convenience user. Gee, could that be why it says "Linux for human beings?" on it's home page? (And I ask "human beings as opposed to WHAT?" What kind of creature are the rest of us?)

I, in fact, recommend it for people who just want to surf the web and chat without a bunch of stuff getting in their way (although I recommend the even-lighter Puppy or Damn Small for that, too.). And nowhere did I bash Ubuntu users or Ununtu, period, just said it wasn't right for me. Yes, I know you can start from scratch and apt-get from an Ubuntu to a Red Hat, or RPM from a Red Hat to a BSD, or port from a BSD to a Belenix. I know you can start from a Linux from Scratch system and build it up to Debian; what's your point? But Slackware had the most of what I need, the least of what I didn't need, so that the fewest adjustments were needed.

Let he who brought up herion first be the first into rehab.

No, "elitist" is what people like you fling at people like me, period. Nowhere did I say that anybody didn't have my abilities, just that not everybody *USES* such and such, and hence doesn't care about it, and hence naturally wouldn't have bothered to learn what they had no use for. Certainly I have the *ability* to post flames like you do, but that doesn't mean I'd stoop that *low*, does it?

Here's one for you: back that statement up.

You obviously didn't comprehend a word of what I said. Why should I try harder? Here, go build a Stealth Bomber with the interface of a tricycle. Remember, it has to fly fast both high and low, be capable of launching attacks, evade radar, get the pilot home safely, and be a sinkhole for taxpayer money but be equipped with nothing but handlebars, pedals, and a bell, and require NO training and NO manuals, not even knowledge of flying.

Hey, there's NO CONNECTION between task and difficulty? Why aren't you president, or a heart surgeon, or rocket scientist, or CEO of Microsoft? Gee, you can just walk into ANY of those jobs with nothing but a GED, right? All those colleges and all those books must be a waste of freaking time! What fools we must be to go about all this busy work in our civilization! I guess it's just so some of us can be "elite".

Hey, where's your operating system that you built with a single mouse click? No wait, build me an assembly compiler with an interface NO MORE COMPLICATED THAN A MINESWEEPER GAME.

Jeez, "herion" he says.

This is where I stop and say: WTF are you talking about? Nothing of what you say has any connection with this thread. I know in your head you're making witty analogies (must be the drugs).

In any case, I'm going to do the right thing and stop replying to your posts, Hosiah (stop feeding the troll and everything).

P.S.: It's "H E R O I N", you idiot.

OK, a long time ago, I came to this VERY SAME SITE and said "I'm a programmer who's leaving my Red Hat 9.0. What do you recommend for me?" The percentages fell about 45% Debian, 45% Slackware, and 10% other (Gentoo, Sourcemage, LFS). Hardly anybody recommended Ubuntu.

By the way, I've *tried* Ubuntu. I'd rank it as OK for the average everyday type user who wasn't very demanding. But of course, you've been shoving both fists in your ears and screaming "la la la I can't hear you." since the beginning of this thread, so check, you think Ubuntu is now hgiher-functioning than Slackware, Debian, and etcetera. In complete defiance of the laws of physics, since Ubuntu goes 600 MB (last I checked) on a single disk, where Slackware fills two disks and Debian something like 17.

See, there you are! People who aren't familiar with it wouldn't care enough to learn about it.

LOL, hey, but it's not my fault for misspelling (de-e-ep breath) H-E-R-O-I-N, see, tools can accomplish hard tasks and yet be easy to use, so I was trying to use my keyboard the same way I use my mouse, gripping it with one hand and clicking it with my index finger. Nope, not my fault, it's those evil designers again for deliberately making the English language so hard to use! Yes, and the hard to use interface on the keyboard.

Hey, what do you know so much about spelling for anyway? You aren't one of those ELITE people, are you? What with your use of the word "idiot", it kinda shows you think you're better than other people.

woa!
looks like the chair-keyboard interface went mad!! calm down people

BTW, you can do OK with just one Slackware CD.

I once tried Ubuntu and didn't like it at all, not even for the meaningless tasks to do

Hmm.. I read Hosiah's first couple of posts and didn't see anything untoward in them, certainly nothing that merits calling him a heroin user. And "introuble" i can see how you were on edge because cwilson's post did sound a bit condescending. Aside from that I don't really see the point or the reason you guys are arguing. In terms of the Ubuntu vs. Slack debate you've started... yeah, they're both linux, you can configure them to do whatever you want and turn them into something else.

Ubuntu is designed to be easy to use and it's purposely set up for people who know little about linux to be able to use it. Slack is different, it's set up to be more easily molded into how you want to use it. Both are easy to specific people under specific circumstances, the advanced user doesn't want to be bothered hunting through a gui to find the right button and a new user doesn't want to hunt through a text file to comment out code.

In any case I use slackware because I know where everything is and it's easier for me to change something when I need to change it. Also, when I don't know something it forces me to learn it (be it writing a script or learning how to edit files vs. someone telling me to download and install XYZ-gui). In one case I learn something that I can take with me and in the other I learn how to click a button. There is nothing elitist about that, sometimes people like to do things themselves rather than having stuff done for them. Can I do it myself in Ubuntu or Debian... of course! but i find I like the layout of slackware. Sometime's you want an airgun to put in a nail, sometimes you want a hammer.

A Linux distro (or any other operating system) does not make someone an elitist. If this happens to be the case then they were already in such a condition long before ever approaching a computer. Please try to separate a personality glitch from what is at the end of the day just code and hardware. I have never seen any trade, community, organization, or profession that did not have its share of elitist types.

But I would never go so far as to then label that entire segment as fostering this type of behavior, save that it be founded on such a principle. Such conclusions are utterly ridiculous. A _______ (fill in name of distro) user who is elitist, will in all likelihood continue to be an elitist at the golf course, church, restaurant, work, and grocery store.

Slackware users are NOT elitists. There are users of Slackware that fit that description, but the same is true for any other Linux flavor, or for that matter any other society or group one might care to mention.

As a leader of one of the national Elitist organizations, I want to express my outrage at the way Elitists are being portrayed in this thread. Before you judge us, walk a mile in our shoes.

E. LaBonte, President N.A.P.W.S.D.S. (National Association of People Whose Shit Doesn't Stink)

well, take your elitist, awful grammar somewhere else

Either the joke is way too deep for me, or my grammar is really as bad as you say. I actually think "whose" is okay there. Explain.

I saw this coming when the thread was entitled "Not a Flamewar", but I have to admit the whole Electric Sheep episode caught me by surprise. Here is my attempt at a definitive answer to the Slackware vs. EverythingElse question...

I use Slackware because it's Slackware. Debian is fine, but it isn't Slackware. In fact, I've tried about every distro there is, and it turns out that NONE of them are Slackware (except for Slackware).

But I am totally unbiased... if something comes along that is more like Slackware than Slackware is, I will switch distributions in a heartbeat. (But I've been waiting for that to happen since 3.4)

<_<

This thing exploded...

I don't understand why people think ubuntu is a "beginner" distro. I think slackware is for beginners. I thing it is for people who don't know how to use advanced tools like portage/apt. I think it is for beginners who are unaware about how to install a package and deal with dependencies in a quick and intelligent manor. I think it is for people who are too stupid to upgrade efficiently.

Shall i go on?


See, Linux _IS_ linux. Slackware is no easier than Ubuntu. Hell, out of personal experience, i'd say Ubuntu is harder than slackware, specifically in installation, which is what most users have trouble with.

How do i get my joystick to work in Slackware?

modprobe joydev

In ubuntu?

modprobe joydev

How do i compile my kernels in slackware?

cp /home/anthony/Settings/2.6.16-config .config
make oldconfig
make V=1 && make V=1 modules_install

In ubuntu?


cp /home/anthony/Settings/2.6.16-config .config
make oldconfig
make V=1 && make V=1 modules_install


You see what i'm getting at? There is no difference in "ease of use" between Ubuntu and slackware. Tasks are still accomplished EXACTLY the same way, with exactly the same commands, and accomplish the exact same thing. To say that ubuntu users are idiots is, well, an ELITIST thing to say.


The only difference between distros are DEFAULTS, package management, versions, and optimizations. Literally, that is it. And as far as i can say, Ubuntu comes with better defaults, better versions, and better optimizations, and package management is on par with slackware, better in some ways, worse in others.


Oh, and let us not forget the Communities. They come with a distro too. And i just have to say, that at ubuntuforums.org, you will certainly not see people calling Slackware users idiots and saying Slackware is only intended for idiots who don't know any C++ and are incompetent and cannot use a computer. But on a slackware forum, (and to, yes, a LESSER extent, Debian/Gentoo/Arch maililng lists/forums) you see people spouting the false information that "ubuntu is a beginner distro that no serious linux user would use)


I believe that those same people never used Ubuntu to any length of time, as everything i hear about it negative is blatantly false.

And that is my 2 cents.