What is your primary use of Slackware?
 

What's your number one use of Slackware, as a displayless server with extreme stability needs, a desktop PC for day-to-day work with background "server" services, or a laptop for day-to-day work with some background services?

I do the first and second here, my main box is running as a desktop, and a second running as a local file server (though that admittedly doesn't need extreme stability as it gets turned on when someone wants to back something up to save power).

What? No option for "All of the above"?

Primary use... I will interpret that as "in what way do you deal with Slackware most regularly", since I run multiple servers (one at home), and have installed Slackware on a couple of laptops, a mini-ITX box and my desktop machine.
The "desktop Slackware" is the primary way I deal with Slackware Linux.

Eric

Reason why I ask is to measure the need for perhaps creating a "desktop tweaking" section on slackwiki or elsewhere covering the steps (and slackbuilds) needed to make Slackware a little bit more like Suse or Ubuntu from a desktop point-of-view without compromising too much with security, stability and slackware's main philosophy.

So instead of creating yet another fork (<rant> I truly wish more of the slackware-derivate distributions would focus their efforts on improving slackware rather than creating their own slight derivative</rant>) there is perhaps a need to document how to get the same beautiful fonts as in SuSE (without spending hours in this forum and elsewhere searching for 100DPI settings, bytecode interpreter etc which it takes time to research from scratch), the same easy startup as in ubuntu and so on.

Rather than re-inventing the wheel explaining all of this all over again, what might be needed is for Pat to perhaps add a section to Slackware.com (the natural starting point for Slackware-users) or on slackwiki.org saying "Desktop Beautification", which in turn points to all the existing and useful howtos and guides out there describing the individual steps.

However, if 9 out of 10 users are using Slackware for server purposes only, such an effort would be a complete waste of time and would also never get the buyin from Volkerding.

As a side note, if the majority of Slackware users actually uses it on the desktop, maybe it's time to reconsider usability compromises such as PAM as an increasing number of computers now come with fingerprint scanners or users prefer to use LDAP for authentication...

Not necessarily the definitive path to go, but definitely food for thought...

-Y1

To be honest, I think a desktop beautification section would be hugely welcome, regardless of the outcome of your poll.

It is a good thing that Slackware enables you to add a lot of software without any difficulty :-) The difference with the "other" distros is the fact that all this desktop software is already available in huge repositories - and especially with the most userfriendly ones (Ubuntu, Redhat, SuSE) there is of course a lot of money that goes into this development.

I'm all with you here.

A Wiki would be an ideal means of writing and concentrating a series of documents on how to enhance the desktop experience. There are already a lot of such guides floating around the Net of course, and it will not be easy to setup a high-profile site that will work as a focal point for this kind of information. SlackWiki would be a better choice than the LQ Wiki if this is directly targeted at Slackware. I don't forsee any pages of this kind appearing on slackware.com any time soon.
You're welcome if you want to be editor of a "desktop" section in my Wiki ;-)

Eric

I use my Slackware box as a desktop for day to day use. My main Slackware 11 workstation, a Plll 800 IBM with 768 MB of RAM, is perfect for my needs.
Slackware.......my favourite OS:-)

I want one too. Although I use it mostly on my laptop and desktop (more on laptop), soon I'll set up a server as well. As soon as I get the site set up like I want it.

Uhhh ... I switched to slack because I didn't like the way most other distros did things, especially Ubuntu and Suse. But, whatever you wanna do. My question would be, why not use the real deal ? Suse or Ubuntu ?

This may be blasphemy, but, I think Ubuntu has some good points. It identifies hardware very well indeed.
I do love my two Slackware boxes.:D

Mostly as a desktop for personal use, but I set up a LAMP sever running Slackware for one of my clients.

Because there's more to a distribution than just the way it does its fonts and X configuration, such as package management/dependencies, slow startup, and especially the lack of options - its either the whole big goodlooking rather slow thing, or nothing. With the Slackware approach, users can choose themselves what to add, at what penalty (if any).

All I would like to be able to do is get the fonts and looks of Slackware slightly more polished for desktop use, not necessarily get a distribution that's big, slow and impossible to practically manage without a GUI.

Not to say that's a bad approach - it's all about personal preference and experience. Me - well I've tried a couple of other flavors for family members' computers, and find myself missing Slackware after 15 minutes, and re-installing with Slackware after about an hour of trying alternatives.. The only thing I end up missing after such a venture is the "clean looks" - which is why I figured I could do something about it...

-Y1

Slackware is my main OS since version 8.0. I am currently enjoying slack 11 on a Fujitsu Siemens Laptop. I can do everything with it.
Browse the net,(torrents, podcasts, newsfeeds, etc) use office applications, do some science with Neuron, multimedia with MPlayer. Slackware is just great and it NEVER fails.
With slack I realized what is the "set it and forget it" philosophy. Once I fine tune a program, it always works...
I am really very excited with slack and I thank The Man for that...

So my first post :
Hi everybody,
I had rather select all but, since there's no option, i choosed daily use on my laptop.
But not really looking for a ubuntu-like use...