i haven't tried *BSD yet, but i think slackware is probably the best OS on the face of the planet -- and i'm nowhere near "l33t" (and don't want to be ). i just want my computer to run well and do what it's supposed to do. slackware does that better than any other OS i've ever used, hands down. PV is a bigger hero to me than Linus. (well okay, maybe equal.)

"FEAR SLACK!"

more converts:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=150886

compared to some people in this forum, i am a
i have been trying out linux intermittently and i only dived in completely on september last year. since then, i have tried mandrake, redhat and a whole lot of live cds including knoppix. i was never able to get all my devices working with any of these distros. it took me 5 days just to get knoppix (HD install) to recognize my network card. also, hotplug never did detect my USB modem on mandrake (even after a lot of reinstallations). i gave up on redhat because of a problem with the package manager.
the only distro that "just works" with my notebook is slackware. this is because i was forced to not rely on GUIs to configure my notebook. i had to do most of the configurations from the command line which is not that hard as there are a LOT of people here at LQ who is willing to help. i think majority of the people here are very helpful (no matter what distro they are using) and only a few have bloated egos.
my thanks to LQ for the help that they provided me for this unpopular distro

Who cares if it's at the top of some list? I use it because I like it, just like Gentoo lovers use Gentoo, yada, yada, yada...

Slackware = Oldest distro out there (nuff said really)........

or maybe not

>>Very little, if any, commercial software supports Slackware (as opposed to RedHat, and Suse), so some of us who are doing this for a living aren't going to touch it.

I've installed Oracle 9i on Redhat 9 and Slackware 9.0, at the time Redhat was named by Oracle as the supported distro. Guess which distro needed its kernel patched, setups altered, and generally a pain in the arse to set up.....yep Redhat, Slackware was no problem.

Ok, I've used a couple different distros( Rh, Suse ), been mostly a casual user. Had 3 boxes running at one time, played with most of the network services but never really used X (all too old, too slow, not enough ram) on any of my boxes. Bought a house bout 6 months ago and wasn't "wired" so all my boxes been sittin in my attic. Just got DSL a couple months ago(YAHOO!) and after seeing that my ip address was almost static decided I would try setting up a web server using one of the dynamic dns services. All this led me here, I decided it was time to try Slackware so I installed it for the first time last night and I have been impressed by it so far. Course I never fell into the trap with the other distros of using all their fancy setup tools and think I have benefitted from that, but my experience with Slackware thus far has been a real eye opener. It has been a pleasure to work with and I think it's reputation is completely absurd. Anway that's my two cents...now back to trolling for answers to a couple of probs.

people like pretty installations with nice graphics. Not sure why.

I started with RedHat, didn't learn much. Then mandrake where my hate for rpm was born (cause there weren't any when I tried rh). Got fed up so I went to slackware. Recently I tried the debian-installer and it was really neat.

What I like about slackware is just the fact that you learn so much just by using it normally compared to something else like mandrake. Also, you shouldn't be afraid of searching on google. Sky's your limit!

Shortfuse,

<my experience with Slackware thus far has been a real eye opener. It has been a pleasure to work with and I think it's reputation is completely absurd>

I can agree with this completely and Slack is FAST! I installed for the first time yesterday after making the 2 ISO files fom a Linux Magazine disk. I have an issue with my Toshiba 2gb pc-card, but I will get that working as /dev/hde1. Had a bit of problem with X, but I put that down to lack of Slack experience! Now that works. This was an install to a HP Omnibook XE3. No problems. In fact I would dare to say the text install is as slick as it needs to be. I did not miss a gui install at all.

Slackware it is then!

Because most computer users that move from Windows to Linux have never seen MsDOS, and most of the newer "computer geeks" think that Windows XP is the greatest thing since Windows NT (Notice how I'm trying to prove how ignorant they are....) Who knows....

I'm new to Slack, and to linux in general. I've only really been working in it for about 2 months now, since i got broadband and was able to download iso's without taking several days.

I was, at first, taken by the reputation that slack had, and started with Fedora. It was ok. not really much to it, it was kinda klunky. Next mandrake, and that was horrid. Sure it was easy and pretty, but it was so slow i couldn't live with it.

So, i decide to get slack and installed it 2 hours ago. The install wasn't at all hard at least i didn't think so, text mode install, so what, it's pretty easy to follow the directions. Some things were true though. Not everything is "automagically" setup, but in 2 hours, i was able to set it to run dhcpcd at boot, make my mouse scroll wheel work, set up alsa so my soundcard works, load into runlevel 4, change the login manager to kdm, and upgrade to kde 3.2 (also teaching me how to use the pkgtool system). I have learned a lot about what certain files do such as initab and fstab. This is all stuff i had no clue of before when i was running fedora. It's so much faster too.

But therein lies the problem. You have to learn to be able to use slack. Once you do, you get great benefits. Its like cars. An automatic is easy and it works, but a manual gives you much more control over your car and even better speed.

Just my .05 (stupid inflation!)

Nathan

Yes, Slackware is awsome. It took me only 45 minutes to install. I thought it would take me forever to figure it out, but use a little common sense, and its pretty easy, and yes it should be the #1 Distro

I have read some interesting points about slackware, and the reasons why it should be named the # 01 Linux, but I'm curious about what you people think about *BSD (especially FreeBSD) compared to slackware.

Ok, so it's not a linux, but it's a BSD layout system too, and it's unix based...The main difference I think would be the port system, the way *BSD is one big chunk of unified software, compared to linux which is a kernel with packages around it basically...

What say you ?

Slackware has consistently been in the top 5 at http://www.counter.li.org for a few years. I agree that it is no big deal.
If anything, it is very easy to work with good code.

I have been trying to get a Linux system running some simple functionality for about four years now. They all seem to suck.

I have tried Slack before and it would not compile C/C++ code.

I have used Red Hat and it would not recognize my network cards, even though they are Linux compatible.

I am now trying to get Slack 9.1 to work as a gateway for my Windows box. I can get it to connect to the internet. I can ping the Windows box. But no matter what HowTo, or instructions, or NAT script I try to use, it does not work.

My experience of Linux in general has been nothing but problems. I started out on DOS. I am good with computers. I can read documentation and figure things out. But Linux is the biggest piece of crap ever!!!!

You never know if the How-To you are reading is even intended for the distribution you are using. So sometimes it is telling you to edit files that don't exist.

If anybody can help me get a gateway working I would appretiate it.

Don't send me to a web site that has any How-To's or instructions, I have probably tried it already. Does anybody know what they are doing? HELP!

Agent0013

How about creating an appropriate thread for your question rather than crashing this one?

And if you say Slackware 'would not compile C/C++ code' I can *guarantee* that was not Slackware's problem.

Granted - a lot of the howtos are ancient and/or suck. But the distros didn't write the howtos.

Anyway - wrong thread for this.