Why Slack over other distro's?
 

Hi All,

I'm new to Linux, and have been looking at Redhat 7.3, Suse 8.0 and Mandrake 8.2, along with Slackware 8.1

I don't mind learning, so why should I get any of these distro's over Slack? If so, which one is better overall at having the latest packages as they are updated?

I have a P4, Geforce3 and Audigy card.
Will this be a problem for Slack?
I'm trying to decide if I should purchase Suse 8 from Amazon.

Thanks

Frank

In my opinion a first time linux user should get their feet wet in something alittle more "windows like" such as Mandrake or Suse. If you feel like takeing the ultimate plunge and want to "beat the bloat" try out Slackware. The hardware you posted will work fine.

Thanks...
I have been playing all week installing and removing various distro's to see which one's I like.

I installed Slack 8.1, but could not get any sound from my Audigy card.

Also, what package tool does Slack use to maintain itself and software?

Regards,

Frank

Slack doesn't use a package tool really, usually when installing software, you just install the good 'ol plain source tar.gz type packages.. the way it should be.. :)

For your sound card, yeah slack can be a pain with sound at times.. Try searching for what type of driver your card requires, then see if its already supported or builtin with Slack, if not you may have to install drivers for it to get working...

Get the audigy, sblive driver from here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/emu10k1/
Follow the instructions there. You'll also need the kernel source and rebuild the kernel. See the kernel How-to before compiling the kernel.

Yikes, before getting a newbie to run off on a kernel re-compile, the driver for the card is already on the machine, the emu10k1.o module is there, Slackware just doesn't preconfigure sound for you.

/sbin/modprobe emu10k1

should start sound. Adding that line to /etc/rc.d/rc.modules will have it working on boot, and you're going to have to do the following to get sound card access for a user:

chmod 666 /dev/dsp

Cheers,

Finegan