12 replies to this topic

[bcrscahh198987]

By slack, I mean it's slacking in anything user-friendly.

[Ohm]

Um... yeah, it is. That's kind of the point of the distro.

[bcrscahh198987]

Um... yeah, it is. That's kind of the point of the distro.

to make it the most useless peice of shit that waste your time?

I can't find a way to make it practical for casual use.


:: It's so hard to use, I'm crying with tears ;(

Edited by bcrscahh198987, 11 July 2009 - 11:10 PM.

[n3xg3n]

Um... yeah, it is. That's kind of the point of the distro.

to make it the most useless peice of shit that waste your time?

I can't find a way to make it practical for casual use.


:: It's so hard to use, I'm crying with tears ;(

It has to be hard because it is so versatile. Slackware makes no assumptions for the user, it is up to the user to dictate the use. Why should someone have to put up with X and that sort of stuff if they're setting up a server? What if the person wants to configure it differently from you? Why should they deal with your cookie cutter defaults? You set it up however you want, everyone else does it their way.

As an example, you could either go to McDonald's or you could make your own burger. One is harder, one is easier, but if you're willing to take the time, the homemade burger will more than likely be better. (In this analogy LFS would be like slaughtering the cow with your bare hands )

If you want something preconfigured choose a distro specifically for your use, but if you want to do it yourself be prepared for some difficulties.

( 900! )

Edited by n3xg3n, 11 July 2009 - 11:27 PM.

[Ohm]

I can't find a way to make it practical for casual use.

:: It's so hard to use, I'm crying with tears ;(

That's probably because it's not for casual use. If you want something to install and work out of the box, try Ubuntu.

[livinded]

Slackware is about as vanilla as you can get aside from something like Linux From Scratch. It does very little to restrict what you do but it also sticks to convention very strongly. It has not gone through many major architectural changes and thus someone who used it back at version 3 should have no problem getting onto a Slack 12.2 machine and administering it in the same way. The distro and tools it provides are very simplistic, and when you want that it does a great job. While the package selection is limited, it generally includes most of the important tools and libraries one would need for a general Linux machine and makes getting it running fairly simple assuming you know what you are doing.

[bcrscahh198987]

The general idea I'm getting here is that I have not reach *nix/linux enlightenment yet.

I'll start off with Ubuntu. It should be like a gateway distro to other distros, like how marijuana is suppose to be a gateway drug to other drugs.

[G-Brain]

By slack, I mean it's slacking in anything user-friendly.

Slackware is for experienced Unix users who know what they want and how to do it. It is very friendly to those users. It has been to me for like 3 years.

I'll start off with Ubuntu. It should be like a gateway distro to other distros, like how marijuana is suppose to be a gateway drug to other drugs.

Except that's bullshit.

Anyway, it could work that way with Ubuntu. First you just have to be able to use Linux, find things you like, things you don't like, get comfortable, read a bit about the internals, then you can get around to running Slackware.

[bcrscahh198987]

By slack, I mean it's slacking in anything user-friendly.

Slackware is for experienced Unix users who know what they want and how to do it. It is very friendly to those users. It has been to me for like 3 years.

I'll start off with Ubuntu. It should be like a gateway distro to other distros, like how marijuana is suppose to be a gateway drug to other drugs.

Except that's bullshit.

Anyway, it could work that way with Ubuntu. First you just have to be able to use Linux, find things you like, things you don't like, get comfortable, read a bit about the internals, then you can get around to running Slackware.

Just curious, what do you use Slackware for?

[G-Brain]

Just curious, what do you use Slackware for?

I've used it for about 3 years on my desktop system, for daily use. I used it to write code, browse the web, host a website, do school stuff. Things like that. I still have it on a home server.

[invalid_route]

Another advantage to Slackware is that since you have to do a lot of things by hand, it forces you to learn the nuts and bolts of linux far quicker then something like Ubuntu would. My first distro was Slackware, and while I have tried many others over the years I always seem to go back to it. One thing I really like about it is that if you install the D package series, you get a full set of development tools. It is ready out of the box to compile just about any software package you might need, which includes the more obscure ones that Ubuntu doesn't provide packages for.

[Baconizer]

I like Slackware. Unfortunately, I can't use it. For some reason, the bootloader doesn't install properly for me. Of course, I haven't tried it since 12.0.

/me goes and downloads 12.2.

Edited by Baconizer, 23 July 2009 - 10:04 PM.

[Colonel Panic]

If you want to try Slackware and are having trouble getting up and running, I suggest you try out Slax (http://www.slax.org). It's an extra-lightweight Slackware variant with some emphasis on user-friendliness.

If you're a total Linux n00b with experience only in Ubuntu, then I suggest you skip Slackware altogether and try out plain old Debian first (http://www.debian.org). Debian is the distro which Ubuntu originated from, so there are a lot of similarities (especially the "apt-get" package management system). Debian is a venerable and popular distro in its own right. It isn't quite as user-friendly as Ubuntu, so there's plenty of room to learn from it. A word of advice though: if you go into the #debian IRC channel looking for help, don't expect a lot of patience from the people in there. They're not as nice as the Ubuntu support community, and will really make you work to solve problems on your own.

If you want a somewhat different experience from Ubuntu, you might want to try Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org). Fedora is the noncommercial version of RedHat (http://www.redhat.com), which was the most popular Linux distro for many years before Ubuntu came along. RedHat is still generally the preferred Linux distro of the business and financial sectors. A more user-friendly variant of RedHat/Fedora is Mandriva (http://www2.mandriva.com), formerly called "Mandrake Linux." A stripped-down, even friendlier Mandrake variant is PCLinuxOS (http://www.pclinuxos.com). I've never tried PCLOS myself, but have read some reviews that compared it favorably with Ubuntu in terms of flexibility and ease-of-use.

On the other hand, if you're feeling really masochistic, you could try Gentoo (http://www.gentoo.org). It's generally considered to be the most "elite" and difficult distro of all because you pretty much have to manually compile and install all the packages from source. The upside to this approach is extreme speed and efficiency, and complete control over the installation process. The down side is, Gentoo is extremely impractical, maybe even impossible for a complete n00b to get working properly.

All the distros I've mentioned (with the exception of Gentoo) are general-purpose OSs that include a workable desktop environment out of the box. There are plenty of other distros out there which have been customized to particular purposes. Once you've gotten the hang of installing and operating Linux, it's fun to explore different distros and see what each has to offer. There's a lot to learn. Take your time. There's no shame in asking for help when you really need it, but remember: Google is your friend when it comes to this. You'll learn much more quickly if you seek out the solutions for yourself instead of relying on others for easy answers.

Edited by Colonel Panic, 08 August 2009 - 05:52 AM.