Felicia, I am breaking up with you

[piratesmack]

I recently started using Slackware and fell in love with it. I started dual-booting it with the Felicia RC1, but I find myself using Slackware 99% of the time.

I'd like to thank the Mint developers helping me get into Linux, I doubt I would have stuck with it if I started with one of the other distros. And I'd also like to thank the Mint community, for helping me out when I needed it

Good bye, Mint Felicia

[badmotor]

You'll be back.

They always come back.

[Katzedecimal]

*waves hankie* *sniffle* You always feel so proud when they grow up and leave the nest...

[piratesmack]

You'll be back.

They always come back.

Probably...

I do miss Gnome a little and Slackware comes with just about every desktop environment except gnome. Theres so unofficial Gnome builds floating around the internet, but I don't trust them

If the Mint team ever releases a custom version of Slackware with Mint tools and the other goodies that Mint comes with, I'll use it.

[exploder]

piratesmack, if you are enjoying Slackware that's cool. It's nice to learn some new tools and new package management systems. I hope you find your way back to Mint in the future. What got you interested in Slackware and what do you like about it? I have never tried Slackware myself so I would be interested in your thoughts and opinions. Like I said, I hope to see you back here and good luck with Slackware.

[piratesmack]

piratesmack, if you are enjoying Slackware that's cool. It's nice to learn some new tools and new package management systems. I hope you find your way back to Mint in the future. What got you interested in Slackware and what do you like about it? I have never tried Slackware myself so I would be interested in your thoughts and opinions. Like I said, I hope to see you back here and good luck with Slackware.

What I like most about Slackware is it doesn't try to emulate Windows in any way. I decided to start using it because I heard it was the oldest Linux distro still maintained, and also because I read that Clem started with it.

I love Slackware's package management system, it's really simple. It doesn't resolve dependencies for you (Slackware believes the system administrator should be responsible for that) or care about version numbers. For example, say you installed Firefox 3 and didn't like it. You could easily downgrade to Firefox 2 using the upgradepkg command.. It's also a lot easier to build Slackware packages than Debian packages, since the rules to make a "proper" Debian package are much stricter. A Slackware package is just a gunzipped tar file that automatically gets extracted to the root directory. In order make Slack package building easier, some people write Slackbuild scripts to automate the process:
http://slackbuilds.org/

I also like that it's very stable. There is no scheduled release dates (kinda like Mint), each release is ready when it is ready. It doesn't always come with the latest software, it usually uses older versions that are very well-tested to ensure stability. And I find that since most of the work is done by one developer, there are less bugs. I can honestly say I haven't found one bug, I've never been able to say that about any distro I've used

It's also very fast. It is probably the fastest distro with KDE I've ever used. With KDE, it performs similar to Debian with Gnome on one of my old computers.

I also like how all of the desktop environments integrate very well. It comes with KDE, XFCE, Fluxbox, Blackbox, and a bunch of others I can't think of right now and Slackware works great with all of them.

I will still recommend Mint to all newbies.
Mint is the most user-friendly and out of the box distro I've ever used.

I'm actually thinking about buying one of those eeepcs, and I may run Mint on it since it seems to be pretty good with wireless.

[exploder]

Thank you for the information about Slackware. The packaging does seem very interesting. I do agree that version numbers and stability do not necessarily go hand in hand. The latest version of xorg is an excellent example in my mind. I will have to have a look at Slackware, you have me curious now! I look and compare many distributions to see how they do things, it's time I took a look at Slackware. Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts and the interesting highlights.

[piratesmack]

Thank you for the information about Slackware. The packaging does seem very interesting. I do agree that version numbers and stability do not necessarily go hand in hand. The latest version of xorg is an excellent example in my mind. I will have to have a look at Slackware, you have me curious now! I look and compare many distributions to see how they do things, it's time I took a look at Slackware. Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts and the interesting highlights.

No problem, hope you like it.
There's a lot of useful information in the Slackbook:
http://www.slackbook.org/

If you download the DVD ISO, the slackbook should be on it along with a bunch of other useful documentation.

Here are some places you can get Slackware packages:
http://slacky.eu/
http://www.linuxpackages.net/

Or you could just build your own packages from source code with something like:

Code: Select all

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --mandir=/usr/man
make
mkdir /tmp/package
make install DESTDIR=/tmp/package
su root
cd /tmp/package
makepkg example.tgz
installpkg example.tgz

[viking777]

I had a look at Slack in the summer, afraid to say I couldn't take to it at all.

Still each to his own.

[piratesmack]

You'll be back.

They always come back.

I second that

I've been using a Mint Live CD for certain things. I think one of the main reasons I prefer Slack is because after getting used to KDE I prefer it over Gnome. Maybe I'll check out that KDE community edition

[Zwopper]

For Slackware distros I always use Zenwalk - it's fast and slick.

[piratesmack]

For Slackware distros I always use Zenwalk - it's fast and slick.

I haven't used Zenwalk yet.
I have an old PC laying around with no OS, I'll have to install zenwalk on it some time

[npap]

You'll be back.

They always come back.

O dear! Please come back honey.