[CS-FSLUG] Distro commentary

[Eduardo Sanchez]

Nathan, would you wait a little bit before switching from Slackware to 
something else? I have something in the skunk works... Please be a 
little patience.

Eduardo
(p.s.: This can be confirmed by Tim... I've sent him part of my 
material)


On Thursday 22 April 2004 01:32, N. Thompson wrote:
> I've been thinking about distributions and whether I want to stick 
with 
> Slackware.
> 
> I've had a fair chance to try it, with the help of lynx, google and 
the 
> man pages I've manage to get every aspect of my wheel mouse working, 
> I've configured and compile the 2.6.5 kernel from source not once but 
> twice both times with different features and I've fixed a great number 
> of missed dependencies which were causing instabilities in KDE and 
were 
> keeping XFCE 4 from even running. I've even configured my HP deskjet 
> straight from the cups www admin tool via lynx so yes Slackware is 
> working nicely except for sound and the Nvidia drivers which don't 
come 
> for the 2.6.5 kernel yet.
> 
> The problem is that right now I'm working for my computer right now 
and 
> not the other way around, sure I could get it working the way I wanted 
> but for what I need I'm doing much more then what is necessary and I 
> could be at this for days, furthermore I'm going to end up doing much 
of 
> it over again later on anyway as I want to explore more of the options 
> available in the kernel. Right now I see my most favourable options as 
> being Mandrake and SUSE because both are the closest things to being 
the 
> ideal easy distribution.
> 
> I'm not saying slackware is too hard, it was very easy and straight 
> forward as long as I could find the right information, certainly the 
> Linux from scratch book was a big help as was the book on slackware 
> available at the slackware site but in the end it was just a matter of 
> how much work I wanted to do compared to how much free time I wanted 
to 
> have. Durring the last two days of my spring break I learned a lot 
about 
> Linux which will be usefull in the future but at the same time I've 
been 
> regretting not being able to spend that time working on my programs 
and 
> getting school work done.
> 
> Trying Fedora Core 1 and Slackware has been an excellent learning 
> opportunity and the distributions aren't bad but there is a reason I 
> like SUSE and Mandrake and that's convenience, right now Slackware and 
> FC just don't meat my needs. I've satisfied my curiosity, I've seen 
what 
> a distribution that installs software frorm source was like (and I did 
a 
> lot of that without pkgtool too) and I've had a chance to see what 
> Fedora Core was like. I also got to see whether I could run a 
> distribution with no configuration software and I've had an 
interesting 
> time doing so but realistically SUSE and Mandrake are the best 
> candidates for me, I'm very accustomed to both (moreso to MDK which 
I've 
> used the most out of any distro) and both suit my needs, it seems 
> logical to me to switch back to one of those two.
> 
> With what I've learned in FC and moreso Slackware I doubt I'll be 
having 
> too much more trouble with Mandarke and SUSE, I've learned how to get 
a 
> system going from a terminal and base install with KDE, I've learned 
> that source based distros are no more on the bleeding edge then the 
big 
> distros such as MDK, SUSE, RH and Debian are (and they are not 
> necessarily as stable either).
> 
> I think after this experience I'll finally have satisfied my curiosity 
> enough to stick to that ideal distro when I find it if I haven't found 
> it yet. Who knows whether I'll stumble across something I like better 
> then SUSE or MDK but for the time being I think I could finally be 
happy 
> to pick one and stick with it (probably MDK if their 10.0 official 
> download is decent, if not then SUSE or maybe Linspire [Lindows] 
because 
> I've gotten two free copies already in promotional giveaways by the 
> company and with tweaking I'm sure it could be made sanitary ;-) ).
> 
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> 

-- 
Prof. Eduardo Sanchez
Asuncion, Paraguay, South America
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 They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
 The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
   And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass
 Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

	-- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
	   

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