[CS-FSLUG] Distro commentary

[N. Thompson]

I haven't switched yet, I'm still waiting for MDK 10.0 official to be 
available publically.

Eduardo Sanchez wrote:

>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:
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>>I've been thinking about distributions and whether I want to stick 
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>with 
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>>Slackware.
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>>I've had a fair chance to try it, with the help of lynx, google and 
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>the 
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>>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 
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>were 
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>>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 
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>come 
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>>for the 2.6.5 kernel yet.
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>>The problem is that right now I'm working for my computer right now 
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>and 
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>>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 
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>of 
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>>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 
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>the 
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>>ideal easy distribution.
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>>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 
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>to 
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>>have. Durring the last two days of my spring break I learned a lot 
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>about 
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>>Linux which will be usefull in the future but at the same time I've 
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>been 
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>>regretting not being able to spend that time working on my programs 
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>and 
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>>getting school work done.
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>>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 
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>what 
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>>a distribution that installs software frorm source was like (and I did 
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>a 
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>>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 
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>interesting 
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>>time doing so but realistically SUSE and Mandrake are the best 
>>candidates for me, I'm very accustomed to both (moreso to MDK which 
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>I've 
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>>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.
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>>With what I've learned in FC and moreso Slackware I doubt I'll be 
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>having 
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>>too much more trouble with Mandarke and SUSE, I've learned how to get 
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>a 
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>>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 
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>big 
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>>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 
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>happy 
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>>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] 
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>because 
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>>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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>>Christiansource at ofb.biz
>>http://cs.uninetsolutions.com
>>
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