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KDE GUI Software Linux

The Stealth Desktop Part III 146

Posted by CowboyNeal from the guides-for-slackers dept.
uninet writes "In the third installment of the Stealth Desktop series about Slackware Linux, Eduardo Sánchez builds upon the previous steps of Part I and Part II. Continuing where those parts left off, he introduces the subjects of user, font and printer management in Slackware using KDE."
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The Stealth Desktop Part III More

The Stealth Desktop Part III

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  • Command line examples would be useful (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @03:25AM (#10274902) Homepage
    To be fair , slackware isn't really the first choice as a desktop system but it is among the first choices for a backend server (I use it for such myself). With that in mind I'm not sure how to configure printers via a GUI is all that much use for most slackware users. I personally would be far more interested to see how to do it via the command line so you can configure the things via a dial up at 3 in the morning when things have gone pear shaped at work. Anyway , no doubt other people will have other opinions :)
    • Why would you say Slackware isn't really the first choice as a desktop system?

      I just ask because, well... you can install KDE, Gnome, OOo... every desktop app I can think of. Once swaret or similar is setup via cron then you don't need to tinker with rpm dependancy hell with GUI upgrade software.

      It's not like you've said it's too advanced, which I could understand some linux newbies finding it - you say you install it for backend servers.

      What am I missing in some other distro that I don't know about
      • I may be completely wrong, but from what I can tell, Slackware doesn't have all of the bells and whistles that other distro's do. The installation process for most other distro's for example, exhibit a lot more hand-holding than Slackware, and AFAIK, they also include various utilities that make system configuration much easier. I'm sure there are more differences, but I always got the feeling that Slackware lends itself more towards the plain old vanilla, command-line incarnation of Linux.
        • You seem to be going on assumptions rather than actual experience.

          The only possibly difficult part of installing Slackware would be partitioning, which always needs a bit of explanation (Windows XP is in the same boat). The average user will always get tripped up by this but a little reading will get them through.

          The rest of the Slackware install would be what you'd call point and click only its menu driven. Pretty != Ease of use. You can go through, choose all of the default options, and have a fu
          • Does it have the equivalent of YaST or system-config-*? These are the configuration apps that make an easy distro, not the fact that you can install things. Can you get a package management system? Can you get the equivalent of yum, urpmi or apt-get? The "Desktop User" often doesn't want to find /etc/inittab to use a graphical login, so for a distro aimed it one it should have a GUI config utility, in a menu, that allows him to do so.
            • the "Desktop User" doesn't even have a clue where the control panel is in windows 8 times out of 10.

              anyway, there is a yast equivalent (a few actually, using the same backend): there's gnome-terminal for gnome, konsole (very pretty), xterm, rxvt, etc. And there's always just bash.

              but seriously, no - get somebody to install slackware for you (desktop user) and just leave it - its as solid as a rock (i like to play with mine alot, which is nice, because slackware seems logical to me)
              • In that case, my knowledge falls over, because I've never used Slack. I myself am quite a competent user, but do not have the knowledge to configure a printer by editting /etc/printcap, nor do I know how to configure users using passwd, etc.
                (I do know how to do the equivalents with a network, though!)
                I'd prefer to have a nice easy to use GUI app to configure these for me, but of course I have Linux's lovely configurability still waiting behind the shiny exterior.

                I guess there is something that's a bit h

            • Yes,
              Swaret I believe is similar to that - remote dl of packages from multiple repositories, handles dependancies etc etc..

              Personally I've moved to gentoo - used slackware for many years, and if I'm ever sick of gentoo, slack would be my first choice :)
          • "by altering the default run level in /etc/inittab (which is well commented)" a computer novice who moderatly knows their way around a pc could install fedorah and have it boot into X, where they would feel comfortable w/ kde/gnome. They would not be comfortable finding a file and editing it in vi or joe, regardless of how well commented it is. For non computer people, it is a little hard to install slack compared to, say, fedorah

      • Re:Command line examples would be useful (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @03:45AM (#10274948) Homepage
        "Why would you say Slackware isn't really the first choice as a desktop system? "

        Simply because its tricky to set up for your average user. Slackware gives you little hand holding and someone whos used to putting in even a redhat CD and just cliking a few buttons with be thrown by Slakcware. I'm not say thats bad (I myself prefer knowing whats happening in the install) but for someone who just wants to use office apps its a bit daunting.
        • Why the hell is everyone assuming desktop == average user - not everyone who needs a desktop has no clue about how computers work...
          i use my current slack install as a desktop for ~2 years now (no reinstall, simple upgrading - currently sports kernel 2.6.7 + kde 3.3) and it's the snappiest desktop linux i ever experienced (in my opinion faster than gentoo, suse, fedora ...)

        • Re:Command line examples would be useful (Score:5, Insightful)

          by pe1rxq ( 141710 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @04:04AM (#10274993) Homepage Journal
          I always found that Slackware had the best handholding.... Its just in a different place.
          Its not hidding the inner workings in nice GUI interfaces.. It has nicely commented config and startup files and a clear /etc/rc.d directory.

          Jeroen
          • Exactly -- there are plenty of comments in all the config files, and the way Slackware startup works is easier for a n00b to understand than most Linux distros {in the same sort of way that 6502 machine code is easier for a n00b to understand than Z80 machine code, if that isn't showing my age}.

            I started out with Debian, found it a bit awkward {I was fine at the command line, but X, which I wanted to get into, was an absolute mystery to me}; and went with Mandrake instead. It let me install both KDE a
        • In my experience, most average Windows users struggle to set up their machines. I find the long flame-wars about ease-of-install for non-techies to be mostly irrelevant, as a techie will be setting up pretty much any system.
          For "someone who just wants to use Office Apps", it is the simplest thing ... techie sets it up , off you go.
          It is the people who wish to constantly change things that might have trouble.
        • Simply because its tricky to set up for your average user.

          Who said anything about the "average user"? You're implying that once the user progresses beyond "average" then they'll want to stop using the desktop. This is a silly idea.

      • Re:Command line examples would be useful (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Why would you say Slackware isn't really the first choice as a desktop system?
        Not for newbies anyway. Just the fact that you have to run XF86Config (or now xorgconfig) from the console first before you can even start X. Then you have to type startx. The installer gives you no hints for either, so unless you knew what to run beforehand, you'd have no clue.

        • Slackware and X (Score:5, Interesting)

          by trezor ( 555230 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @08:00AM (#10275603) Homepage

          Oh, cmon! Be a little fair will, you?

          The way I learned how Linux works, as in for real, was by using Slackware. I'll admit SuSe and Debian are way ahead in the ease-of-use department, but trying to tweak those distro's is something I find truly painfull. And it hides the inner workings so well, that moving to another distro means learning everything all over.

          But to your piont, if you've read the configuration manual [slackware.com] for slackware (yes, if you're truly clueless at something, you can resort to manuals), it's right there.

          So even if the installer doesn't tell you, it's not like it's a big mysterious secret how to config X. And if you know it's called X and you want to run it... You probably know about XFree86Config?

          • Re:Slackware and X (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Mr Guy ( 547690 )
            I'm not usually one to pounce on the "Linux Elite" style posts, but this one I have to.

            And if you know it's called X and you want to run it..

            What if you don't know it's called X? My wife uses my linux computer just fine when she isn't using her Windows laptop. Why? Because to her, a GUI is a GUI. She DOESN'T know it's called X, and at her level of concern, she doesn't have to. She figured out how to get the menu to pop up by right clicking and she's fine with that. As far as she's concerned, h
            • What if you don't know it's called X?

              Then your not really in Slackwares target audience. Its not being elitist, its like saying that if you don't like flashy sports cars then maybe a Porche isn't for you. If you don't know the details and don't want to know, there are other distros that are targeted to you, Slackware, and for that matter Debian and Gentoo are more created and targeted to who know or want to know the dirty details.
            • Then slack is not for you.

              That doesn't mean it's not for desktops.
    • I completely agree. I use Slackware myself (almost exclusively), and my uses for it are in fact more geared towards server-related purposes. It really does seem that Slackware, as good as it is, takes a backseat to other distro's in terms Windows-like usability. In that respect, I'd have to Mandrake or SuSe takes the lead (though there are a few I still haven't tried).
    • I don't see how you can characterize a distro that has KDE, etc as "server oriented" vs "desktop oriented," as some of the other posts imply. The key distinction a lot of people seem to be missing, though, is "How friendly is the install procedure?"

      In terms of usability, for someone coming from a Windows background, I think KDE is alright. Maybe not perfect, but definitely not terrible.

      Take a look at the other distros that seem to be mentioned as "desktop oriented" or "user friendly": Mandrake, SuSe,

      • Slackware 4.0 and beyond have a nice, clean installer. You put in the CD, and receive a message that says: type SETUP.
        You type SETUP, and everything is self-explanatory, including a useful Help button.
        You follow every step, and everything gets installed. At the end, it configures your ethernet, timezone, and stuff.
        If you don't want to mess with packages, you can always install the full distro.

        That has been true for 7, 8, 9, and the part of 10 _I have seen , and the installer hasn't changed. The benefit of
    • As a comparably new convert to Debian (I run knoppix at work for web development) I'm interested to hear comparisons between Debain and Slack. Both seem to have similar advantages over other distros ( package management, power and configurability) and both are seen as slightly 'newbie hostile'. I've tried strains of linux that weren't Debian (SUSE and Red Hat have their nice points, but both lasted about a day) - what's to reccomend me to Slack?

      • Re:Slack vs Debian (Score:2, Interesting)

        by p.rican ( 643452 )
        No matter what distro I try, I always wind up going back to Slackware.

        Debian has always been difficult for me because of all the options that you're presented with during installation. That's not a negative for Debian though. Keep in mind that I have never tried Debian with the anaconda installer, but I hear it is awesome. For me, Debian's biggest plus is package management. Nothing beats apt-get. I also like that the fact that it is one of the last TRULY free distros. Debian has got to be one of the easi

      • Err, other than both being perceived as "difficult", there is no comparison between debian and slackware.

        Slackware is about as barebones as one could get. Some people like that. It has no package management to speak of - this should be perceived in this case as a strength. Many do not want to deal with the overhead of package management. Slackware is as simple as possible.

        Debian is a managed system, from top to bottom, and is geared towards providing tools for you to manage the system. However, Debia

        • Gentoo should be mentioned as well, since it suits those who like to micro manage every detail of their system,

          Thats funny. I went from my old system (everythin installed manually, based on Core Linux) to Gentoo when I was tired of micromanaging every little aspect.

          Now I only micromanage the programs I use the whole day and when I need something else I just emerge it, wait a while and I have a usable install (compared to just *.conf.sample as in most tarballs).

          But you are right about one thing, I want

        • Slackware has package management. Pkgtool, swaret, and most importantly, ldd.
      • I'm interested to hear comparisons between Debain and Slack.

        Well then if Xandros, Lycoris and Lindows are like sports cars with automatic transmission, then Debian is like a truck with manual transmission and Slackware is like a ten speed bicycle. It all depends on what you want.
      • Speaking as someone who installed Debian and then switched to Slack, what made me switch was Debian's monolithic package management. Debian systems are inextricably intertwined with the apt package system, which is fine for dedicated-pupose boxes (this is my workstation, or this is my laptop, or this is my webserver, etc.), or even multipurpose boxes, so long as every package you ever need is available as a *.deb. I however, wanted to do some oddball stuff (Amiga emulation & Neuros [neuros.com] management, for exam

  • I'm glad someone wrote about Slackware (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mind21_98 ( 18647 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @03:26AM (#10274904) Homepage Journal
    Slackware was my first and still favorite Linux distro (back from the a.out days). At one point I uninstalled both Redhat and Debian in favor of Slackware. Eduardo should be commended on making Slackware more accessable to those who want to try Linux.

    • Re:I'm glad someone wrote about Slackware (Score:5, Interesting)

      by polecat_redux ( 779887 ) <spamwichNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday September 17, 2004 @04:00AM (#10274983)
      If you ever feel especially masochistic, check out Linux From Scratch [linuxfromscratch.org]. It's essentially a walkthrough that takes you step-by-step through the process of compiling a fresh toolchain which you then use to compile all of the necessary applications needed to construct a basic Linux system. Once you're done, you will likely find the process rather fulfilling (in addition to all that new knowledge rattling around in your head).
      • Almost like installing Gentoo.
        • Gentoo is a lot less work since you can configure more things at once and let the computer calculate a lot after that. With LFS and similar approaches you have to do
          ./configure
          make
          make install
          almost every five minutes at some points of the installation. I went from an installation like that to Gentoo to save me lots of repetive work when I have to install newer version due to securtiy holes.

          It was however an experience that teached me a lot about the inner workings of a Linux System and at the same ti

      • I second that (Score:3, Insightful)

        by brunes69 ( 86786 )
        Any real Linux user should create an LFS system at least once. I found it a usefull and educational process, and it gretaly helped me to understand things that were previously somewhat mysterious, like the boot process.

        It only takes one afternoon with a decent machine to get a basic booting system, another on top of that to have a full X session with most desktop goodies.

        Once I was at this point, I really only used the system for a few days before installing Gentoo again (maintainging all those apps yours

      • > If you ever feel especially masochistic, check out Linux From Scratch.

        You don't need to be masochistic.

        I use an LFS system on my Sharp laptop. It's really not hard to install, and as long as you can configure a kernel, you're fine.

        I managed to get my LFS system up and running with very little prior Unix experience (and a large dose of perseverence).

        The only bad thing was the long time needed to compile some of the applications. OO.org took 23 hours.

  • Happy that the direction of thought is changing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @03:30AM (#10274917) Journal
    Not talking about slaskware as the distro, or the server distro, but like linspire, and perhaps SuSE, they are aiming at really easy to run and user experience oriented linux.

    The article picks up on some great standard management applications, KUser and font installer, the whoel article reads like a PCPro article about windows 98 through XP - and many people read those articles and glean new ways to use thier OS.

    even the printer installation looks scarey, but upon reading I can imagine a newbie person running this command, setting it up, seeing the results, and then using the fairly friendly dialogues to complete the tasks.

    Figure 18 I had to check they weren't comparing with windows way of doing things.

    I have to say, linux has crept from being 'will it ever be ready for the desktop' to 'which distro will desktop people pick'

    I recommend you let some of your friends read this and see how easy it all is.

    • Ah. Printing setup. From that perspective, I say there is still a lot to be done. That is definetly one feature I would really like to see improvement in. Two weeks, ago, I decided to setup an old e-machine to run as a print server, using Debian, Cups and Samba (KDE played a small roll too). Those three items are glorious when you they are working, but are the three kings of doom if you misconfigure any one of the Conf files. It would be nice to see projects working together to create easier solutions

  • Printers are a horror !! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gopal.V ( 532678 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @03:37AM (#10274928) Homepage Journal
    Printers in Linux have been a horrible experience for me (winmodems win for being the MOST horrible). Especially if it's a remote printer , one of those which runs SMB printing services (as in office).

    This CUPS Horror [catb.org] fairly describes why a Gooey interface to printers are not enough.

    Looks like the article was slashdotted ... it stopped half way without images.
    • Printers in Linux have been a horrible experience for me

      I share this sentiment. Then again, printers are finicky devices anyway, no matter what OS one uses to invoke them.
      • I was a Windows Admin in a big Company (~3000 PCs)for a couple of months after School. I would estimate half of the Problems with the PCs there were due to Printers, Printer-Drivers, Printer-Cables, Printer/Fax/Scanner-Combination-Bullshit. Even though MSFT was to blame for some of these Problems I could trace most of them to some part - Hardware or Software - supplied by the Printer-Manufacturer.
        • You've got to love those printer drivers that take up all available system resources to print a page of text.

          I've got one of those newer little HP Laserjet printers run from an XP workstation. Watching the system resources, the CPU usage is a sine wave - every few seconds the CPU spikes because of the printer driver.

    • There's always the KDE printer setup system. Far superior to the CUPS web-page way.
    • Fedora usualy autodetects and installs printers (my experience is with a have a paralel port xerox laser printer from 2000). Some does Mandrake. In slackware, there are several utilities which can help you in setting it.

    • Re:Printers are a horror !! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @05:56AM (#10275186)
      Yeah, it can be a pain, but to be fair Windows shares part of the blame for this as well. Last time I tried to use a Windows shared printer, it wouldn't appear in the Fedora "select your printer" dialog ... a bit of poking around revealed that it didn't appear in another Windows machine as well despite being shared and there being apparently nothing wrong. Windows file and printer sharing has always been awful, I've wasted many hours trying to get Windows 98 machines to talk to XP and vice-versa - given that it doesn't even work reliably between Windows machines it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that Linux has issues as well.

      The good news is that ZeroConf is being integrated into Linux quite rapidly now that Apples sucky code has been abandoned and Howl became available. Apparently quite a few modern printers support it natively so now maybe Windows printer sharing can be at least partially bypassed in some larger networks.

    • Printers in Linux have been a horrible experience for me

      Funny. When I got a printer server to share my printer on the network, Linux worked right out of the box (I have an Epson printer). Took me about 30 seconds to get printing working.

      For windows, I had to install special software and fiddle for a while to get it working. Then every now and then windows printing breaks for no reason...

    • Windows 98 was running my machine into the ground so I made a complete switch to mandrake 10.
      Linux makes the most of whatever old hardware you've got: Printing with my LPT1 BJC-4200 is MUCH better quality that in windows which feeds the paper too fast causing white stripes through text. In was also fairly easy to setup (detected first time).

      In fact my only real problem is that my mom likes to play a shockwave game called "fowlwords" from kewlbox and it's too slow in crossover. Bear in mind this is with

    • > This CUPS Horror fairly describes why a Gooey
      > interface to printers are not enough

      yes it does......but instead of stopping at the obvious conclusion (that GUIs are inherently inadequate) it goes off on a long, tedious whinge and moan that the poor user has to *gasp* learn a few details about how their computer works.

      this sort of moronic "thinking" is *EXACTLY* what leads to the insecure virus and trojan hell of Microsoft Windows.
      • to clarify what i said:

        many of the specific complaints he has about particular user interface problems are quite valid. where the article fails, though, is the author's explicit assumption that user ignorance is a desirable trait, and that the ignorant should be pandered to and protected from ever having to learn anything.

        this is fundamentally broken, indeed it is brain-damaged.

  • Slackware = great (Score:3, Informative)

    by wikinerd ( 809585 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @03:49AM (#10274960) Journal
    Slackware is a great distribution and very well-suited for custom servers and *nix fans. I have purchased Slackware CDs and have a machine [wikinerds.org] in my home with Slackware 10.0. I have also met people running their small business only with Slackware. It is also a great distribution for experimentation and for learning the inner workings of GNU/Linux.
    • Slackware is also great for older machines. I put it on an old P133/48mb notebook, along with X and Fluxbox. I run Gentoo on my desktop because I like to piss around, but Slackware would be my obvious choice on a second machine.

  • Call This A troll. I Don't Care. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Out of all the distros, I really wish Slackware would just go away.

    Blah,blah,blah open source is all about choice...

    But every damn time some person is looking to dump Windows and migrate to Linux and needs some realistic advice on which distro to go for, some clown pipes in to 'put his props in for Slackware'

    Just stop it. Please. You can't possibly be doing any more damage to Windows people looking for a clear and easy migration path.
    • Eight years ago I was recommended Slackware by a friend.
      The only damage it did was that I got hooked.
      I never regretted that for a moment (did try out some other distros since then but always ran back to slackware, it just feels right).
      Just remember that not every windows user that wants to try linux is an icon clicking zombie.

      Jeroen

    • Re:Call This A troll. I Don't Care. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NightWhistler ( 542034 ) <alex&nightwhistler,net> on Friday September 17, 2004 @04:19AM (#10275016) Homepage
      OK, I'll feed this troll...

      Slackware is not, and was never meant to be a migration path for Joe Sixpack coming from Windows. We have loads of distros that handle that task a million times better.

      What Slackware is great for is people who like a simple, clean UNIX-like OS on their home machine, and don't want to bother with all sorts of distro-specific tools. It's also great if you prefer to compile your software from source, without having to be afraid to mess up you package management DB. Using Linux is much like riding a bike: try it with training wheels first, move on when you're ready.

      Finally, if we really want to get grandma's, sisters and Joe Sixpack off of Windows, we should probably start promoting KDE as the "OS". It's what they see anyway, and it shouldn't really matter if it runs on top of Linux, BSD, Solaris, whatever...

      OK, done ranting now... feel so much better ;-)

      • Re:Call This A troll. I Don't Care. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Slackware is not, and was never meant to be a migration path for Joe Sixpack coming from Windows. We have loads of distros that handle that task a million times better.

        I think this jives with the main gripe of the original anon poster. People need to stop recommending this distro to Joe-windows user as a good distro to try. Personally, I agree with him. People also shouldn't recommend debian to windows guys either, because then they go get Debian stable, which is 2 years old, and then we have to listen
        • People need to stop recommending this distro to Joe-windows user as a good distro to try. Personally, I agree with him.

          I think the problem here is one of mismatching recommendations to desires.

          When "people" recommend Slackware, they recommend it because it's a good distribution for people to learn about Linux. It's a pretty good mix of manual and automatic, where there are fewer automatic tools to do things for you, but where there are enough conveniences provided that you aren't effectively pulling an L
      • "Finally, if we really want to get grandma's, sisters and Joe Sixpack off of Windows, we should probably start promoting KDE as the "OS". It's what they see anyway, and it shouldn't really matter if it runs on top of Linux, BSD, Solaris, whatever..."

        Not sure we should start refering to KDE as an OS ... but i agree with your point. To Joe 6-pack, the "OS" is what they see, the user-interface. They don't care whether it is Linux, Windows, or Babbages Difference Engine runing the show, so long as they can pla

      • Re:Call This A troll. I Don't Care. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @05:39AM (#10275164) Homepage
        Um ... no.

        slackware is nither simple or clean, although it does put things in the filesystem where they belong unlike debian,redhat,mandrake and suse.. so reading that man file on apache makes sense. but simple?? no it forces you you actually learn how to config a linux system.

        It's most desireable trait is that it is ungodly faster than all the above Distros. A simple install no a underpowered Duron 1.4ghz processor and only 512 meg of ram a Slackware install is snappy feeling and Java + games run on it nicely.

        EXACT same machine running mandrake, fedora,suse or debian is over 2 times slower to the point that popcap java games are all herky-jerky, you no longer can play DVD's and there is no way in hell you can play Unreal Tournament on it (yet it plays wunderfully in slackware on the same machine.

        Slackware is raw speed, and many members of the LUG turn to it when they want to use gnome or KDE on an older machine.
        • "slackware is nither simple or clean, although it does put things in the filesystem where they belong unlike debian,redhat,mandrake and suse.. so reading that man file on apache makes sense. but simple?? no it forces you you actually learn how to config a linux system."

          So in order to learn how to use Linux you have to... learn how to use Linux?

          But seriously: by simple I didn't mean easy to use, or easy to learn, but more set up in a simple way. Just plain text files in the place they should be. Yes, y
          • It is nice to read there are other people out there who refer to text files as simple and distro-specific configuration-"helper"-tools as complicated.
        • It's most desireable trait is that it is ungodly faster than all the above Distros. A simple install no a underpowered Duron 1.4ghz processor and only 512 meg of ram a Slackware install is snappy feeling and Java + games run on it nicely.

          I've been running Slackware 10 on a Pentium II 200 MHz with 128 MB RAM (XFCE, not Gnome or KDE) with acceptable performance.

        • EXACT same machine (1.4GHz Duron/512MB RAM)running mandrake, fedora,suse or debian is over 2 times slower to the point that popcap java games are all herky-jerky, you no longer can play DVD's and there is no way in hell you can play Unreal Tournament on it (yet it plays wunderfully in slackware on the same machine.

          Hmmm... my Debian Sarge running on a 1.1GHz Thunderbird plays DVD's just fine (always did, even with RH 7.x and 256 MB RAM)! Anecdotes don't prove the general case either way.

          What I will give

        • only 512 meg of ram

          *Looks at the ancient rig on the desk, closes tab mumbling about rich kids these days...
      • Well speaking as "Joe Sixpack" myself (actually more like "Joe Gallon" as I'm in the UK) I found Slackware to be the easiest Linux distro to get my head round.

        Most of my computing experience has been with mainframes (running ICL, now Fujitsus, VME) but I'd been using Winders at home for years (to run audio software)

        So getting heartily sick of Windows about two years ago I thought I'd try out Linux and before settling on Slackware I tried Suse & Red Hat and I simply found their GUIS confusing and hard
        • Nah ... you're not joe. I've met Joe. He works down at local assembly plant, machining parts. Joe's a good guy. Kind of got a beer gut. His hands are oiled, not to mentioned caloused from working with heavy equipment all day. Joe has a wife who works as at dentist's office. After his shift his over, he stops by the watering hole with buds. Talks about football. Tells his buds the Red Sox will go all the way this year. At home, he watches sitcoms with his family. And after he tucks his kids to be
    • About 4 years ago I got feed up with windows and heard about Linux from some friends at college. Went out and got a copy of Mandrake Linux, and could not for the life of me get it to go anywhere. Sometime later those same friends who told me about Linux gave me a copy of Slackware, and I was able to get that running fine. Sure I had to do everything in config files and didn't have a nice gui, but with some expirementation and the occasional RTFM from friends, I got the hang of it.

      Recommend Slackware if
    • >>some clown pipes in to 'put his props in for Slackware'
      >>Just stop it. Please. You can't possibly be doing any >>more damage to Windows people looking for
      >>a clear and easy migration path.

      My first attempt to use linux was with some distro that resided in one big file inside a windows partition. I don't think I ever did get X working, after a couple of weeks it quit booting all together. Then I tried Debian. Got the base system up but mostly I just got error messages complaining

  • What to compare? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pedestrian crossing ( 802349 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @04:05AM (#10274997) Homepage Journal

    I think the main issues of feature comparison between distributions, in the context of widespread desktop adoption, are (in order of importance):

    1. Ability to easily add and remove peripherals.
    2. Ability to easily add/remove/update software.
    3. Ability to easily install and consistantly get a good working state.

    • 1,2,3 all solved, just choose the right distro. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      SuSE, Mandrake, Xandros, Linspire, Knoppix, TurboLinux, Ark, Mepis and more have had those three points solved ages ago. Nowawadays you CHOOSE your difficulty.

      If like me you just want a system to surf the web, play games, write documents you use one of those distros.

      If you want to do stuff like programming and servers get Debian, Redhat or Whitebox.

      If you have no life and want to tinker all day you get Gentoo, Slackware, Arch etc.

      Thats the point of distros, if you don't want to tinker, don't download th
      • #define sarcasme
        #ifdef sarcasme
        #warning "joke intended"

        Great, thanks for telling me that I have no life :)

        #endif

        But seriously, Slackware can be a nightmare to set up if you don't know what you're doing (personnally, I'd already done an LFS up to compiling all of Gnome before moving to Slack).

        That said, once you've got it tweeked, it 'just works' day in day out, no tweeking required (unless you want the latest uber package, and even then, things like dropline gnome really help).
        • 1,2,3 all solved, just choose the right distro. (Score:1, Informative)
          If you have no life and want to tinker all day you get Gentoo, Slackware, Arch etc.

        You'd think this would be mod'ed flamebait or troll allready, this being slashdot and all?

        And yes, I use Slack and as current state of affairs I have no life :)

      • SuSE, Mandrake, Xandros, Linspire, Knoppix, TurboLinux, Ark, Mepis and more have had those three points solved ages ago.

        I wish you'd tell me computer that. I tried SUSE and Mandrake just in the last few weeks, and neither of them could see my shared printer, and in neither of them, could I install even Firefox, and have a usable copy after the install (no shortcuts for it... anywhere!!). And while Mandrake found it, SUSE didn't find my sound card. So, I wish that what you were saying was true, but in

  • already? (Score:4, Informative)

    by tobi-wan-kenobi ( 797654 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @04:07AM (#10274999) Journal
    part I obviously already ./ ed

    try the google cache [google.com]

  • slackware (Score:2, Interesting)

    by techefnet ( 634210 )
    Nice to see someone actually written something about Slackware. Slackwares always been my favorite distro .. I used to be a control freak i guess, thats why i like it. Im thinking of changing now tho, prolly because im getting too lazy for all this slackin :)

  • What is needed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AaronGTurner ( 731883 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @04:43AM (#10275068)
    To actually convince people to swap to Linux on the desktop it needs to be easy enough to use. Basically this means familiar enough - i.e. uses similar enough paradigms to Windows for users to get the hang of general use instantly. Whilst things like some management is going to be different, it should take only one article, if that, to get end users up and running with desktop Linux doing basic things such as surfing the web, using email, word processing. If it takes more, then Linux isn't there yet.

    Having been using Unix for 15 years it is hard for me to tell if Linux is there yet as I am not a naieve user, but the likes of Lindows and Lycoris seem to be very usable, as do distributions with slightly less of a naieve user focus such as SuSe and Mandrake (and RedHat was going in that direction to before the Enterprise/Fedora split). So things are going in the right direction at least.

    What would be interesting is to see a proper survey of users of a variety of levels who have never previously used Linux and see how they react to the latest distros on the desktop.

  • Usefulness. (Score:5, Informative)

    by rincebrain ( 776480 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @04:43AM (#10275069) Homepage
    IMO, these guides are useful for general Linux users who want a guide to various tools on their desktop.

    Slackware users, on the other hand, tend to prefer a more terminal/console-centric view, so the usefulness of this guide to anyone using Slackware for, as I've usually seen it, a server of some kind [printer, file, FTP, web], would probably do better to read some [samba.org] other [proftpd.org] documentation [apache.org].

    Just my $0.25.

  • Distros (Score:2, Insightful)

    by alanbs ( 784491 )
    Although there are many important differences between different distros, aside from some configuration utilities, (which make a large difference to unfamiliar people), they all offer the same software written by someone else and hope that they have compiled it correctly and have it running stabley. GNU/Linux is all about the same whichever flavor you like it.

  • Desktop OS? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Outsider_99 ( 761534 ) on Friday September 17, 2004 @05:32AM (#10275155)
    I used to use Redhat/mandrake on the desktop. But then I discovered Slackware and started running it on my desktop. Its very good... but you need to know a bit about the internals before you can start using it. I like it because it doesnt try do everything for you and installing other things is easy. I think its also a good distro to start learning linux.

    • Re:Desktop OS? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by WhiteDeath ( 737946 )

      Agreed...

      Nice easy dialogs and next buttons are good if you've never used something, and for the average user (web, email, desktop publishing etc) they are perfect - ie they don't want to know about doing wierd things that no-one else thought of, and the less choices they have about how the OS works, the better.

      On the other hand, I choose Slackware because there is NO big magic button that you press to make it all work like someone else wanted, and hose all your tweaked scripts back to default, or worse c
  • at linuxpackages.net the development of non-slackware packages for slackware seems to validate the gentoo philosophy of choice and flexibility.
  • I've got an old Pentium 1 266-MMX laptop with 64 megs of RAM. I've currently got Debian on there. Would Slackware be a better choice for the amount of memory that I have?

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