VectorLinux SOHO 5.9 Deluxe Reviewed

An anonymous reader writes with a link to Caitlyn Martin's review of the Slackware-based Vector Linux SOHO 5.9 Deluxe: "I've read past reviews by other reviewers describing Vector Linux as 'better Slackware than Slackware' or 'what Slackware should be' and I always felt that was a bit of a stretch. With this release it isn't a stretch. You get all the reliability and stability of Slackware, better performance than vanilla Slack (at least on my hardware) and the features and most of the conveniences users of distributions touted as user friendly have come to expect."

Cool

[BPPG]

Vector Linux is a decent distro to try out if you're a distro-hopper. But it's still just one of those generic desktop distros that doesn't seem to have any specific aim. I've used it in the past on computers that struggled with other distros, and it seemed to work well.

Vector's aim

[number6x]

Vector's aim is to be a small stable distro for home and small business use.

That pretty much puts it in a class with a few hundred other distros. The difference with Vector is that it is a small stable Slackware based distro for home and small business use.

For most people new to Linux that difference might be like saying 'but our's goes to 11!'. However, for long time Slackware users it is a good thing. If you have year's(or even decade's) of Slackware experience and are looking for a user friendly distro. Vector would be a good choice. Especially for small businesses.

For non-Slackware users and Linux newbies you are absolutely correct that it does not stand out from the crowd.

Vector is for Slackware what Libranet was for Debian. A really great implementation based on the parent distro. I miss Libranet. I keep hoping that Ubuntu or Mepis get up to Libranet quality standards someday.

Re:

[genican1]

If you have year's(or even decade's) of Slackware experience and are looking for a user friendly distro.

If you have years of slackware experience, why would you need a "user friendly" distro?

Re:

[raddan]

Maybe because you are sick to death of dealing with version skew? This was a major reason why we chose RHEL for our servers at work, despite the fact that many of us here have lots of Debian, Gentoo and other UNIX experience (BSD, DECUNIX, etc)-- and arguably, we'd save money by going with them. But we don't save time or frustration. I run Ubuntu on my home computer because I just couldn't handle one more libc version bump without losing my mind. Ubuntu's Add/Remove isn't quite fire-and-forget, but it's

Re:

[Bootarn]

If you have years of slackware experience, why would you need a "user friendly" distro?

I used Slackware for about five years, but I got tired of it mainly because of the package system. I tried to remedy this by installing third-party package managers like slapt-get. That didn't work for me either, because of (very) small repositories. About two years ago I decided I care too much about the bleeding edge to use Slackware, which is more stability oriented, and switched to Arch Linux. I keep thinking to myself that it would be nice to have a distribution with roots in Slackware, but with better

Re:

[fwarren]

If you have years of slackware experience, why would you need a "user friendly" distro?

Package management rocks. Large, hiqh quality package repositories rock even more.

On Slackware I can have the system I want after 3 days of configuring, compiling and hunting down dependencies. I don't know maybe 30 or 40 programs, plus the little things to be configured, dev rules to be added, etc.

Now I use the *buntu family distros. All my hardware is new enough, I don't really notice a difference in performance. The bug to configuration ratio is low. For instance. In Ubuntu auto-creation of mount points

portpkg

[higuita]

try portpkg

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Geek fatigue is real friend. [steve-parker.org]

Re:

[BPPG]

How is much different from Zenwalk, or a perma-install of Slax or Wolvix, then? I can't find any good comparison for the three

Re:

[cbart387]

I keep hoping that Ubuntu or Mepis get up to Libranet quality standards someday.

I just want to throw out that Mepis is awesome at automatically mounting flash drives, recognizing videcams, installing flash, java. My only beef with it is that it uses etch's repos, which means some of the newer stuff may not be available (in my case a library I needed that wasn't in the repos). Though my Mepis system still runs by switching over the Lenny repos. Libranet must have been pretty good if it beats out mepis.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I used VectorLinux for awhile, but I found that the packages really didn't have much in the way of quality control. There was a release that was built on one of the Slackware-current snapshots, and when SC got updated it made some packages unavailable... I don't remember the details too well but I remember upgrading became a headache. Plus some of the other packages done by community members really weren't done properly, but still made it into the official tree.

Hopefully they've sorted these things out, but

Im a little confused...

[jskline]

I remember Slackware as being the most fundamental flavor out there--where you have to meta-configure every little thing about it... aka "fine tune" if you will the thing from the ground up. Which made it a rather secure system to start with since out of the proverbial box, it opens nothing up until you do.

So; what is this "what Slackware should have" business???

What Slackware should be?

[krkhan]

It does nothing extraordinarily *evolutionary compared to Slackware. Just a silly attempt of attracting userbase? Maybe someone should re-release Slackware as Deque Linux and label it as what Vector Linux should have been.

Re:

[argent]

Walnut Creek CDROM ran for years selling CDs that you could download from them for free.

That's how many people donated to Slackware and FreeBSD, by buying the CDROM from Walnut Creek instead of downloading the ISOs from Walnut Creek.

Apparently, Vector is just taking this a step further.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

When Walnut Creek made their business most people had only analog modems or no Internet at all, so it made sense to buy bunches of CDs with otherwise freely downloadable stuff on them.

Re:

[argent]

Which is presumably why they're taking it to the next level.

Sorry

[Chemisor]

No 64-bit build - no deal. All modern CPUs are 64-bit, and pretending that they don't exist is not going to help you.

Re:

[celle]

except many necessary applications that work well aren't.

Re:

[Tubal-Cain]

Not providing a 64-bit OS for it to run on isn't helping.

Re:

[celle]

Most of the useful(java plugin) or popular apps(games, some business) are not as stable in 64-bit if they exist at all(skype) so why put out a 64 bit distro especially when cutting edge means nothing and stability is paramount. What little speed increase you see, assuming in the end there is any, will be offset by the increased distro size and instabilities of going 64-bit. If you want a 64 bit slackware distro there's bluewhite64. Damn primadonas.

Don't be a chicken

[Chemisor]

> especially when cutting edge means nothing and stability is paramount.

Now that's just a load of FUD. A 64 bit Linux is just as stable as a 32 bit one. It is not even "cutting edge", since the same source is compiled on both platforms. If you write good code, you shouldn't even have to change anything; just recompile and run. I run Slamd64 myself, and everything on it is 64bit and very nice and stable.

> Most of the useful(java plugin) or popular apps(games, some business) are not as
> stable in 64-

Re:

[higuita]

i'm using 64 for several years and dont see any stability problems at all...

as for java, skype, and any other 32bit only app... you can run then without any problem...
games, java, firefox 32bits and flash, skype, games, wine , etc

i'm using slamd64, that have support for both 64 and 32bit apps... not only that, i have a chroot with 32bit ubuntu (for some tests) and i can run all apps (as long as i'm running the 64bits X one and i export the correct DISPLAY)

64bits only affects the hardware support, so the ker

Re:

[clang_jangle]

All modern CPUs are 64-bit

Just like all modern addresses are IPV6? Or all modern storage is solid state? Or all modern ISPs are either wireless or fibre? Or all modern car designs are super efficient? I know, I hate how they drag it out too, but "all modern" is pretty meaningless until it becomes prevalent, by which time it will be obsolete.

Re:

[Chemisor]

> Just like all modern addresses are IPV6?

Oh, please. As far as I know, if you are on IPv6, you can't see a damn thing on the internet except through IPv4 translation.

> Or all modern storage is solid state?

SSDs are still too expensive, too slow, and don't provide enough benefits to switch over.

> Or all modern ISPs are either wireless or fibre?

I wish. In most places, you can't get either.

> Or all modern car designs are super efficient?

Yes, they are. The SUV market is still around, sure, but energ

Oblig

[clang_jangle]

64 bits ought to be enough for anybody!

Re:

[higuita]

>> Just like all modern addresses are IPV6?
>Oh, please. As far as I know, if you are on IPv6, you can't see a damn thing on the internet except through IPv4 translation.

i have also both ipv4 and ipv6 and there are many sites with different content (or that only respond) via ipv6... ok, they are rare
but you can (again) use both ipv4 and ipv6, just like you can use both 32bit and 64bit on a configured system

its always chicken and egg, without users, there is not support, without support, there is no

Great for older hardware too.....

[budword]

I'm a Kubuntu fan, but when I'm setting up older hardware, sometimes even xubuntu and fluxbuntu are too heavy. Vector Linux light edition runs just fine on a 500Mhz box with 64MB of ram. DVD's and other multi-media run out of the box, no difficult config needed. Set up was easy too, though I wasn't using any unusual hardware. It's worth trying out.

Re:

[bzipitidoo]

I went with Zenwalk rather than Vector for a very simple reason: only 2G free on the hard drive on my old laptop. Zenwalk fit, Vector didn't.

Yes, XFCE isn't lightweight like they claim. More like medium weight. I've been hunting for decent desktop environments for a long time. Most of them aren't integrated with the system. Have to build application menus yourself, and edit them if you want changes because the package management sure can't. I keep wondering why HAL and d-bus are so huge. But withou

The bottom line of the review

[kusmin]

Did not you hear about the performance of Vector Linux? Oh, it performs so much better than vanilla Slackware. It performs superior (on my hardware). Well, my hardware is old, true. And yes, Vector Linux makes it perform better.
--- Buy the newest Vector Linux to make you old PCs perform better than ever! ---