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Q-ball
04-12-2001, 11:46 PM
About a year ago I started into this "experiment" with Linux. I read all the reviews and started out with Mandrake 7.0. All in all, it wasn't a bad distro and was good to learn from, but I felt it was a little bloated and have since dumped it. After a short break away from Linux, I want to return and read a pretty good review about Slackware 7.1. Does anyone have experience with this distro? Any pros and cons would be greatly appreciated! :D
I am familiar with CLI systems and am pretty sure I could navigate around and am not afraid to "poke under the hood" as it were, but my main concerns are with hardware compatability, particularly my USB trackball and my ATA/66 HD controller. Like I said before, any advice (pros and cons about Slack 7.1) would be great! I'm not looking to start a distro flame war here...just want some honest opinions about the distro!
--Qball
Daedra
04-12-2001, 11:49 PM
well IMHO its by far the best distro out there, if your familiar with CLI you should be good, as far as the USB trackball that may be a problem because slack 7.1 come with kernel 2.2.16, so you will have to update the kernel to get that to work, but thats not hard, theres a NHF here that can help you
Q-ball
04-12-2001, 11:58 PM
Thanks...I've got an old mouse sitting around somewhere that I'm sure I can slap on in the meantime...
And that brings up the other question I had which was about updating the kernel. How large is the kernel for downloading? I am still only on a 56k connection (eep!) so I can't be spending 8 hours to download the 2.4.3 (or whatever the most recent kernel is). I've also read the NHF about updating a kernel, and it doesn't look overly complicated...but this will be my first time attempting something like that...and I'm sure something will pop up :p
--Qball
X_console
04-13-2001, 12:59 AM
Kernel upgrading doesn't have to be hard. Just be patient and make sure you read through all the documentation so you know if you meet the requirements for the kernel. Once you're sure, dive in. After you reboot you'll probalby discover that you missed out one configuration option and you'll have to redo it again. But hey, that's all part of learning. :)
Slack 7.1 is great. The only problem is that it doesn't have an auto-upgrade program, although there is one in the works but I hear it's still in beta. It'll be awesome once it hits stable though. But otherwise, you have to start somewhere if you want to poke under the hood. Don't worry about making mistakes. That's what reinstalling's all about. :) And if you can fix it without reinstalling, then all the better.
Q-ball
04-13-2001, 08:09 PM
Okay...I've pretty much decided that this is what I want to get. I have seen it advertised for like $5 on cheapbytes.com, which includes 3 CDs, and from Walnut Creek for $60, which includes 4 CDs and a book...should I break down and get the book, or would I be able to get away with getting the CDs only and hacking my way around? Any recommendations?
-Qball :confused:
Buy the full version from WCCDROM - Patrick and the gang work hard to produce Slackware and they deserve to be compensated. Another option I've seen is to pre-order 7.2 for $39.95. It's supposedly going to be released next month.