tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609528911114832799.post8877983257465261170..comments2017-09-25T15:36:25.055-07:00Comments on Ever Increasing Entropy: Slackware 12.1 First ImpressionsCaitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609528911114832799.post-74925432600730180522008-05-28T17:12:00.000-07:002008-05-28T17:12:00.000-07:00@ewlabonte: I know about Slackbuilds.org and Crux...@ewlabonte: I know about Slackbuilds.org and Crux Ports for Slack and I agree that they are wonderful tools to simplify and standardize package building. The advances user who is comfortable with scripting and compilation will love both. It's still daunting for the newcomer to Linux or for anyone uncomfortable with the command line.<BR/><BR/>@joseph: Your success with Slackware 8.1 as a first distro says a lot about you and your intelligence and capabilities more than it says something about Slackware. The average non-technical user who is used to living entirely in the GUI will find Slackware extremely difficult at best. Yes, you can Google search and find out all about how hard drive partitioning works or what goes into an xorg.conf file. Most users wouldn't understand much of what they found. Again, the fact that you are brighter and more computer literate than most doesn't change the fact that most people would find the lack of GUI tools and the need to get under the hood more than a bit daunting. Most people wouldn't call a distro with command line only package management and no dependency checking "friendly". To have to go to third party sources for something that basic that's provided in every other major distro doesn't garner "friendly" points.<BR/><BR/>Slackware is a wonderful distro, probably one of the best, for an advanced user, a systems administrator, a Linux developer. For the typical user it would be utterly bewildering, even users with a moderate amount of experience with Linux. You are anything but a typical user.Caitlyn Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609528911114832799.post-29182075445379924802008-05-28T16:11:00.000-07:002008-05-28T16:11:00.000-07:00I came to the same conclusion about Slackware 12.1...I came to the same conclusion about Slackware 12.1 you did, but for me discovering that Slackware was still Slackware gave me a nice warm feeling. I've only booted into my Arch installation once since (I distro hop quite a bit on a second partition), to change the boot order in GRUB. Next time I fire up my laptop it will probably be to replace AntiX (itself an excellent distribution) with Slackware.<BR/><BR/>However, while I agree with virtually everything you said, I'd add "unprepared" in front of "new user." Slackware (8.1?) was my very first Linux distro. I had read about Linux here and there, then spent a couple of hours researching Slackware specifically then printed out a tips & tricks page. The only thing that took more than one try was getting the mouse to work. And I was coming from Mac OS X, so even some of the usual PC-equivalent help didn't make a ton of sense to me.<BR/><BR/>So a completely unprepared user would have trouble, but anybody who does a bit of research -- and especially anyone who has access to Google during the install -- shouldn't run into too much trouble. That's because the other phrase I'd disagree with is "unfriendly." I don't think Slackware is unfriendly at all. In fact, I'd say it does you the courtesy of giving you just what you need without saddling you with more, while also making no assumptions about what you ought to do to or with your computer. The problem is, people have gotten used to thinking that the companies should make getting the OS on the computer transparent to them, but at the same time they're used to the companies telling them what they can do to and with their own property. So I would say Slackware is friendlier to the user (and even to projects such as KDE) than just about anybody. I realize I'm fighting a losing battle on this, but as somebody who lived through the No Themes For You! era on a Mac -- to say nothing of trying to get Vista to behave -- calling Slackware unfriendly sounds a bit crazy.joe f.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07834945203699513161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609528911114832799.post-68170763017092384582008-05-28T09:04:00.000-07:002008-05-28T09:04:00.000-07:00There's another source for slackware 12.1 packages...There's another source for slackware 12.1 packages. Slackbuilds.org. If you've installed all the development apps (if you've done the full installation, they are there). This site (http://www.slackbuilds.org/) allows you to download a build script which you run with the source code of the package and it creates a slack package for you. It's a great resource.ewlabontehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10650256096338236864noreply@blogger.com