text and gui

[stinkoman]

Hey, I want a text-based Linux with a GUI easily accessible. Is Slackware the only one for this, or are there others?

[oz]

Is Slackware the only one for this, or are there others?

No, you can set up pretty much any distro to work that way.

[daark.child]

As long as you do not install a GUI, then any distro will do. Even if you install a GUI environment, you can still configure your system to boot into text mode.

[Freston]

Whether a distro boots into text mode or GUI mode is defined in /etc/inittab, you can easily change that. (And you can override this setting from lilo, but that's another matter)

[oz]

You might want to consider doing network installs of arch, debian, and gentoo. In each case, you install only the minimal base system, then install only what you want and/or need on top of that. You wind up with a lean, but powerful system that is customized to your liking.

Have fun experimenting with Linux...

[stinkoman]

You might want to consider doing network installs of arch, debian, and gentoo. In each case, you install only the minimal base system, then install only what you want and/or need on top of that. You wind up with a lean, but powerful system that is customized to your liking.

Have fun experimenting with Linux...

well i dont exactly know how to do that or what i would want, but i downloaded the livecd for ark, and it seems pretty neat, any words on ark? id like something for my laptop, because the biggest thing i like about linus is its so much faster than windows.

[oz]

well i dont exactly know how to do that or what i would want

Yeah, nobody does when they first decide to try it. Some experimenting and extra work is usually required at first.

but i downloaded the livecd for ark, and it seems pretty neat, any words on ark?

I've tried Ark (it's quite different from Arch) but it was about 4 or 5 years ago and I wasn't impressed with it back then, but maybe it's improved quite a bit over the years.

id like something for my laptop, because the biggest thing i like about linus is its so much faster than windows.

openSUSE and Ubuntu have good track records with laptops, but I'm not personally a fan of either of them. One or the other might be perfect for you, though.

Let us know how it goes, whichever route you should take...

[stinkoman]

well i have an 80 gig harddrive on my lappy with windows, id mess around with the spare 40gig once i figure out slackware on the compy, i dont want to learn 2 new systems simultaneously.

[oz]

well i have an 80 gig harddrive on my lappy with windows, id mess around with the spare 40gig once i figure out slackware on the compy, i dont want to learn 2 new systems simultaneously.

Yeah, you'd probably be just as well off sticking with Slackware, or maybe running LiveCDs when you find yourself getting bored with Slack. I think I've already given you the LiveCDs link, but just in case I didn't, you can find a large listing of them here. I don't personally like running liveCDs except for emergency and recovery type operations. I find them far too slow to work with for general use.

Enjoy your Slackware setup...

[stinkoman]

i was actually going to ask if livecds are always slower, so according to that ark would eb really fast, being as it's livecd was fast, but again i want to eb able to use all of my stuff on my laptop before jumping in and saying "OH CRAP!" but is there a way to sync ipods with linux? itunes isnt available, but did anyone make something else that works?