Why Slack vs.? - Unique Situation

Being a soldier in the US Army and coming up on a deployment to the Middle East in the very near future there are going to times in which I will have a lot of time on my hands and intend to learn the ins and out of linux during this time instead of just point and click.

I have used Linux off and on since RH 6.2 (hated it) and Mandrake 7.(?), but fell back to windoze due to hardware and compatibility issues. Now have now settled into it linux exclusively in the last year (my wife even prefers it now) using Mandrake 10, Mepis and mostly recently Xandros which have been mostly point and click and now want to broaden my horizens.

I want a distro that will give me opportunities to learn, thought about Gentoo but I will not always have an internet connection to download packages that I come across and after googling and surfing have come to believe that slackware will be the next best thing to learn on.

Is this a true assumption? And which other distros will give me an opportunity to learn to ./configure - make - make install and all those other cool things.

Thanks in advance!

My expierence with slack is that almost everything will compile on it without any problem. I didn't see any distro on which compiling stuff is so easy.

But if you have time and you actually want to learn something maybe LFS is a good opportunity to learn. You'll need a distro on which you can compile first. I think LFS is very good for learning how a Linux system is put together.

I use Slackware again due to time constraints, on a LFS system there is allways something to do :D

Linux from Scratch is great! I feel kinda sorry though that you had to use Mandrake 7 and Red Hat 6.2, I have copies of both and they are truly some horrible distros. Any distro is good for learning really, just don't install X :wink:

I like Slackware 10

I haven't run any real problems yet with anything.

I was suppriced when it knew my DVD-burner right and hds' and everything..


(Used to Windows ;) )

I recommend Slackware.

Slackware is wonderful to learn and is far from the point and click atmospheres of some of the more mainstream distros. It was started to be the most unix-like distro, and has kept its unique flavor over the years. Its a good step to Gentoo, which is what I will hopefully try next. Also, you may want to check out the BSDs.

Good luck during your deployment! :D

Thanks for the replys. Got Slack up and running this weekend. I am enjoying Slack simply for the aspect that I am learning - not just pointing and clicking.

Only problem I had was that initially lilo wasnt configured properly and when I would reboot it would boot straight into windoze. That was easily fixed by re-configuring liloconfig (proud to say that was my first fix that I have performed while running linux).

My next quest is the learn how to use the package tools - and before anyone says "Hey I thought you wanted the experience!" - well yes I do, but there are a couple of programs that have way too many dependecies (i.e. K3B) that I dont want to screw things up just now.

Thanks all - Keep Slacking!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cpprice32

Thanks for the replys. Got Slack up and running this weekend. I am enjoying Slack simply for the aspect that I am learning - not just pointing and clicking.

Only problem I had was that initially lilo wasnt configured properly and when I would reboot it would boot straight into windoze. That was easily fixed by re-configuring liloconfig (proud to say that was my first fix that I have performed while running linux).

My next quest is the learn how to use the package tools - and before anyone says "Hey I thought you wanted the experience!" - well yes I do, but there are a couple of programs that have way too many dependecies (i.e. K3B) that I dont want to screw things up just now.

Thanks all - Keep Slacking!

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Well..

I installed K3B yesterday from the sources.

There are many ways to install pgk.

Theres slackwares own pkgtool (man pkgtool)

There's installing scripts (works with any distrubion if program provides one)

And ofcourse you can compile it your selve from sources.
(I recommend that u get program named checkinstall before finishing installation from the source.)



The choosing between installing methods depends on of the program and how it's packed.

example:

program-excample-pkg-1.10.tar.tgz

installpkg /program-example-pkg-1.10-tar.tgz

That was Slackwares own type.

That is almost the same as installing from RPM's in Fedora / RH / SuSe
(Or .deb:s in Debian)

Back to the roots:

pkgtool in the console starts "GUI-pkgtool" where u can choose packages and change installation source.

Man pkgtool helps you also.

Oh, and if some dep is missing the installaton program will tell you what u need.

Or it will get it for u.

I hope u got your answer even my post is ****ed up :D

Slackware rules! I hate those user-friendly distros like Red Hat. Also I'm using LFS and it's great.You can really learn something.

LFS isn't worth it.

Gentoo doesn't need you to have a constant net connection. I was reluctant to try it for the same reason, untill I actually did try it. Turns out the portage system has a very useful feature called fetch.
Basically, you run the command you would use to install a package but add in -f
that way, it will just download everything. Then you can install/compile them later whether you have a connection or not.

Storm....
Thanks for the reply. Just two questions to that.

1) How long is the download for everything and I assume this is downloading this straight to my hdd?

2) I see that you are a Stage 1 Gentoo user - can you use this as a Stage 3 user?

Thanks!