The thing that really stands out for me is Slack's ability to install a
full yet minimal system. It's really great for systems with limited
resources, servers and old laptops especially. It's fast -- and I swear
by reiserfs, btw.
I don't understand why people need a graphical installer, I find them
cumbersome, but I hate mice, after using them for the last 18 years.
Slack's installer works fine, once you grok the organizational scheme (a =
base, etc). It's basic and it works. The difficulty for newbies is,
should they choose to install packages individually, dealing with the long
list of them, but you'll have that problem in any distro.
I've never had a problem with the packaging system; RPM was rife with
difficulties. There is an rpm2tgz utility, which I've never used. You
can make your own packages with checkinstall (tgz/deb/rpm), just do that
instead of 'make install'. I do this, and use the package on my other
slack system.
I'm also happily still on 8.1, no need to upgrade. I have upgraded some
major things like gtk, kernel, etc. Packages aren't as available as
rpm/deb, so if you're averse to compiling the occasional goodie, this may
be an issue. I went through difficulties with the fonts, partly because
I've got a 3dfx, adn partly because I didn't have those instructions!
In short, if you're already comfortable with linux, unafraid of editing an
rc file, Slack is a must try. And the people in #slack are pretty
helpful.
-- Alex McKenzie alex@boxchain.com http://boxchain.com ___________________ Nolug mailing list nolug@nolug.orgReceived on 12/09/03
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