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(fwiw, this is probably flamebait, and will get moderated as such - but it's my 2-worth; disclaimer is i don't normally get involved in distro-wars)

I'm a happy Slackware user. I've been a Slack user for years - and not just out of "being used to it". I used Slackware in my first job, I built mailservers on it in my second job, I used it to run a complete ISP in my third job, and a complete domain registry in my fourth job (incidentally, I'm still on a heck of a salary and really enjoy my work).

I've actually looked at other distributions to make maintainence easier, but:

• Debian I found was populated by anal freaks who were real religious fanatics - we had a department full of Debian people and I said "ok, let's do Debian then" and two years later I'm finding it hard to work out just where they put everything [1].
• RedHat just had too many problems and decided to SetUID root a load of crap (plus there's the obvious rootkits).
• SuSE fell apart at the seams.

So I went back to Slackware.

It's quite funny when someone came along, found a security hole such as the recent OpenSSH hole, and tried to crack a Slack box - it was fairly obvious from the start, because the rootkits failed. Then I built Slack packages for tripwire and stuff.

Pat's got it right, IMHO. It's a good, simple distro with decent ground-up building. And there's a lot of misconception that you have to build stuff on Slack boxes - you don't - you can quite happily build packages.

I now run Slack on my laptop, on the company servers, on my desktop, and loads of other places. It works for me. I'm pleased to see Pat's finally got it together for 8.1 (I've been following the updates for some time).

But one bit of advice: update slackware.com - it's bloody old.

Snogs,

Joel.
[1] Admittedly I haven't got used to it in the same way I got used to Slack, but there's enough people in the company who can get used to Slack. Standardising means getting other people to learn it too.

Hi all --

I'm the red-shirted guy from Mailbox Internet who was buying the beer on the Friday, and spent most of the Expo talking to people who didn't believe I was who I said I was because I was wearing a tie and not the usual ThinkGeek fare ;)

On the subject of suits and geeks, I'm actually glad I had the shirt on - most of the geeks got hold of me because I was talking tech, and a lot of the suits gave me more time because I had a shirt and tie on - sad but true.

Anyway, my personal score for the show:

• Dust Puppy from Dark-Side Dave.
• £120-worth of books.
• A 4ft-high penguin (yes, we were the ones who took it to the pub).
• Squishy penguins from SGI and Alphanet.
• The Walnut Creek set of Slackware CDs.
• Tux cufflinks for those "I've just been told to be smart" moments.
• A new news peer for Mailbox, and several traffic peers with people in Telehouse.
• Two consecutive hangovers, and a large bar bill.
• Sore feet.

Great fun folks. There's photos of Thursday and Friday (and some more here).

Hugs to y'all,

Joel
MD of Mailbox Internet

Hi all --

I'm the red-shirted guy from Mailbox Internet who was buying the beer on the Friday, and spent most of the Expo talking to people who didn't believe I was who I said I was because I was wearing a tie and not the usual ThinkGeek fare ;)

On the subject of suits and geeks, I'm actually glad I had the shirt on - most of the geeks got hold of me because I was talking tech, and a lot of the suits gave me more time because I had a shirt and tie on - sad but true.

Anyway, my personal score for the show:

• Dust Puppy from Dark-Side Dave.
• £120-worth of books.
• A 4ft-high penguin (yes, we were the ones who took it to the pub).
• Squishy penguins from SGI and Alphanet.
• The Walnut Creek set of Slackware CDs.
• Tux cufflinks for those "I've just been told to be smart" moments.
• A new news peer for Mailbox, and several traffic peers with people in Telehouse.
• Two consecutive hangovers, and a large bar bill.
• Sore feet.

Great fun folks. There's photos of Thursday and Friday (and some more here).

Hugs to y'all,

Joel
MD of Mailbox Internet

Hi all --

I'm the red-shirted guy from Mailbox Internet who was buying the beer on the Friday, and spent most of the Expo talking to people who didn't believe I was who I said I was because I was wearing a tie and not the usual ThinkGeek fare ;)

On the subject of suits and geeks, I'm actually glad I had the shirt on - most of the geeks got hold of me because I was talking tech, and a lot of the suits gave me more time because I had a shirt and tie on - sad but true.

Anyway, my personal score for the show:

• Dust Puppy from Dark-Side Dave.
• £120-worth of books.
• A 4ft-high penguin (yes, we were the ones who took it to the pub).
• Squishy penguins from SGI and Alphanet.
• The Walnut Creek set of Slackware CDs.
• Tux cufflinks for those "I've just been told to be smart" moments.
• A new news peer for Mailbox, and several traffic peers with people in Telehouse.
• Two consecutive hangovers, and a large bar bill.
• Sore feet.

Great fun folks. There's photos of Thursday and Friday (and some more here).

Hugs to y'all,

Joel
MD of Mailbox Internet

Hi --

I'm the MD at Mailbox, and yes the parking situation at Fulham is small. But the Fulham location is designed to be an inexpensive colocation facility and not a huge colo facility - again, you gets what you pays for and we've got a load of space at the Telehouses (both City and Docklands) for that sort of stuff.

Most of the people who choose low-cost colo travel on the Tube or by taxi, or only have one box. We have quite a few Powersledges down there which get shipped to us via Citylink or somesuch, and we don't charge for plugging 'em in and turning 'em on.

We're working on opening up another (larger) building in Putney, which is about half a mile down the road, and has a huge pile of carparking space not to mention things like generators and goods lifts.

Take a look at the webpage for cheap colocation for more info, or talk to Michael, Jerry or Charlotte, who are our marketroids. They can all answer questions about it for people who want to know.

Finally, there's about 300 photos of the show at photos.jml.net, including the Mailbox Party on the Friday.

Hope this helps,

Joel.
MD, Mailbox.

--

Hi --

I'm the MD at Mailbox, and yes the parking situation at Fulham is small. But the Fulham location is designed to be an inexpensive colocation facility and not a huge colo facility - again, you gets what you pays for and we've got a load of space at the Telehouses (both City and Docklands) for that sort of stuff.

Most of the people who choose low-cost colo travel on the Tube or by taxi, or only have one box. We have quite a few Powersledges down there which get shipped to us via Citylink or somesuch, and we don't charge for plugging 'em in and turning 'em on.

We're working on opening up another (larger) building in Putney, which is about half a mile down the road, and has a huge pile of carparking space not to mention things like generators and goods lifts.

Take a look at the webpage for cheap colocation for more info, or talk to Michael, Jerry or Charlotte, who are our marketroids. They can all answer questions about it for people who want to know.

Finally, there's about 300 photos of the show at photos.jml.net, including the Mailbox Party on the Friday.

Hope this helps,

Joel.
MD, Mailbox.

--

Hi --

I'm the MD at Mailbox, and yes the parking situation at Fulham is small. But the Fulham location is designed to be an inexpensive colocation facility and not a huge colo facility - again, you gets what you pays for and we've got a load of space at the Telehouses (both City and Docklands) for that sort of stuff.

Most of the people who choose low-cost colo travel on the Tube or by taxi, or only have one box. We have quite a few Powersledges down there which get shipped to us via Citylink or somesuch, and we don't charge for plugging 'em in and turning 'em on.

We're working on opening up another (larger) building in Putney, which is about half a mile down the road, and has a huge pile of carparking space not to mention things like generators and goods lifts.

Take a look at the webpage for cheap colocation for more info, or talk to Michael, Jerry or Charlotte, who are our marketroids. They can all answer questions about it for people who want to know.

Finally, there's about 300 photos of the show at photos.jml.net, including the Mailbox Party on the Friday.

Hope this helps,

Joel.
MD, Mailbox.

--

Hi --

I'm the MD at Mailbox, and yes the parking situation at Fulham is small. But the Fulham location is designed to be an inexpensive colocation facility and not a huge colo facility - again, you gets what you pays for and we've got a load of space at the Telehouses (both City and Docklands) for that sort of stuff.

Most of the people who choose low-cost colo travel on the Tube or by taxi, or only have one box. We have quite a few Powersledges down there which get shipped to us via Citylink or somesuch, and we don't charge for plugging 'em in and turning 'em on.

We're working on opening up another (larger) building in Putney, which is about half a mile down the road, and has a huge pile of carparking space not to mention things like generators and goods lifts.

Take a look at the webpage for cheap colocation for more info, or talk to Michael, Jerry or Charlotte, who are our marketroids. They can all answer questions about it for people who want to know.

Finally, there's about 300 photos of the show at photos.jml.net, including the Mailbox Party on the Friday.

Hope this helps,

Joel.
MD, Mailbox.

--

You can do this in Britain as well - you need to ask British Telecom for a "Key-line Baseband" line. They'll only do it if both ends are in the same exchange and they don't like selling it, but Mailbox Internet sell it as a product in the Fulham area of London.

Using the Pairgain kit you can drive a single pair up to about 1.1meg, or if you use 4-wire circuits you can get about 2meg. The greater the distance though, the lower the signal, you have to remember that.

As I recall, Demon used to give it away to their staff as a perk - Mailbox seem to be doing that as well now.

FWIW, we put a link into the local pub, The Southern Cross.

You can do this in Britain as well - you need to ask British Telecom for a "Key-line Baseband" line. They'll only do it if both ends are in the same exchange and they don't like selling it, but Mailbox Internet sell it as a product in the Fulham area of London.

Using the Pairgain kit you can drive a single pair up to about 1.1meg, or if you use 4-wire circuits you can get about 2meg. The greater the distance though, the lower the signal, you have to remember that.

As I recall, Demon used to give it away to their staff as a perk - Mailbox seem to be doing that as well now.

FWIW, we put a link into the local pub, The Southern Cross.

Oi! RedHat for suits I agree with. Debian, hm, for hackers, possibly (only cos I got it on my Sparc) but Slackware for loons .... come on!

Cap'n B