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I would not have recommended this to new users up until about 3 weeks ago, when I installed version 9.1 for the first time. It has changed quite a bit from what I remember, and if you perform the install with the default options, it will give you quite a bit including java runtime and alsa by default. I haven't looked at fedora core 2 yet, but you definately didn't get this with fedora core 1 or debian. The one problem is that the sound is still muted by default, which could throw some people off. But other than that, it has those two really big things people want in the default install, and if they choose to use gnome or kde, they will have a rich windows compatable desktop ready to use. Also there is a very simple and new user friendly book/manual

I would not have recommended this to new users up until about 3 weeks ago, when I installed version 9.1 for the first time. It has changed quite a bit from what I remember, and if you perform the install with the default options, it will give you quite a bit including java runtime and alsa by default. I haven't looked at fedora core 2 yet, but you definately didn't get this with fedora core 1 or debian. The one problem is that the sound is still muted by default, which could throw some people off. But other than that, it has those two really big things people want in the default install, and if they choose to use gnome or kde, they will have a rich windows compatable desktop ready to use. Also there is a very simple and new user friendly book/manual

Echoing some of the other posts here: It depends what you want to get out of Linux.

If you "just want to use it" (i.e. you just want a nice desktop system that isn't proprietary, or just want to try out some Linux programs) I'd recommend (roughly in order of preference):

1. Knoppix - don't even need to 'install' to try it out
2. SuSe (Or is it SuSE? Or Suse? I can never keep it straight). They've always seemed like a reasonably decent distribution, and now with Novell's apparently-earnest-and-sincere backing, I tend to think of them as "the new Red Hat" (in that they'll be a 'default' distribution in the near future and thus useful to be familiar with).
3. Mandrake - I personally didn't much care for what I saw of Mandrake, but many people do, and this one is often suggested for "newbies".

If, on the other hand, you actually want to learn Linux:

1. Slackware - my personal favorite. It seems to be the most "generic-Unix-like" in general style. I think that although it's fairly "manual" in terms of setup, it's not difficult. But that's my opinion. It's probably the easiest-to-install-and-configure "nerd" distribution.
2. Gentoo - takes forever to install initially, because it actually compiles (most) of itself directly from source. You can configure it for the best compiler optimizations for your hardware and have, theoretically, the fastest-possible system. Maybe a bit of a steep learning curve to start with though - although if you're up for it, it may be worth it.
3. Debian - Possibly one of the most obtuse installation procedures (at least, last time I tried it), but once installed it's amazingly easy to maintain. ("apt-get" really is as cool as they say it is). Debian's one of the "big" famous distributions also, so if you find yourself working with a wide variety of Linux boxen, it's good to be at least a little familiar with it. Debian's other downside (apart from the initial install procedure) from my perspective is that by default their software versions tend to be quite old, though you can get around this by reconfiguring your system to pull updates from the "unstable" and "testing" branches.

Those would be my suggestions, anyway.

Slackware has been the most straightforward distribution I have used - no frills; lean, easy to upgrade packages, and no tricks. For those already familiar with the technical aspects of *NIX administration, is there any advantage of Fedora over Slackware?

Slackware has released a security update.

Slackware has released a security update.

Why don't you try FreeBSD Unix and/or Slackware Linux? Both are good choices if you're looking for something KISS-compliant.

www.freebsd.org
www.slackware.com

Mind you, I can't wait until these dual core Opterons come out. I feel an 8-way workstation coming on....better start saving my pocket money :-)

Now all we need is an Opteron port of Slackware.

read this from slackware's FAQ's:

Q0: Why the jump from 4 to 7?

i happened to come across these fantastic spyware removal sites. if you download their software you are guaranteed 100 per cent no more spyware
Debian
Mandrake
Linspire
Fedora
Mepis
Xandros
Suse
Slackware
Gentoo

swaret is more in the category of tools to semi-automatically keep the box up to date. You configure where to take updates from, where to create local repository, and what to install. Should also handle library dependencies.

You may also have a look at KDE's kpackage

Upgrade your mission critical systems. Morons. ;)

http://fedora.redhat.com
http://www.gentoo.org
http://www.debian.org
http://www.linux-mandrake.com
http://www.slackware.com

Weird, but I can do the same thing with Slackware and Mplayer for free.

TurboLinux sucks.... go SLACKWARE!

Fedora still sucks... GO SLACKWARE!

The more pragmatic Linux distributions, for example slackware do come with a Sun JVM nowadays, and Microsoft is now having to refrain from shipping its broken JVM as part of the settlement with Sun. This means that millions of Microsoft users will be finding their way inadvertantly to java.sun.com.

I do not patch the official kernel sources, but it's not exactly a virgin either.

I do not patch the official kernel sources, but it's not exactly a virgin either.

Sorry, I know it's screwey to reply to yourself, but looking over their website some more they look to be even deeper in denial than I thought over this, and I don't see any better place to post this than here.

The Xfree86 homepage proudly trumpts the following:

4.4.0 now Stable After tremendous testing and community feedback, the 4.4.0 Release is now available for twenty (yep that's the number 20!) popular platforms. Distros that have integrated it are: NetBSD, Slackware Linux, Conectiva, and many others. See our distro support page for the full breakout.

But checking up on it, that doesn't seem to be true.

NetBSD?

XFree86 upgraded to version 4.3.0 for those architectures which use XFree86 version 4.

SlackWare?

- XFree86 4.3.0

My Portugeuse is a bit rusty and I gave up trying to find what version Connectiva is shipping, but I found it astonishing that they would claim NetBSD and Slack are using 4.4 when they aren't. Is anyone shipping Xfree86 4.4?

Don't re-invent the wheel. Get a customizable product and an expert that can customize it.

I suggest Livelink. Well, it's not free. It costs money. It may cost lots of money if you want all those nice features. It's not open source. But I have enough Karma to burn. ;-)

Web page: http://www.opentext.com/

The consulting company I work for is based on knowledge. Fast, reliable and secure (permisson based) access to archived knowledge is mission critical. So there never was a problem buying the software we need for business, no matter what it costs.

My job is not Livelink. But I work in the same room as our Livelink expert. So I collect a little bit of knowlegde about Livelink. I'm the one he asks for Unix and network tricks.

Livelink has a document management (that's the main part), team rooms, workstreams, and a lot of other nice features. For details, have a look at the web page. Livelink is a core server, extended by a lot of scripts (in a custom language named Oscript), and a tiny CGI that passes requests from the webserver to the core server. If you own a development kit, you can customize nearly every aspect of Livelink, and you can see lots of code written by Opentext. So if you have the money, you can at least see most of the sources.

We use three dual-CPU W2K machines with Apache 1.3.x as Web and application servers, a fourth dual-CPU W2K machine for the indexer and search engine, a Sun 420 running Solaris 9 for the database (Oracle), and Linux Virtual Server (LVS) as load balancer for the webservers. We have about 1500 users all around the world.

Why so many servers? Most of the time, one web server is completely idle. Opentext would recommend a single server setup, and that would be sufficient. But we have demanding consultants, our problems are response time and availability. We have some queries that block a server for a while. So we need at least two servers. The third server is for load peaks and for downtimes of one of the other servers. Index and search also need a lot of power that would block a single machine, so it's placed on the fourth server.

Why W2K? The most recent version of Livelink requires it.

Why Sun? Oracle on Windows simply sucks, the raw CPU power of the previous multi-CPU x86 database machine was larger than the one of the Sun machine, but Oracle runs much faster on the Sun. (Now all corporate databases are switched to a Oracle/Sun cluster, but that's a different story.)

Why LVS? Simple: It works. We tried a load-balancing software called Resonate, a really fitting name for a piece of software that should implement a control loop. We kicked it because it was hard to maintain and did not work reliably on our machines. We tried LVS on a really old desktop and it worked great, even if we tried really hard to confuse it. Now it has its own x86 server running Slackware, and we did not have a single second of trouble with it.

Why Apache? We used Netscape Enterprise Server / iPlanet. It had a pretty web-based config tool and much bloat, and it costs money. Apache does the same job for free, and its configuration is a simple text file that can be copied to the various servers. MS IIS has bugs. Lots of bugs. Its mouse controlled. We did not even think about a test system with the IIS.

Tux2000

With quality tools like Slapt-Get, Slackware is going to continue to reclaim users.

Yes, Slackware is using XFree86 4.4 since Tue Mar 23 13:07:20 PST 2004.

I exactly known, what you mean about the ports system. FYI, you don't mean "the port system itself", you just have problems with installation of binary packages.

Of course, you can pkg_add http://URL, and it will automatically fetch dependent packages, but the problem is, you need to know the exact url. Package name, package version, .tgz or .tbz - that's a bit confusing. You're right. It can be done better, just like the way Debian does that. Debian simply rocks when it comes to binary packages - and I am pretty happy, that it exists, so it showed the way in this area.

I suppose I will be doing some work in this area with NetBSD packages collection (pkgsrc), but that should be easily portable to FreeBSD and OpenBSD ports. The whole idea is, that if you generate an index file for all binary packages on the site. Information would include the description, requirements, size - pretty much everything found in +* files (+DESCR, +COMMENT, +PLIST and other) - perhaps I could use Berkeley DB format for it. Then, in an user-level utility, you just need to give one URL to fetch that description file (bzipped, of course). Then, such utility could work much like Debian's apt-get and apt-cache - a frontend to pkg_add and a quick way to browse all available, but uninstalled software. We'd have a friendly utility for new users for all BSDs.

Also, as pkgsrc is portable and there are already binary packages avialable for Linux (not to mention NetBSD, of course) from the latest branch of pkgsrc -- we'd just need to add that small utility to bootstrap binary kit for pkgsrc, and you'd have then binary pkgsrc available for your box -- pretty much for all Linux distributions. These are all cool projects, and they can give you perhaps much more, than some Linux distributions (especially those ones, who "lock" user in a maze of incompatible binary packages and their dependencies ;). In fact, it can even be the basic package system on your Slack (and it is available from some time, so you don't have to create another Slackware-packaging-system). Oh, wel.

And, perhaps, if FreeBSD Ports not impress you, when compared to Gentoo, perhaps you should try then NetBSD packages collection. Maybe the number of operating systems and platforms will somehow impress you, it impress me for sure. Of course, there are bigger and smaller problems, as they always are, in any opensource product, but perhaps with more users activley contributing to the project (just by testing the packages -- that's just using some of your CPU cycles on pkgsrc, instead SETI@Home ;)

BSD? Dead? I don't think so. There's massive active development going on in all areas of each of the BSDs, there are thousands of lines of code shared among developers, lot of new ideas submited, lots of problems solved. There are a lot of companies and sites using it (among others, About.com, Yahoo!, distributed.net, Juniper, NASA)... Check uptime stats on Netcraft itself, FreeBSD rules in the top ten.

Its just perhaps BSD people are usually too busy doing their projects to comment here, so you can get a false impression ;) Or, perhaps, noone likes to answer troll comments - but you've got a point with that packaging system, so that's why I bothered ;)

Have a nice day!

As the author of the bluesnarf report and an important member of the team that did the experiment, I can tell you that Slackware Linux 9.0 distribution was used as a basis. In addition to this, Bluez and a recent linux kernel (linux-2.6.2) has been installed on this system. I like Knoppix very much, though. It gives Microsoft users a fair chance to seriously think about getting rid of their expensive bugware. Linux forever ;)

As a member of the team that was doing the measurements at the CeBIT and author of the Bluesnarfing paper I know, that Slackware 9.0 has been used as a basis system. The Bluez bluetooth implementation and a recent linux-kernel (linux-2.6.2) have been installed on the system separately. I am not saying that KOPPIX is a bad thing (I saw Klaus Knopper here in Salzburg, recently)! Knoppix absolutely rules!

Back in the day (96'), I actually bought my first Linux distro that included 5 disk (~5 or ~10 bucks wasn't bad for dialup days) from Slackware and it included the best tutorial to date about how to install Linux. Yes it was hard because you had to follow directions and read but now, I can install any Linux distro from that knowledge. You will not fear what you understand.

If starting out and you really want to know Linux then try the slackware installation then moving onto compiling your own kernel distro. If you just want to run linux than Redhat is quite easy to install.

Back in the day (96'), I actually bought my first Linux distro that included 5 disk (~5 or ~10 bucks wasn't bad for dialup days) from Slackware and it included the best tutorial to date about how to install Linux. Yes it was hard because you had to follow directions and read but now, I can install any Linux distro from that knowledge. You will not fear what you understand.

If starting out and you really want to know Linux then try the slackware installation then moving onto compiling your own kernel distro. If you just want to run linux than Redhat is quite easy to install.

Surely there's a way you can express your displeasure with MS products to your friends with a little more tact?

U
S
E

L
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U
X

Slackware manages to ship the Sun Java stuff.

That's because like so many others they decided to treat the version number as a marketing ploy.

God, remember when it actually meant something? Gone are those days.

Honestly people, is this really /. front page news? This came out on the FreeBSD mailing list 36 hrs ago, and a fixed version of OpenSSL is already available.

Slackware Linux also has this fixed. Incidentally, like the parent's subject line says, this is a minor vulnerability that at the most makes openssl crash, not an exploit or a trojan like all the stuff we've been seeing about Windows on /. lately.

I can't be the only one who has noticed that major product version numbers are a) inflated, and b) the same (+- 1) as the competetors. For example, this is Suse 9.1, Mandrake has some 9.x stuff and even a 10.0, RedHat had a version 9. RedHat even stripped the .X like Solaris, which is at version 9 and a 10 is coming. Slackware is hovering around 9.1 as well. Of course more pure distros like Debian does not participate. Nor do the current owners of all things UNIX. Hell, even Apple's OS is in the 9/10 range.

This happened when there was competition with word processors (Word vs. WordPerfect), also this happened when there was competition with Web Browsers (Netscape vs IE). etc. Microsoft has surpassed the whole version number thing by appending 2 random letters at the end of their products, so I guess that is next for everyone else to do.

Just an observation.

Slackware used BitTorrent to distribute Slackware 9.1 ISOs.

I recently built a network fileserver running Slackware 9.1 and samba, it has 4 x 250GB HDDs (1TB total) and I thought that would be enough for a very long time.

Then I discovered BitTorrent and SuprNova

Doesn't this force those users to go out to CompUSA and buy a copy of McAfee or Norton antivirus?

The advisory was released Feb. 18, so this has all been public knowledge for over two weeks. This USENET post shows the vulnerability and upcoming exploit was known about, and slashdot is just plain late on this one.

You have had two weeks to patch your systems. I know slackware's advisory was sent right after the vulnerability became public knowledge.

One suggested way to compile and install the ATI drivers is to use a package called rpm2targz.

Just run it on the rpm
untar the tar.gz to /
cd lib/modules/fglrx
cd build_mod
./make.sh
cd ..
./make_install.sh
Modify your XF86Config-4 or run fglrxconfig

That should be it. If you have AGP 8x you really should use Kernel 2.6.X. You can get it to work with 2.4.X but it's a pain. Search google for 2.4.X.

Daniel

I am going to give you a couple of links and second a tip that another poster made. Since I use Gentoo and grub I don't want to tell you exactly how I do this and have it break your stuff ;)

link 1
link 2

You should be able to install many kernels side by side just by using the kernel-version and System.map-version naming scheme and I highly recommend you do that and add entries to your lilo.conf for each one you want to test. Then you shouldn't need to use your live cd to save your self.

as usual: YMMV

Yea, but you can always choose a different distribution.

I am biased. I've been using Slackware since 1995. I've tried Debian, SuSE, Red Hat and certain commercial UNIXes. When it comes to my own personal machine, Slackware is never beaten.

While SLAX is listed in that list, the author didn't note that Disc 2 of Slackware's 4 CD set is a bootable live CD.

Go Slackware!

Your URL is incorrect, that should be slackware.com it's a .com, not a .org. Incidentally, Patrick Volkerding, the sole owner of Slackware, likes to point out that it's the only Linux distro that's always been in the black. :-)

Not entirely what the poster was after, but interesting nonetheless RUNT is a pretty handy tool that can be made to boot from USB... If I remember correctly there was also possibly to configure ZipSlack to do this

The Lizard.

MySQL.

GNU Project.

Slackware Linux.

Mepis Linux.

K Desktop Environment.

Gnome.

Perl.

Apache WebServer.

Roxen WebServer (very intuitive, and GPL!).

Phew!! And that's a short list!! There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of open source, free-for-all applications.... so many it's almost absurd not to use them!! Go ahead and get them!

fdisk
Slackware
Debian
Mandrake

Surely you can think of others ;)

If you want to learn more about the slackware .tgz format, read the section on Slackware packages from the slackware book.

I think the fact that they're already 10.0 implies that they release major versions WAY too often.

What the hell is happening to Winamp? Used to be that you could get a version of their good old 2.x series from this site (the latest 2.x were lean, but still do video!)

The latest version I have is 2.91 with md5sum:
68f0f87b12306939e7e3c7549db5df5f winamp291_full.exe

Is there anything newer? Why can't I find these on their web site? There's version 5 now available. What is this... slackware?! (version jump)

I have a feeling that the shameless Debian plug will generate more discussion than the subject of the article -- and yes, there is another option. ;)