The Stealth Desktop Part III

uninet writes "In the third installment of the Stealth Desktop series about Slackware Linux, Eduardo Sánchez builds upon the previous steps of Part I and Part II. Continuing where those parts left off, he introduces the subjects of user, font and printer management in Slackware using KDE."

Comments

Slackware = great

[wikinerd]

Slackware is a great distribution and very well-suited for custom servers and *nix fans. I have purchased Slackware CDs and have a machine in my home with Slackware 10.0. I have also met people running their small business only with Slackware. It is also a great distribution for experimentation and for learning the inner workings of GNU/Linux.

already?

[tobi-wan-kenobi]

part I obviously already ./ ed

try the google cache

1,2,3 all solved, just choose the right distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

SuSE, Mandrake, Xandros, Linspire, Knoppix, TurboLinux, Ark, Mepis and more have had those three points solved ages ago. Nowawadays you CHOOSE your difficulty.

If like me you just want a system to surf the web, play games, write documents you use one of those distros.

If you want to do stuff like programming and servers get Debian, Redhat or Whitebox.

If you have no life and want to tinker all day you get Gentoo, Slackware, Arch etc.

Thats the point of distros, if you don't want to tinker, don't download the tinker distros.

For the record, I use Ubuntu, the hot new GNOME 2.8 based desktop distro, its so easy use I thought someone replaced my computer with a Mac!

Usefulness.

[rincebrain]

IMO, these guides are useful for general Linux users who want a guide to various tools on their desktop.

Slackware users, on the other hand, tend to prefer a more terminal/console-centric view, so the usefulness of this guide to anyone using Slackware for, as I've usually seen it, a server of some kind [printer, file, FTP, web], would probably do better to read some other documentation.

Just my $0.25.

Re:Command line examples would be useful

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you say Slackware isn't really the first choice as a desktop system?

Not for newbies anyway. Just the fact that you have to run XF86Config (or now xorgconfig) from the console first before you can even start X. Then you have to type startx. The installer gives you no hints for either, so unless you knew what to run beforehand, you'd have no clue.

Re:Command line examples would be useful

[ajs318]

Exactly -- there are plenty of comments in all the config files, and the way Slackware startup works is easier for a n00b to understand than most Linux distros {in the same sort of way that 6502 machine code is easier for a n00b to understand than Z80 machine code, if that isn't showing my age}.

I started out with Debian, found it a bit awkward {I was fine at the command line, but X, which I wanted to get into, was an absolute mystery to me}; and went with Mandrake instead. It let me install both KDE and GNOME, plus a few other window managers just to be sure; I found KDE was my favourite. And I gradually twigged onto how the graphical tools were causing changes in the config files. By the time I knew I'd outgrown Mandrake, I was more confident about returning to Debian. Since then, I have played with Slackware, and I really do kind of like it; it's just that my Debian system really hasn't given me cause to think about moving on, and changing distros just for the sake of it would be a violation of the KISS principle that underlies Slackware.

But if Slackware gets something really cool that Debian doesn't, I'll certainly consider it seriously.

Re:Command line examples would be useful

[slycer]

Yes,
Swaret I believe is similar to that - remote dl of packages from multiple repositories, handles dependancies etc etc..

Personally I've moved to gentoo - used slackware for many years, and if I'm ever sick of gentoo, slack would be my first choice :)