Slashdot Mirror
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."
To be fair , slackware isn't really the first choice as a desktop system but it is among the first choices for a backend server (I use it for such myself). With that in mind I'm not sure how to configure printers via a GUI is all that much use for most slackware users. I personally would be far more interested to see how to do it via the command line so you can configure the things via a dial up at 3 in the morning when things have gone pear shaped at work. Anyway , no doubt other people will have other opinions :)
Slackware was my first and still favorite Linux distro (back from the a.out days). At one point I uninstalled both Redhat and Debian in favor of Slackware. Eduardo should be commended on making Slackware more accessable to those who want to try Linux.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Not talking about slaskware as the distro, or the server distro, but like linspire, and perhaps SuSE, they are aiming at really easy to run and user experience oriented linux.
The article picks up on some great standard management applications, KUser and font installer, the whoel article reads like a PCPro article about windows 98 through XP - and many people read those articles and glean new ways to use thier OS.
even the printer installation looks scarey, but upon reading I can imagine a newbie person running this command, setting it up, seeing the results, and then using the fairly friendly dialogues to complete the tasks.
Figure 18 I had to check they weren't comparing with windows way of doing things.
I have to say, linux has crept from being 'will it ever be ready for the desktop' to 'which distro will desktop people pick'
I recommend you let some of your friends read this and see how easy it all is.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
This CUPS Horror fairly describes why a Gooey interface to printers are not enough.
Looks like the article was slashdottedQuidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
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.
Out of all the distros, I really wish Slackware would just go away.
Blah,blah,blah open source is all about choice...
But every damn time some person is looking to dump Windows and migrate to Linux and needs some realistic advice on which distro to go for, some clown pipes in to 'put his props in for Slackware'
Just stop it. Please. You can't possibly be doing any more damage to Windows people looking for a clear and easy migration path.
I think the main issues of feature comparison between distributions, in the context of widespread desktop adoption, are (in order of importance):
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
try the google cache
If you don't learn from history,
then you are an idiot by definition.
--- Vadim Yasinovsky
Nice to see someone actually written something about Slackware. Slackwares always been my favorite distro .. I used to be a control freak i guess, thats why i like it. Im thinking of changing now tho, prolly because im getting too lazy for all this slackin :)
Having been using Unix for 15 years it is hard for me to tell if Linux is there yet as I am not a naieve user, but the likes of Lindows and Lycoris seem to be very usable, as do distributions with slightly less of a naieve user focus such as SuSe and Mandrake (and RedHat was going in that direction to before the Enterprise/Fedora split). So things are going in the right direction at least.
What would be interesting is to see a proper survey of users of a variety of levels who have never previously used Linux and see how they react to the latest distros on the desktop.
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.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
Although there are many important differences between different distros, aside from some configuration utilities, (which make a large difference to unfamiliar people), they all offer the same software written by someone else and hope that they have compiled it correctly and have it running stabley. GNU/Linux is all about the same whichever flavor you like it.
It has recently been released and it has caused quite a stir for its ease of use despite being based on Debian. For me its the first GNOME since 1.4 that is better than KDE. I suggest you try it and you will see why Slackware is a minority and why thousands of user are switching to Ubuntu!
Ubuntu Linux
Wikipedia article.
I used to use Redhat/mandrake on the desktop. But then I discovered Slackware and started running it on my desktop. Its very good... but you need to know a bit about the internals before you can start using it. I like it because it doesnt try do everything for you and installing other things is easy. I think its also a good distro to start learning linux.
Debian has always been difficult for me because of all the options that you're presented with during installation. That's not a negative for Debian though. Keep in mind that I have never tried Debian with the anaconda installer, but I hear it is awesome. For me, Debian's biggest plus is package management. Nothing beats apt-get. I also like that the fact that it is one of the last TRULY free distros. Debian has got to be one of the easiest distros to maintain (from what I hear from many sysadmins.)
Slackware is incredibly stable and more UNIX-like than other distros. The installer will ask you less questions than a Debian install but will give you a very stable, secure and functional system (desktop or server) with default install options. For me, I find Slackware more enjoyable because it uses a stock kernel right from Linus' tree without any distro specific "tweaks" that you would find in most other distros. I run Xandros for my wife and it is a nightmare if you want to install a package that's not in the Xandros (Debian-based) repository. I have never had a problem compiling a program from source on a Slackware box. It will even install packages using rpms via the 'rpm2tgz' command. Package management is getting better with tools such as "slapt-get" and "swaret". I believe both tools come with the Slackware isos. If you can't find them, you can look here to get any slackware packages you can dream of. If you prefer a gnome desktop, you can download the dropline gnome desktop. Lots of eye candy and GUI front-ends for Slackware specific tools etc.
I could go on for a long time about the merits of each distro, but both are excellent choices for desktop or server roles. I guess it comes down to Slackware for me because I work in a pure UNIX (AT&T 3B21D) environment at my job with the phone company. I work daily on Solaris (Netra boxes) and HP-UX as well. Slackware was designed to be the most UNIX like linux distro out there. Hope that helps
Any real Linux user should create an LFS system at least once. I found it a usefull and educational process, and it gretaly helped me to understand things that were previously somewhat mysterious, like the boot process.
It only takes one afternoon with a decent machine to get a basic booting system, another on top of that to have a full X session with most desktop goodies.
Once I was at this point, I really only used the system for a few days before installing Gentoo again (maintainging all those apps yourself with no packaging system is a pain), but I still don't consider it a waste of time.
Try it out!
Oh, cmon! Be a little fair will, you?
The way I learned how Linux works, as in for real, was by using Slackware. I'll admit SuSe and Debian are way ahead in the ease-of-use department, but trying to tweak those distro's is something I find truly painfull. And it hides the inner workings so well, that moving to another distro means learning everything all over.
But to your piont, if you've read the configuration manual for slackware (yes, if you're truly clueless at something, you can resort to manuals), it's right there.
So even if the installer doesn't tell you, it's not like it's a big mysterious secret how to config X. And if you know it's called X and you want to run it... You probably know about XFree86Config?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
"GNOME is better than KDE"
"KDE is better than GNOME"
"Yeah but windows sucks! so use KDE"
"No KDE is too much like windows, use GNOME"
"But GNOME is more like windows that KDE"
"Right, so use GNOME"
bah. *goes back to his machine, closes windomaker and starts fluxbox*