I used to use DOS for most of my computing, and that's been the thing most useful to me. I could relate to Slackware very well, being a command-line fan. So I grabbed the installers about five years ago and only boot into Windows for games. It is very easy to administrate, but the text-based interface that Slack defaults to is intimidating to new users who have been raised on Windows' sometimes-idiotic UI. Windows users aren't used to dealing with problems, simple as that. That trait will cost them if/when they boot into a Linux distro for the first time.
With something like Ubuntu, if you have the space, dependency hell can be overcome by simply downloading everything. But that's not the most ideal solution, either. I've read so much about Ubuntu lately, so I tried it for kicks once. Nothing compared to the level of control I get with Slack 10.2. If the new user is familiar with Unix or BSD, give them Slack or Gentoo. Anything else? Maybe Ubuntu or one of the flashy distros that I haven't used. I'm not all-knowing, but Slackware gave me the best start I could have gotten. Maybe it's good for new users too?
Around three or four years ago, I had this problem when I bought an Inspiron 5150 from Dell. I later sold it, but that's not the point. I installed Slackware 10 on it and proceeded to boot up, waiting for my wireless to blink on. Imagine my surprise when nothing happened. I booted back into XP (it was dual-booted with lilo) and Googled for drivers for the Broadcom 4400 chipset that Dell had rebadged as something proprietary and built into a PCMCIA slot. Nothing.
I'm still a devoted Slackware user, and have since managed to cobble together a semi-working driver with no hotplug support. Hopefully, Broadcom will notice that fewer cards are selling and ascertain the cause.
Mmhmm. Good book. Does sound a bit like TRANSLTR, doesn't it? Except that thing was massive and relied on extremely unrealistic amounts of paralell processing inside a single machine, instead of this cluster(f*ck) Grid deal.
I'm a sophomore at a private school in the Midwest. We have around 175-200 kids total, most of which have school-provided laptops. (Bad idea.) Our admin enforces use of a content-filtering proxy server. Well...It didn't work too well, since a lot of us knew enough about the internet to enter alternate proxies, download Firefox, set up a decent firewall, and forcibly evict Novell ZENWorks. It worked even worse with me and a friend, since we dual-booted Slackware 10.0 the second day we got them. In my experience, the students are going to be smarter than your average admin. Almost the only way around it is to take on a student (preferably the most competent one) as an assistant. Of course, there's always the danger that he'll tell his buddies how to circumvent the software that monitors their machines....Enforced Remote Desktop Connections wasn't the brightest thing ever to do. It's what drove me to hunt down and annhilate all traces of the Novell software that allowed it, plus the Windows tool.
-A Proud Slackware User
Politican From Texas....
Those idiotic Southern politicians always propose the stupidest things. Jack Thompson, Orrin Hatch, now this guy and his useless taxes. Why do all these politicians and lawyers blame video games and the Internet for the degrading societal condition that America finds itself in, instead of our failing morals and lack of common sense?
MGS 2 was one of the closest things to an art form I've even seen on a game console. The writer of the screenplays for the MGS games definately met this guy's definition of art.
Konqueror does this too, under "Tools -> Change Browser Identification." It works for me on Slackware 10.1, but I've learned not to trust anything that might be standard. It probably isn't, in Linux. But that's a good thing.
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I used to use DOS for most of my computing, and that's been the thing most useful to me. I could relate to Slackware very well, being a command-line fan. So I grabbed the installers about five years ago and only boot into Windows for games. It is very easy to administrate, but the text-based interface that Slack defaults to is intimidating to new users who have been raised on Windows' sometimes-idiotic UI. Windows users aren't used to dealing with problems, simple as that. That trait will cost them if/when they boot into a Linux distro for the first time. With something like Ubuntu, if you have the space, dependency hell can be overcome by simply downloading everything. But that's not the most ideal solution, either. I've read so much about Ubuntu lately, so I tried it for kicks once. Nothing compared to the level of control I get with Slack 10.2. If the new user is familiar with Unix or BSD, give them Slack or Gentoo. Anything else? Maybe Ubuntu or one of the flashy distros that I haven't used. I'm not all-knowing, but Slackware gave me the best start I could have gotten. Maybe it's good for new users too?
Around three or four years ago, I had this problem when I bought an Inspiron 5150 from Dell. I later sold it, but that's not the point. I installed Slackware 10 on it and proceeded to boot up, waiting for my wireless to blink on. Imagine my surprise when nothing happened. I booted back into XP (it was dual-booted with lilo) and Googled for drivers for the Broadcom 4400 chipset that Dell had rebadged as something proprietary and built into a PCMCIA slot. Nothing. I'm still a devoted Slackware user, and have since managed to cobble together a semi-working driver with no hotplug support. Hopefully, Broadcom will notice that fewer cards are selling and ascertain the cause.
Mmhmm. Good book. Does sound a bit like TRANSLTR, doesn't it? Except that thing was massive and relied on extremely unrealistic amounts of paralell processing inside a single machine, instead of this cluster(f*ck) Grid deal.
I'm a sophomore at a private school in the Midwest. We have around 175-200 kids total, most of which have school-provided laptops. (Bad idea.) Our admin enforces use of a content-filtering proxy server. Well...It didn't work too well, since a lot of us knew enough about the internet to enter alternate proxies, download Firefox, set up a decent firewall, and forcibly evict Novell ZENWorks. It worked even worse with me and a friend, since we dual-booted Slackware 10.0 the second day we got them. In my experience, the students are going to be smarter than your average admin. Almost the only way around it is to take on a student (preferably the most competent one) as an assistant. Of course, there's always the danger that he'll tell his buddies how to circumvent the software that monitors their machines....Enforced Remote Desktop Connections wasn't the brightest thing ever to do. It's what drove me to hunt down and annhilate all traces of the Novell software that allowed it, plus the Windows tool. -A Proud Slackware User
Politican From Texas.... Those idiotic Southern politicians always propose the stupidest things. Jack Thompson, Orrin Hatch, now this guy and his useless taxes. Why do all these politicians and lawyers blame video games and the Internet for the degrading societal condition that America finds itself in, instead of our failing morals and lack of common sense?
MGS 2 was one of the closest things to an art form I've even seen on a game console. The writer of the screenplays for the MGS games definately met this guy's definition of art.
Konqueror does this too, under "Tools -> Change Browser Identification." It works for me on Slackware 10.1, but I've learned not to trust anything that might be standard. It probably isn't, in Linux. But that's a good thing.