I'm looking to throw out windows once again and go back to linux. I've run different forms of RH (6.0, 6.2, and 7.0), and I wasn't completely pleased with them all. I like to jump in config files and do it myself, and I'm reasonably comfortable with the command line.
I'm finding a lot of you don't use GUIs. I'm interested in running KDE 3.0 on top of Slack. Is this a no-no because people just don't do it, or because there's lots of problems, or is it just that people on the Slack groove just don't use GUIs?

you should have no problem using KDE with Slackware..
Not sure what you mean with no no.. KDE is the desktop environment, configuring files you can either do manually or with a GUI interface tool.. in which with Slack or any distro, you can do manually.

Well, not a no-no, but maybe looked down upon.
Oh, yeah, forgot to ask. Seeing as how there's few differences between Slack and FreeBSD, which one should I use to run my intranet server?

KDE, is and always will be a huge kludgey monolithic beast.

So what, that's what I'm using as I type this. There's quite a few regulars on this forum *cough* *cough* acid_kewpie, that will bark at you for using a bloated window manager, but really I can wait that extra 1.2 seconds.

The one thing I don't understand is everyone's rush to run the bleeding edge goop when they don't need it. That's one of the niftiest things about Slackware, is that it is "beat it with a hammer for hours" stable. Then, if you need to go bleeding edge it'll run the 2.5.6 kernel just fine.

Cheers,

Finegan

Well, apparently the BSDs are more secure than Linux...but I suppose that all depends on how you configure your box, and how conscious you are about regularly updating for security problems. As for actually using them, I had some problems with setting up X for FreeBSD (that said, I have heard/seen many, many success stories), but it was a piece of cake under Slack. Oh, and I don't look down on using GUIs for Slack.He he! I regularly switch between SawFish (my preferred, sorry) and KDE under Slack. KDE is definitely easier to use because I've been spoon-fed Windows, but I do still like the slick-ness of Sawfish. I've never heard Slackware being called 'beat it with a hammer for hours stable'...quite a good summary though.

I think OpenBSD takes the cake for security - 4 years without a remote hole in the default install. But then again, it's not exactly Linux either

I'll be installing Slackware for my first time this week, just nixed Red Hat 7.2 off my main computer, and if Slackware is good enough it'll be a toss up between Slack and OpenBSD for my server (currently Red Hat 7.2 as well).

It's awesome to see a Slack forum here, I hope things go well because I'll certainly be finding a second home here

Well done AUSSIE, yuor efforts are paying off!

Thanks Daffy, how are you m8?, and welcome to LQO

Thought it was about time i posted I've upgraded and sold a lot of gear, hdd's included. So i have Mandrake 8.2 ready to go.
Very busy with Uni and stuff, hope your well

I've been a slacker for a few months now, and once a slacker... always a slacker :)

The primary reasons for me choosing Slackware:
1) The "I'm using a non-GUI configuration Linux system" :)
2) Almost everything compiles from source with a little tweaking. I never enjoyed compiling stuff under RedHat.
3) The "under the hood"-feeling, and the endless possibilities of system configuration.

So why choose to become a slacker? Because Slackware is stable (and that doesn't have to imply slow), and behaves as it should do.

IMHO anyway =)

count me as the third person to confess to thinking that being called a slacker is cool...

well, honestly, i really got used to using slack... but for a time i couldn't get the sound to work, so i switched back to rh ( i really tried) ... meanwhile, i'm poking around to see how things work. i'll be back on slack when 8.1 is released so i can try once again...

it's too much trouble and time to switch now. i'll have to redo too much stuff. ain't got the time. so i'll wait for 8.1

#4 that likes being called a slacker. :-)

when i first got into linux i was using redhat with kde... then my cousin introduced me to the wonders of slackware. i first installed redhat over 2 years ago and in the 6 months since i've started using slackware on most of my boxes my understanding of the linux OS has significantly increased.

i love working under the hood and actually configuring the system myself. it really gives you a sense of accomplishment when you get build something from scratch (or as close as you can get). redhat, and those "fluffy" distros, while good in their own respect, don't require the understanding and knowledge slack does.... everything doesn't come pre-configured in slack, which is nice cause i love to do everything myself.

in short, slack's more of a hobby distro... for the person who just has fun doing this stuff. :-)

.. and this is the exact same reason I chose Slack ... besides being able to officially call myself a Slacker. I want to tinker, I want to edit with the command line (although I have problems with VI. It and my terrible memory do not mix very well ...), I want to hone and fine tune, in much the same manner as I do to my truck.
You'll probably be seeing bunches more of me in the near future as I learn how Slack works. Suggestions on good books I should pick up, or perhaps website with Slack-oriented help files? It'd probably save me a bunch of trouble.

Oh, one more thing, how much will it hurt me to NOT have a working A: drive? If things go south, I can always just have LILO re-write the original boot sector and go back to NT ... right?

It depends on how south things go. If you can still boot into slack, then yeah. If you can't boot aat all, a floppy drive is great to have so you can boot off a bootdisk and fix tings. There are other ways around it I suppose with the install CD but i'd rather a disk drive to make things a tad more simple.

The coolest thing I recently saw a .5 gig used for?

A friend of mine has a 4 drive system that puts my penta-boot to shame. There are something like 40 gigs worth of un-partitioned space on the bloody thing right now. /dev/hdb is an old .5 gig that doesn't live on the fstab of any of them, with a base install, X-less, of Slack 8. Its his parachute. If anything goes kazoo, he changes the BIOS boot order to it... and fixes the problem from there. Nifty eh?

Any more news on 8.1? I've been punching through the usual userlocal, linuxpackages, the slack site, /. and there hasn't been anything since that 8.1 beta 2 announcement. I really should get over my mailinglist block.

Luck,

Finegan