I've read several messages where people have praised SuSE, but eventually
switched to Slackware. Unfortunately, they didn't give their reasons for
switching.

I was just wondering why you made the switch?

thanks,
DG

P.S. I'm evaluating *nix as a replacement for MS-Windows. My criteria is
(in order of importance):
1) Stability
2) fewest bugs
3) largest set of applications
4) ease of maintence
I've started with FreeBSD (UNIX based) and SuSE (Linux based).
I'd appreciate any guidence that could save me some time.

DG wrote:

.... i have a question, which will help us to understand
your motivations:
are you not satisfied with suse? if so, why?

i think most people end up on slackware out of curiosity. also,
slackware is considered, by those that are mostly purisits at
heart, more 'pure'

personally, as a far as raw horsepower distros go, i think
gentoo is the way to go
..
--
/// Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, skydiver, \\\
\\\ and author: "Inside Linux", "C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" ///
\\\ http://pages.sbcglobal.net/mtobler/mjt_linux_page.html ///
"I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days
that end in `Y.'"

DG wrote:
I can't speak for others, but the reason why I have never been happy
with any other distro as much as with slackware is that slackware
doesn't get in my way. I can install it in a custom manner within a
couple of hours, I can't say that about the others. It also has a less
"all or fail" install system than any of the others. Slackware won't
abort an install simply because something wouldn't go in, I have had
RedHat completely abort a 3 1/2 hour install when it found that a *help
file* was corrupted on the CD; things like that have a tendency to turn
you away on a permanent basis.

Debian is pretty nice, *if* you can get it to install completely. The
install procedure is very lengthy though and it very often fails to
finish installing the stuff you told it to and you end up with a
complete mess.

Mostly you can bet that individual distro choice is centered around
personal experience. You have a tendency to stick with your first
choice, and you have a tendency to steer clear of the ones that pissed
you off for some reason. In that regard, I have used SuSE at the
workplace and found it pleasant so I have nothing against SuSE per se,
but it is certainly not slackware.


it is possible without getting into unstable and buggy beta systems.

slackware has always lacked in the set of programs that *came with it*.
However, there are just as many apps on the internet for slack as any
of the rest.

like any of the others. With slackware you will be installing from
source 99% of the time.

My advice: if you are unhappy with SuSE then try Slackware.

NR

On Sun, 05 Oct 2003 18:06:42 GMT, DG <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
My first distro was Slackware (2.0). It has less fluff (GUI helper apps),
so it is not as easy, but it teaches you more about how Linux works
(writing and modifying your own scripts). It also allows you to possibly
run a slimmer system, selecting only the packages you want, or starting
with a base system and adding packages as needed.

For example, ZipSlack is about a 75 MB umsdos based system that can run
from a DOS bootable Zip disk or LS-120 SuperDisk (with room to spare for
additional packages). It can also run from a FAT partition or tranferred
to regular Linux filesystem. No other floppy based systems recognize my
LS-120 ATAPI floppy drive. ZipSlack also allowed me to try Linux on an
old P133 32 MB laptop without having to repartion its Win95 drive (and the
only distro that recognized its old PCMCIA chip).

Slackware programs are all fairly standard (not excessively patched), so
you can easily use generic kernels and other programs compiled from
source, instead of having to hunt down a suitable rpm and dependencies.

I used RedHat for awhile, but it always seemed like they needed more beta
testing at the time, because I always had to immediately install hundreds
of megs of errata updates each time I tried a new version.

I have been using SuSE lately, which is sometimes too easy. For example,
I have not learned as much as I should about iptables, because its
SuSEfirewall2 does it all by setting a few variables. Although, in 8.0 I
did have to manually configure pcmcia settings and ifcfg script for
wlan-ng module (so WEP would work), because YaST2 did not support wlan0
interface config.

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/

David Efflandt wrote:

and for the average joe/joan, this is a good thing
..
--
/// Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, skydiver, \\\
\\\ and author: "Inside Linux", "C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" ///
\\\ http://pages.sbcglobal.net/mtobler/mjt_linux_page.html ///

Presently, I don't have an opinion of SuSE. I just got my first eval
working last night (SuSE-8.2-LiveEval; unfortunately it's *not* working on
my old Test machine, the one I want to use for evaluation ... *@! non-IDE
CD-ROM). So I'm pretty much a blank sheet as far as opinions on the various
*NIX's go.

My motivation is that I'm really just tired of the MS-Windows crashes and
bugs. I used UNIX (BSD, AT&T on MIPS, SUN, VAX, etc.) from 1979 to 1995.
Then I was forced into the Microsoft world (Business stuff) from 1995 to
present. The last 8 years under Microsoft have required a TON of maintence
time. So now I'm looking for an OS that just works ... and works ... and
works ... that doesn't crash when bugs show up ... with easily installed aps
.... and minimal maintence ...

I'm hoping that the *NIX applications base has grown to include enough
relatively "bug free" stuff (openOffice, Browsers, SPAM blocking email,
sound/picture/video tools, WINE for proprietary corporate code?) so that I
can finally dump Microsoft.

I plan to start by converting one old "Test" computer to *NIX to see how it
works out. If it goes well, then I'll convert all of my remaining machines
(because Microsoft was so unreliable, I kept several machines running:
"Primary", "Backup", and "Test". "Primary" and "Backup" are identical
twins. If one goes down, I can imediately hop to the other. "Test" is
where I check out new installs (patches, new applications, etc.) before
applying them to "Primary" and "Backup". This whole mess was needed to get
reasonabe reliability out of an MS setup. The cost was a TON of maintence
time.)

Sorry for the rampling. I guess I was just blowing off steam. I'm really
hoping I can get a better life under *NIX.

Anyway, hope I answered your question.
DG

DG wrote:

.... well, Linux is Linux is Linux. base Linux, really is only the
kernel. GNU/Linux is the kernel plus the GNU utilities. beyond
that, the next step is the distro. each vendor will take the
GNU/Linux package and enhance it with various third party
packages and other upgraded enhancements.

for example, suse and red hat and mandrake, etc, all have their
own utilities for maintenance and h/w detection and packaging.
some are better than others; some are stronger in one area
than the other.

some vendors wonder off into other platform spaces. for example,
suse is big in the mainframe space (390/z-series). some may not
think this a big deal, but it demonstrates their williness to
go out on a limb. it's good for their business too

so the real question comes down to: what is it that you need
from a Linux vendor. in this decision process, i tell the client
(or myself) to divorce theirself from hardware concerns and
just get down to a list of requirements. you must consider both
functional and non-functional requirements involved here. the
functional things are install/upgrade tools, maintenance tools,
software (office, etc), and so on. then the non-functional
requirements are things like uptime, security, and so forth.

write those down, in decreasing importance, then look for
some vendor's product that fits the bill
..
--
/// Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, skydiver, \\\
\\\ and author: "Inside Linux", "C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" ///
\\\ http://pages.sbcglobal.net/mtobler/mjt_linux_page.html ///
To a Real Woman, every ejaculation is premature.

In article <blpp73$bep$1@quark.scn.rain.com>, Noah Roberts wrote:
Hmmm... never had that happen with many Debian installs. The
only thing I don't care for with Debian is that the default
(stable) distro is always way, way backlevel compared to
every other distro.
-jeff

On Mon, 06 Oct 2003 04:05:31 GMT, no spam <no-spam@sonic.net> wrote:
Only if your focus is multi-media. Some of us choose to use the TV to
watch movies on, the CD player to listen to music with, and as for games,
well, there's the park and there's the living room, and there's the
video arcade and there's gameboys, and there's gyms and...and...and...

We use the computer for things that only it can do.

What YOU call "advanced" WE call a pathetic and selfish waste of the most
incredible communications tool ever invented.

Leave it to Americans to turn the Internet into a fucking shopping mall
and call that "progress".

--
Later, Alan C
You can find my email address at the website: contact.html
take control of your mailbox ----- elrav1 ----- http://tinyurl.com/l55a

"Alan Connor" <zzzzzz@xxx.yyy> wrote in message
news:Ul6gb.26$f%6.24@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink. net...
with nothing useful to do except crunch big numbers for "the met". They
could call it 'weather @ home' or something.

Styvaen.