Time to start Linuxing..some questions 2237

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:45:50 +0100, The Natural Philosopher

Apparently, Slackware's startup scripts only follow the general model of BSD, but aren't an exact match. They are simple enough to look at and debug if necessary. SysV scripts are fine if you know them (which I don't). I think SysV is overkill for a desktop or simple server. With slack there is no need to get a "secret decoder" to understand the sequence of starting and stopping services. Blackbox? XFCE?

These are included with the distro. I like using Gnome and XFCE on slack.

I agree they are the same when they are running. The difference comes in knowing how to fix things that are broken or don't work as expected.

I don't know of an equivalent network install under slack. From what I've seen, most slack users keep a local copy of the packages-patches. Since slackware is a comparitively small distro, this is not a problem, especially if broadband is available. Most users keep up to date using rsync and an official slackware mirror.

For example, the heart of the distro is organized in package groups: a....basic install ap...basic apps d....development tools e....emacs f....faq k....kernel l....common libraries for X managers n....network t....tetex tcl..tcl x....X.org xap..x applications y....bsd games

Other components (patches, extra) are included but outside of this tight core of the distro.

You might try Slax, a slackware derivative Live CD. I tested the most recent version yesterday. It does a lot with 200M.

Everyone likes their own setup, though. I built my own setup which is suitable for writing to DVD (4G of preinstalled software, running "live.") I have been using it for the last couple of weeks. These screenshots show it running:

-- Douglas Mayne