Monday 3 March 2008

The Slackware Report

Well, having used Slackware, I quite liked it! I had to start the X Window Server myself from the command line with the startx command, and I couldn't seem to log in as myself, only as root, but I was able to get it working in VirtualBox. It booted up to a very nice, fully featured KDE 3.5 desktop with loads of applications installed. It also has the option of using Xfce as well as a number of window managers. Only thing is, I'm used to the convenience of the Debian package manager as used in Ubuntu, and although Slackware apparently does have a package manager, it's based on tar packages, which would be a big change for me. If I change distros at some time in the future, it will very likely be to Debian.

I also tried out Zenwalk, which is based on Slackware but made easier, in the same way as Ubuntu is based on Debian, but made easier (the only difference being that Debian is a great deal easier than Slackware to start with, IMHO). Didn't like that so much.

I've also gotten the Live CD for Linux From Scratch, which is essentially a kit for rolling your own Linux distro. I may try this at some point, but also may try remastering Ubuntu using one of the many tools available to produce my own custom version.

Anyway, where has the weekend gone?

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