Fiddling with Slackware...wow is dropline nifty

Flatline

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2001
1,248
0
0
I decided a couple of days ago to fiddle with Slackware again on my "other" system (Soyo 400 w/ Athlon 2400+ & TI4600; my "real" system runs Debian). I think the last time I installed Slack it was version 8.1. After I got KDE 3.2 installed, among other things, I decided that I would take a peek at Dropline Gnome; I've heard a good bit about it in the past from Slack users.

I haven't logged into Dropline Gnome yet (it's installing as I write this), but the installer is quite nifty...install 1 package, run the installer, and select what you want. Kudos to the maintainers - it was almost as easy as installing Gnome on my Debian box!

The only thing that threw me off a touch was that there was no .bashrc or .bash_profile files after the initial install, so I had to write up my own to get things like ls --color set as the defaults. Actually, it was interesting having to tinker with those files again...it's been a while (most 'nix flavors have reasonable defaults in the .bashrc after setup these days).


 

Booty

Senior member
Aug 4, 2000
977
0
0
Yeah, dropline's pretty nice... I still haven't been using linux all that long (< 1 year) but when I was first messing with different distros one of the things I liked about Slackware was using dropline. I still need to install Debian and give it another shot - the first time I used it I went with their stable release and didn't like dealing with the older versions of the packages. But anyway - dropline just felt... clean.
 

Flatline

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2001
1,248
0
0
I have to agree...I think it's one of the cleaner implementations of Gnome that I have seen (although they didn't get stingy with the eye candy). I really like Debian, and I use the Testing (Sarge) branch with the KDE implementation from Unstable (Sid), which I believe is 3.1.5-2. I still haven't heard any kind of timetable for a move to KDE 3.2 for Debian, so for now if you want it on Debian you can either compile it or use unofficial repositories.

 

Flatline

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2001
1,248
0
0
To make the most unix-like linux available and to keep their flavor as simple as possible, to paraphrase. It's a kind of "barebones" approach that seems to appeal to a certain segment of the community.
 

AFB

Lifer
Jan 10, 2004
10,718
3
0
How would it be for someone who is fairly new to Linux but is not completly lost at a shell. (I.E simple to install.)
 

Farfrael

Senior member
Mar 6, 2002
312
0
0
Originally posted by: Flatline
To make the most unix-like linux available and to keep their flavor as simple as possible, to paraphrase. It's a kind of "barebones" approach that seems to appeal to a certain segment of the community.

Let's just say that there is little or not handholding and GUI tools in Slackware.
Which means that you actually have to "get your hands dirty" and more or less understand what you are doing.

Overall a great distrib to learn Linux and once it is set up according to your whishes, rock stable.

 

AFB

Lifer
Jan 10, 2004
10,718
3
0
Slackware Linux doesn't require an extremely powerful system to run (though having one is quite nice :). It will run on systems as far back as the 386. Below is a list of minimum system requirements needed to install and run Slackware.

386 processor
16MB RAM
50 megabytes of hard disk space
3.5" floppy drive
Additional hardware may be needed if you want to run the X Window System at a usable speed or if you want network capabilities.
Does it really require a floppy drive ?
 

Flatline

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2001
1,248
0
0
I don't think it actually requires one, but I recommend one (just for an emergency boot floppy in case you hose lilo while "getting your hands dirty"). I wouldn't say that Slackware is great for noobs simply because it doesn't do any hand-holding; many a noob has been saved from their first attempts at manual system configuration by a gui tool. However, it's great for an intermediate linux user who wants to learn more...so, for that matter, is Debian.
 

AFB

Lifer
Jan 10, 2004
10,718
3
0
Cool, I will install it this weekend on the spare PC. How good is it at autodetection of hardware ? Its not that I can't set it up, its just I don't whats on the MB. It works fine on SuSE.
 

Farfrael

Senior member
Mar 6, 2002
312
0
0
No need for a floppy drive (don't use one myself)

Regarding autodetection of hardware it is limited : (don't hesitate to correct me)
- network card should be decent
- video card will have to be fine tuned using your DE or XFconfig
- for the rest ?
 

Booty

Senior member
Aug 4, 2000
977
0
0
Sound might be have to setup manually... other than that, most stuff will probably work more or less out of the box...
 

civad

Golden Member
May 30, 2001
1,397
0
0
I am assuming you haven't taken a look at the Official Guide to Slackware linux

Slackware is a great distro. It may lack a few (maybe more than a few) GUI tools, but the command-line tools are pretty intuitive and easy to use.
I have tried dropline gnome in the past, and I absolutely loved it.

--Civ
 

n0cmonkey

Elite Member
Jun 10, 2001
42,936
1
0
Despite the fact I don't currently have it installed, Slackware is my favorite. Hearing a coworker talk about his slackware machine makes me want one again.
 

Flatline

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2001
1,248
0
0
I have to admit, Slack is pretty sweet...I'm actually considering making my home machine a Slackware box, but I love Debian too. I'm torn!
 

Monoman

Platinum Member
Mar 4, 2001
2,163
0
76
been using slackware sine 7.0 and lovin every min of it. used dropline gnome once but I tend to stick to blackbox as my WM. I have really wanted to try FreeBSD again but due to work and my other Job(LAN Partys) and I hard pressed to find time to play with an OS. The onlt time I have is to tweak some scripts and such..