Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
	
	
		
		
			Originally posted by: SnapIT
how hard is it to type pkgtool and choose where the package is located
		
		
	 
If you're going to just use a package manager 
anyways, then why use slackware, and why advocate building from source?
	
	
		
		
			... or the hard way, type tar -zxvf, cd "untared catalog", ./configure, make, make install? it isn't all that hard...
		
		
	 
Yeah, it is hard, or no, it's not hard, depending on alot of things.  First, if you are just going to blindly configure, make, make install, then you have no business running a server or dissing package management.  If you are building from source, you should usually be using at least a few different flags to configure.  And that also takes away the flexibility/customization argument, considering that you're just throwing the defaults in.  The possibility for conflicts and mismatches is annoying too.  If you're compiling something straightforward, then it will be straightforward, but if you're compiling something like php, then have fun.
	
	
		
		
			Debian aspires to be a desktop os, do you disagree? check out what is included in the distro...
		
		
	 
Same situation as slack and everything else.  You can install no gui, you can install tons of gui, you can install some gui, whatever. 
	
	
		
		
			Regarding flexibility, would you please explain what you mean by that?
		
		
	 
Whoops, there's an apache vuln, let me update my package, have fun digging up your configure flags to get yours built again.  about 2 seconds of typing an an <enter> or two, vs. a whole lot of manual work.
	
	
		
		
			I would be willing to bet lots of cash on that i can get a Slack system up and running before you have gotten half way through your install on debian...
		
		
	 
I could get lindows installed in 20 minutes, but I don't.
	
	
		
		
			This is a SERVER he is setting up, if you want to run a SERVER you should go for minimalistic, Slack IS minimalistic, Debian isn't...
		
		
	 
How is it minimalistic?  You have all kinds of dev libs installed, you have a compiler and gnu tools installed, doesn't sound quite as minimalistic as you want to make it sound.  Debian installed to less than 100MB last time I checked.
	
	
		
		
			And who in their right mind would recommend Debian to a newbie either? Clearly he should go with Mandrake or College Linux?
		
		
	 
Is anything clear?  It depends on the newbie.  Some guy came to my last lug meeting, middle aged guy, saying he was a newbie and was curious about installing linux, so I figure he's totally clueless.  Well, it turns out he already had FreeBSD installed and uses mutt for email, heh, imagine that.
	
	
		
		
			Actually, i find it quite similar to FreeBSD's sysinstall...
		
		
	 
FreeBSD's installer is huge, convoluted, confusing, and true to FreeBSD tradition, does way more than it should, catering to the novice.  But uh, that's just my very biased opinion, heh.