Re: [PLUG] socf: questions

[Bill Jonas <bj@netaxs.com>]

CIA reports from Mar 8 indicate fourje may or may not have said:

>Thanks for the input - I started with Slackware 3.0, and have used 4.0 -
>just wondering if 7.0 was worth the visit.

I'd say that it's worth a shot, especially if you're
comfortable/familiar with it from before.  Last August, when the amount
of info I had about Linux reached critical mass, I started looking
around at different distros.  Slackware (4.0, just barely prior to 7.0)
caught my eye because it had its own mini-distro (ZipSlack (designed for
Zip disks), which was in 4.0... not sure about 3.0), which none of the
other major distributions had.  This was important to me at the time as
I had just become unemployed ;), and I wanted to go with one of the
major/"mainstream" ones.  Downloading multihundred megabytes over 56K
did not appeal to me at the time (although I've done it since ;) ), so
it was quite welcome to find a ~40meg download that contained a rather
feature-filled installation (development tools, but no X).

The install was ridiculously simple, I might add.  Unzip via a 32-bit
unzipper (like WinZip) into the root directory of the C: drive (UMSDOS
filesystem.).  Use LOADLIN.EXE and get the parameters right.  (Took me
only a couple of minutes ;), but not bad for someone new to Unix, I
might add.)  After that, and after playing with it a bit more, I split
my (old) disk with fips and copied everything over to a native Linux
filesystem, and it worked well.  (X was a little trickier, even after
d/l'ing the Slack tarballs.)

Incidentally, there's ZipSlack on the new 7.0 (which, for some odd
reason, would kernel oops and dump core every time I hit the /dev
directory), but there's a new one that Pat V. included called BigSlack
which follows in the same vein (a la PhatLinux), but it's ~800 megs and
includes just about everything in the entire distribution.

>That's because Patrick Volkerding has worked very closely with the SuSE
>team in the (at least early) development of the the SuSE distribution. 
>I think that slackware may well have been an inspirational light in the
>SuSE model.

Nifty.

>I've tried - and used - Slack, RH, Deb (Corel), OpenLinux and SuSE. 
>Corel was ok, but I think I'll wait a couple of versions before I
>seriously work with it.  I'm currently using Openlinux 2.2 - "SOLID" 
>but I may move onto SuSE 6.1 if I can't get the sound and ISDN
>configured soon (bummer because StarOffice and WP 8 come with my OL
>disks and I only have the Infomagic version of SuSE - wait a min - WP is
>supposed to be on that CD set somewhere).  SuSE is supposed to have a
>decent ISDN setup (ISDN is big over here in the UK and Europe) and that
>may be a deciding factor.

Cool.  I wonder if SuSE has such good ISDN support because they're
aiming at Europe which is big on ISDN, or if SuSE's popular in Europe
because it has such good ISDN support.

I'm sure you're aware of it, but SuSE is up to 6.3 (or is it a
stability/security/usability thing a la RH 6.0/6.1?).

I looked at SO, and I think it's pretty cool.  I have the tarball
sitting on my disk right now, but it's not presently installed.  (I was
under the impression from reading the docs that it wasn't possible to do
a server-type (-net option) install with the free version, but it
appears from info from other sources that you *can*, you just have to
make sure not to violate the license.  I had created an 'so' or
'soffice' user and installed under its ~ dir with the intent to get the 
permissions right...)

I guess I'm down to deciding whether to try SuSE or Debian, or even
whether to try a new one at all (but apt-get looks *so* cool...); if I
do, it'll probably be after there are potato CDs available.  "Plan to
throw one away," right?  I'm sure that applies here. :)

Bill
-- 
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But World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- A. E.
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