Finally switched to linux... what now?

[enorbet2]

Whoa! Southtown Maybe the antihistamines are htting me even more than I realize since I in no way meant to be harsh or hard on Alexander, just the notion that Slackware is all "old school" and a constant recursive fight to compile anything. My point is simply that it is actually easy even if one doesn't use Slackpacks exactly because it is designed from a single man's coherent viewpoint to make it a fertile development platform.

 

Seriously, please look at Packages.txt to see all that comes stock in Slack. Conversely I am not backing off here, I meant this as a friendly challenge since I actually trust that Alexander is quite competent and will be happily surprised should he install Slack. I might even be happily surprised by Gentoo, despite the fact that all distros look pretty much the same from command line.

 

The only area left for real stand out differences is in package management, all of which now work reasonably well, but I just hate it when one company makes Blue paint just like another and just changes the name to Azure so they can say they're different. There is just no good justification for screwing up the directory structure and to do it solely to be different at the expense of compatibility and stability is a bad purchase, imho.

[Southtown]

No, that's not what I meant. I was just joking around. (And I wanted to remind him of that tut cuz I'm looking forward to it.)

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

just the notion that Slackware is all "old school"

What's wrong with old school:oh_really:

[enorbet2]

What's wrong with old school:oh_really:

 

IMHO Nothing, in and of itself. Things are not good because they are old or because they are new (despite the Pavlovian Mantra of "new and improved") They are good because they work well and superior if they work in exemplary fashion under a wide range of circumstances or uses. It's that I often see people "write off" Slackware based on perceived "school" without ever even looking at it let alone trying it out.

 

Probably the greatest reason that people perceive it as "old school" is because it actually utilizes runlevels and by default boots to CLI and root login instead of user in X. I contend that this has nothing to do with "old" but everything to do with safe, stable, and convenient especially for power users since the deepest level stuff should not be run from X. Most newbs are so put off by being bewildered at what to do because of their programming by Windows (done because it was designed and evolved from a single user, non-networked environment where insecurity seemed to be a non-issue.

 

For those wishing to try escaping such programming there are two steps that should be employed on first boot, after which it will begin to be clear.

 

1) Type "adduser" to follow the step-by-step menu to create a non root user.

 

2) You can simply type "startx" but most will benefit by "kdm" which launches the XWindows display manager and delivers one to a menued login screen for both root and user where normally "user" should be selected. Since several window managers and desktops come built in to Slack one can select others byt the default was selected during install so nothing needs be done beyond logging in and beginning to customize and enjoy.

[enorbet2]

I should have mentioned that there are actually 3 display/login managers - kdm, gdm, and xdm. I prefer and recommend "kdm" because it comes default with a keyboard shortcut, "Alt-N" that will drop one back to CLI for installing accelerated video drivers, deep config and kernel work. The CLI also acts as a safety net if you screw up "xorg.conf" as most will soon desire to tweak it.

[arkain101]

Help me.

 

I installed ubuntu.. thinking everything was great and I'd be able to get online and start testing. That is untill I learned the most recent ubuntu 9.04 installation does not support "modems", which in my case is 56k dialup.

[freeztar]

Help me.

 

I installed ubuntu.. thinking everything was great and I'd be able to get online and start testing. That is untill I learned the most recent ubuntu 9.04 installation does not support "modems", which in my case is 56k dialup.

 

Ok...first, why are you using a 56k modem? (just teasing) :)

 

That sux dude. Have you tried researching to see if others have found a solution? Can you post your lsusb and lspci info? What type of modem do you have?

 

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68680

[enorbet2]

Doesn't support modems? AFAIK modems are supported even at kernel level, easily done since they are primarily seen as simple serial ports (eg. tty0, tty1). The story is only different if you have a so-called "win-modem" since they offload duties to the motherboard via software that is OpSys dependent. Some of those are supported anyway (even if they do sux - no where near the performance of a real modem) and one can either Google or look in the kernel config file, often "/boot/config-'kernelversion'" to see if yours is supported -OR- now that they can be found in junk bins for little or nothing, get a real modem. You'll be glad you did even in windoze.

[arkain101]

Well, it also does not contain the application to use an interface to config your dialup connection.

 

I downloaded that. However, regardless of what I unlocked, it repeatedly told me "you do not have the permission to change system config"

 

However, I could change anything I wanted, except make a dang dial up connection...

[arkain101]

Quoting directly from ubuntu 9.04 help.

 

NetworkManager doesn't currently support modem connections, so you will need to install the gnome-network-admin package. If you have no working Internet connection, then you will need to obtain this package and install it, see Downloading and installing a .deb package for more information.

[enorbet2]

Sorry for your problems Arkain. I only have Ubuntu on a thumbdrive but I did locate a modem so I'll try it out to be more specific. In the meantime try this

 

How To Configure A Dial-Up Modem For Desktop or Laptop Using Debian Linux

 

It's for debian but Ubuntu is debian based.

[arkain101]

How To Configure A Dial-Up Modem For Desktop or Laptop Using Debian Linux

^

Holy Mother Monkey Truckers!

 

LOL... Its probably not as complex as it looks... I'll give it a shot.

 

My main issue is that gnome / ubuntu, is not allowing me permission after Installed the package, and only an issue with that package alone.

 

I went into the user authorization section, and enabled as many things as I could to "YES" anyone can access this area. The problem was not resolved.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Dis is a 9.04 thing

 

there's a lot on my comp that I've lost permission to access since my upgrade (won't even let me in root!)....which was one of the numerous reasons I advised above to wait until 9.10 release....9.04 is extremely buggy (for Ubu. anyways).....I'm still F####ng around with dependency issues, permission issues, and sever resource consumption (I'm using 512Meg. just idling!!!!) do yourself a favor ditch 9.04 for Gutsy, Hardy, or Intrepid....and sit tight till Jaunty 9.10 by then they should have the bugs swatted.

[freeztar]

Dis is a 9.04 thing :steering:

 

there's a lot on my comp that I've lost permission to access since my upgrade (won't even let me in root!)....which was one of the numerous reasons I advised above to wait until 9.10 release....9.04 is extremely buggy (for Ubu. anyways).....I'm still F####ng around with dependency issues, permission issues, and sever resource consumption (I'm using 512Meg. just idling!!!!) do yourself a favor ditch 9.04 for Gutsy, Hardy, or Intrepid....and sit tight till Jaunty 9.10 by then they should have the bugs swatted.

 

Wow, that bad huh?

 

I have taken the personal philosophy of wait to update. It's something that years of using Windows has taught me. :steering:

 

I appreciate the warning. It further enforces my methodology. Wait to update!

[enorbet2]

Ahhh Tradeoffs. Lo_ove, It's a *****! If you look up the history of Linux development you will see that there are essentially 3 branches - Red Hat, Debian, and Slackware. If you look up the history of Debian you will see that they have released in three stages each new release - stable, beta, and (alpha) experimental (despite the old saw that software is either beta, obsolete or both). As a result of what used to be debian's considerable edge over Red Hat in dependency handling package management, stable meant older packages, 2 to 5 generations older, simply because the complexity took more time to make stable.

 

Enter Ubuntu, which is basically re-packaged Debian, who had made a concerted effort to make Linux more like Windows. Obviously they've succeeded. The advice to wait for awhile before upgrading, sticking more to the conservative Debian design imperative instead of the "new and improved" "give 'em the glitz" windowsy way of doing things, is very good advice.

 

- OR -

 

You could opt to for a little homework and try a distro that is utterly committed to KISS and avoids such buggy issues by never clouding the waters with dependencies, among other critical methodology. If you are more hands-on than reading oriented, download and try the SLAX lLive CD. You will immediately see the speed and stability gains possible. FWIW I have upgraded immediately upon release my main Slackware box for ten (10) releases now w/o one single problem no matter how trivial, even against installing a fresh copy on a similar box.

 

Slax: your pocket operating system

 

I sincerely hope your problems resolve soon.

[freeztar]

Well, I'm sold! I'd like to check out slack. I'm guessing it will integrate with grub so I can triple boot, correct? Do I need to do anything special to make this happen? I'm guessing I'll need three more partitions?

[freeztar]

Holy carp! :steering:

The slax .iso is 191MB. :steering:

 

It looks pretty sweet! Small and simple...:smart:

 

So...now I'm a bit more curious. I seem to remember that there is a linux distro that is built specifically to be tiny. I can't recall the name at the moment though...