RE: Why is Debian lagging so much behind Slackware?
adcarlson@mailandnews.com wrote:
> I'd say go with Woody (compared to Slack), provided you can do a boot off
> of
> CD...I wasn't aware of the boot-disk issue. I started with Potato about 8
> months ago, and just apt-get updated to Woody in the last few weeks.
>
> Tried Slack way back (a number of years ago) and found it more difficult
> for a
> newbie (I was that at the time). For a true newbie, I'd say go SuSE, or
> Mandrake. After cutting your teeth on a version, then slide into Debian
> (or
> something Debian based...like Progeny). In short, I've never been
> impressed with Slackware.
>
Before installing Slackware8 a month ago i used Debian for a year. Never
having tried Slackware before i am surprised how much i like it.
Yes Debian's apt-get for upgrading is nice, but this brings complexties
in other areas of Debian. There are many scripts and wrappers in Debian
which are very convoluted to a newbie. Just try following the init scripts,
or changing /etc/modules.conf. There are just more layers to wade through.
In contrast, in Slackware things are much clearer and easier to follow, and
therefore to learn and to do things just the way you want. And learning to
install from tar balls is a valuable lesson for any newbie even though
installpkg does a good job.
So if you plan to teach some fundamentals i think Slackware is best at
being the basic Linux without the cruft, i.e. superfulous stuff.
To install I booted a Slackware8 cd and found it pretty straight forward,
just like the distro itself.
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