[ale] Linux Distributions

[Don Allison]

>I was wondering what the other ALE members think of various distributions.
>I feel that Slackware has fallen behind the times in my opinion. It takes a

I thought a month or so ago, RedHat was shipping a 2.0.29 kernel with 4.2
while Slackware was using 2.0.30 in 3.3.

I can't speak for the utility of the system once it's installed, but as a
long time Linux installer (SLS and Slackware several times, and several
attempts with RedHat 4.0 and 4.2--by the time I finally get around to thinking
about configuring and using the system I've installed, a much better and
newer one is available, so I have to reinstall again...I admit, I've been
infected by the Microsoft mentality, where you have to upgrade as soon as
it's available! :-) I'm a lot happier with Slackware.  I've NEVER gotten a
RedHat install to work completely, and I bought the official release with the
blue box,  book, and everything!  I like the ability in Slackware to be able
to select which packages I want (which I couldn't get to work in RedHat,
despite following the instructions faithfully).

get RedHat to work, but after about 4 attempts with 4.0 and another with 4.2,
I've about sworn off RedHat (however, a lot of other software is starting
to use RPM, like Allegro CL for instance, so I'm going to try it again
one more time!).

The latest Slackware install wasn't as perfect as some of the earlier ones,
either...for instance the X11 stuff didn't configure itself as easily and
I had some problems I needed to track down (leaving X the monitor switched
to some funky scan rate and doubled the text).

Bottom line: can anyone talk about what a Debian install is like? :-)

don