Slackware vs. Ubuntu?

**ruhar** · September 20th, 2006

Did you all know that slackware is swedish invented?

Not sure what you mean. Slackware is and has always been maintained by a single guy, Patrick Volkerding:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Volkerding

**haxer** · September 20th, 2006

Omg i think i have mixed it up with SOT sry guys im confused thanks for correcting me

**Brunellus** · September 20th, 2006

I am moving this thread to 'other OS talk'

**bonzodog** · September 20th, 2006

I would also recommend Zenwalk, it boots to gdm, like Ubuntu, and has all the GUI tools needed.

Zenwalk 3.0 is also completely uptodate, and is using 2.6.17.11 kernel and Xfce 4.4 Beta2 for desktop.
Netpkg is good now, has had many improvements recently, and there is more than one repo now.

**haxer** · September 20th, 2006

How about FreeBSD?

**bodhi.zazen** · September 20th, 2006

Originally Posted by haxer

How about FreeBSD?

Free BSD is also nice. Try a live cd Frenzy

I would advise Desktop BSD if you HD install (you can install Frenzie, I have, it runs just fine, but it is Fluxbox and it takes some post-install configuration).

**kazuya** · September 21st, 2006

Zenwalk is a gem like Vector linux. I like Zenwalk though because it has many tools for installing softwares at your disposal.

I run Zenwalk on my Pentium III 128 MB Sony laptop, and the speed at which I launch , run , watch movies, etc is almost equal if not greater than the speed at which I run most other distros on a newer PC with 512 MB RAm or 1 GIG of RAM.

It something to be experienced. Now I had to install vlc since that was easier to get running very fast with just vesa settings than with the default gxine.

I am sure with Zenwalk 3.0 a lot more improvement has been made.

I did not see the need for Zenwalk 3 as 2.8 was already awesome.

I like the Ubuntu community and the ease of updating distro, but the speed of Zenwalk is rather intoxicating while still maintaining a lot of functionalities like playing videos, surfing web, playing games.., etc.

Plus the distro really shows you how to manage your desktop. I find it easier to configure than Xubuntu, and faster as well than Xubuntu.

Alas, netpkg is very good, but their repo is slightly less than debian or ubuntu.

But, just about anything you can install or get in Ubuntu, you can certainly a tar for it. I prefer the slackit to linuxpackages for where to get my .tgz packages for install.

Ubuntu is still easier for a newbiw than Zenwalk. But for someone, wanting to know more of linux, but wanting a distro that is easy to install and already just works while giving raw power in your hands through CLI and other pkgtools.. This is definitly one of the ones to go for.

Moreover, the distro although slack-based is rather bleeding-edge and yet stable.

Give it a try.

**bodhi.zazen** · September 21st, 2006

kazuya: Zenwalk used to be my primary OS.

Then I found Arch Linux.

Arch Linux Install guide

**ruhar** · September 21st, 2006

I've also been running Arch lately after quite a while with Slack. I think Arch has a very bright future. I think I'll definitely give Slack 11 a fair look though when it comes out. Arch seems to be the best of all worlds (fast, lean, strong package management, good community, KISS design principles...)

**Neo40** · September 22nd, 2006

I installed Zenwalk 3 and so far I really like it. The only problem I have is fonts. With my 17" lcd diaplay at 1280x1024@60 Hz, the fonts dont look so clear than my Xubuntu machine. Here, I found some howto to improve fonts but if I try them on Zenwalk, it seems to happen nothing. Maybe someone can tell me where I can find some helps to improve fonts for zenwalk (or Slackware)?
Thanks