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Atamisk
October 14th, 2011, 02:19 PM
until i installed slackware on a VM. It's a whole nother world!

O_o; makes me thankful to the folks at Ubuntu for the work it must take to make things as easy as they are re: packaging and configuration GUI.

That said, i just love the basicness of Slackware and how much fun hacking it is. I don't think i'll ever leave ubuntu, but i'm definately going to keep Slackware on this vm as something to challenge myself with. When i can get it to look like my main desktop, i'll know i have arrived! (Besides, it'll teach me ways to hack myself out of a corner if i ever bork my ubuntu install :biggrin:)

So, which distro, if any, showed you the 'other side' of linux?

CharlesA
October 14th, 2011, 02:21 PM
Lol.

Try messing around with GuardianOS (Snap Server OS). *twitch*

Normal linux commands don't work and it's a general mess.

haqking
October 14th, 2011, 02:23 PM
until i installed slackware on a VM. It's a whole nother world!

O_o; makes me thankful to the folks at Ubuntu for the work it must take to make things as easy as they are re: packaging and configuration GUI.

That said, i just love the basicness of Slackware and how much fun hacking it is. I don't think i'll ever leave ubuntu, but i'm definately going to keep Slackware on this vm as something to challenge myself with. When i can get it to look like my main desktop, i'll know i have arrived! (Besides, it'll teach me ways to hack myself out of a corner if i ever bork my ubuntu install :biggrin:)

So, which distro, if any, showed you the 'other side' of linux?

If you want to learn linux then use Arch or Slackware on real hardware not in a VM. VM is great for learning and testing, but if you want to see the other side, install it for real ;-)

smurphy_it
October 14th, 2011, 02:41 PM
A few years back I learned Linux by installing Gentoo (G2) onto AMD hardware. The liveCD would get you to a command-prompt only. Then you have the fun of setting up a new chroot, and downloading x-windows etc (in source) and then compiling them. So it would take on average of 2-3 days to get a system built so you could boot into X-Windows. Fun Times ;-)

3Miro
October 14th, 2011, 02:50 PM
About a year ago I decided to challenge myself with harder distros so that I can learn more Linux. I moved form Ubuntu to Arch and eventually to Gentoo. Now Gentoo is my main system, while Ubuntu is a backup plan. You definitely learn more form those other distros and then appreciate what Ubuntu is.

Atamisk
October 14th, 2011, 02:50 PM
If you want to learn linux then use Arch or Slackware on real hardware not in a VM. VM is great for learning and testing, but if you want to see the other side, install it for real ;-)

I might do that eventually, but for now i've got my hands full even under a vm. an added wrinkle is that I've got NVidia hardware that despises nouveau, so i'll wait until i get comfortable with it before moving to a real partition. once i understand their packaging and such, i think i'll be okay. I already live on the Terminal even in ubuntu, so that wasn't a stretch. What *is* a bit of an exercise is having to find/compile yer own libraries when you want to do something not officially supported.

That said, i'm having a blast with it, even though i should be studying!

Cheers,
--Aaron

ninjaaron
October 14th, 2011, 03:35 PM
If you want to learn linux then use Arch or Slackware on real hardware not in a VM. VM is great for learning and testing, but if you want to see the other side, install it for real ;-)

Nothing like fixing a broken Xorg from the console when you are depending on it to get work done. :)

I still have to keep Ubuntu live media around for when I break the bootloader or the recovery console is unusable for another reason... Something I was doing with a fairly often recently. Having another distro with a gui on the system, can be helpful for rescues as well, and it also provides a good place to try out crazy ideas without recking your main system.

This is probably 'cheating,' but whatever works, I say.

KdotJ
October 14th, 2011, 04:50 PM
If you want to learn linux then use Arch or Slackware on real hardware not in a VM. VM is great for learning and testing, but if you want to see the other side, install it for real ;-)

Totally agree,
Having to fight with wireless network cards and other drivers... or one day you update and it breaks a whole bunch of stuff. Its annoying sometimes, but you learn a hell of a lot more than you would otherwise. Its a great sense of achievement when you configure it all down to the nitty gritty yourself

Artemis3
October 15th, 2011, 01:48 AM
An old unused machine is good... Also do try Freebsd (http://www.freebsd.org/) :)

Thewhistlingwind
October 15th, 2011, 02:34 AM
An old unused machine is good... Also do try Freebsd (http://www.freebsd.org/) :)

Which is most certainly for immortals. :p

sujoy
October 15th, 2011, 05:32 AM
I'd say try getting LFS build and setup for daily use. (since this is about learning)

wolfen69
October 15th, 2011, 05:53 AM
Even if you just do an ubuntu minimal install, it can still tax you a bit. It always takes a bit of work to have something nice.

szymon_g
October 15th, 2011, 12:48 PM
you wanna learn something? use LFS. Gentoo, Archlinux etc won't teach you a lot about "linux in general"- not as much as LFS.

ninjaaron
October 15th, 2011, 03:38 PM
LFS is also a great way to learning about maddening, never-ending dependency loops.

cgroza
October 15th, 2011, 04:29 PM
Just replaced Arch with Slackware. I learned a lot of things but I must say, the package management is hell compared to Arch.

Algus
October 15th, 2011, 07:28 PM
I actually borked my laptop while trying to figure out Arch. Instead of fixing my HDD though and putting Vista back on, I decided to just wipe the drive and go with a solo Ubuntu install.

To be honest, its the best decision I ever made haha. If it weren't for computer games, I'd probably go full Ubuntu on my desktop too.

Thewhistlingwind
October 15th, 2011, 07:33 PM
LFS is also a great way to learning about maddening, never-ending dependency loops.

How do you think poor Linus felt putting it all together the FIRST time, without step by step instructions?