Debian or Slackware? (flamers need not apply)

[gwpritch]

I am about to load linux onto a Compaq Armada 1500c notebook with a 366MHz Celeron and 64 Meg RAM.
I have been a Debian devotee since the turn of the century but have had some vague idea of trying Slack on this box.
I am not interested in a flame war here but would like to hear from anyone experienced with both. Is a change as good as a holiday or am I just going to end up going back to Debian? I have had brief forays with Mandrake, Redhat and a couple of lesser players but always end up coming back.
Can anyone put these two head to head and convince me one way or the other.

thanks

[blackbelt_jones]

From my (limited) experience, I prefer Debian, but I only know that becasue I tried both. Hey, no one can guarantee that if you try Slack, you're not going to want to go back to Debian. The only guarantee is that if you don't try it, you'll never know.

I've seen variations on this question asked in here about a hundred times before, and I feel pretty confident that the answers you get here, if not a flame war, will be highly partisan and subjective, and no help at all. Odds are three in five that someone will compund your indecision by suggesting that you try gentoo, or ubuntu, .or some other damn thing.

Don't ask us what you should be running. Ask yourself if you can afford a failed experiment. Is the computer you're installing on mission critical? Do you -have the time to start over if that's what you need to do? If it were me, I'd go ahead and give it a whirl, but I have a home computer and no job. If you really need the install to be a sure thing, go with Debian-- but you can't expect us to take the risk out of striking out in a new direction.

[asarch]

Slackware!!! :D

When you know Debian you only know Debian but when you know Slackware you know Linux. :cool:

And, besides, is more easy to "port" yourself to a *BSD enviroment from Slackware than from Debian.

[blackbelt_jones]

Slackware!!! :D

When you know Debian you only know Debian but when you know Slackware you know Linux. :cool:

And when you know Linux, one would hope, you know what the hell he meant by that. ;)

[je_fro]

Slack is one of those distros that you spend some time setting up, and then LEAVE IT ALONE. There's no reliable package manager to speak of, so if you like to putter around with your box and install/uninstall stuff, Slack isn't for you. Still a great distro though...

[dr_te_z]

I like them both too. Slackware-current (+slapt-get +droplineGnome) is my favourite configuration. No flaming so no cons, only pro's:

Slackware pro:
- java JVM included and up-to-date
- nice/fast mean & clean linux
- I started with linux because I wanted to learn unix. Slackware comes closest.

Debian pro:
- a whoooole lot of packages
- easy to configure
- I like the "debian atmosphere" on the net. Many active/positive people out there.
- a lot of beautifull debian wallpapers to be found :)

The only pitty for both is commercial support. If you need DB2/WebSphere or Oracle or something like that, they "demand" you use redhat or suse....

[ph34r]

I've used both for a long time. When I install Slack, I install *everything* and then whatever I need to add I do by source, putting it in /opt. With Debian, I just use apt to install whatever. Both are great, just depends on what you want to do. I use Debian now so I just don't have to worry about stuff, I've taken a very lazy hands off as much as possible attitude.

[gwpritch]

Thanks folks

This is the kind of stuff I'm looking for...subjective and objective.
This is going to be a hack-around-with-linux machine, just so I don't tick off my wife and kids anymore by changing stuff all the time so I may give slack a whirl just to try something new.
Still all opinions (short of ...rox. WHY?) welcome.

Iechyda da

[happybunny]

debian is my distro of choice since apt-get just rocks. 14,000+ packages availible by typing apt-get install package....its too cool.

I have heard odd and weird battles between slapt-get and swaret and can't really comment on its goodness, however, slackware is the fastest booting os i have ever seen. Not sure why that is, but its boot time always shocks me.

I have no idea what "they" mean when they say "When you know Debian you only know Debian but when you know Slackware you know Linux."....anyone care to elaborate?

[JamminJoeyB]

Well here is an objective view I think. Based on your system specs I would go Slackware. That is just personal experience talking. I have loaded Slackware on a 133mhz with 128mb of ram and had great results. Not the absolute zippiest machine around, but tollerable for most tasks.

[gwpritch]

I just found a 128Meg RAM chip on ebay...that should juice it up a bit.

[JamminJoeyB]

Find another one and you will have a nice running little system there with 256mb.

[ph34r]

I've had Slack 7.x thru 9.0 on a 486 with 12mb ram - no X, but everything else. I've had debian on the same machine.

[dr_te_z]

I have no idea what "they" mean when they say "When you know Debian you only know Debian but when you know Slackware you know Linux."....anyone care to elaborate?
Well, I've never been afraid to compile my own kernel. The howto on kernel.org applies 1:1 to Slackware. On Debian it is another story. People advice you to:
- apt-get debian kernels only
- apt-get debian kernel-sources, compile, build deb-packages and install the package
- get sources from kernel-org, compile build deb-packes .....
- the convential (slackware) way also works

Confused? Only a bit.

and then they suddenly talk about "fakeroot". I know 'root', 'su - root', 'sudo' but what the <beep> is fakeroot??? You won't find that on Slackware, Solaris, AIX etc etc

Please do not get met wrong. I do not flame/critisize Debian, but I do understand what "they" mean.

[blackbelt_jones]

I've seen variations on this question asked in here about a hundred times before, and I feel pretty confident that the answers you get here, if not a flame war, will be highly partisan and subjective, and no help at all. Odds are three in five that someone will compund your indecision by suggesting that you try gentoo, or ubuntu, .or some other damn thing.


I was wrong. This has been a fairly informative thread.

[teeitup]

I have a Compaq Armada laptop. I used it to try a bunch of distros.
My experience was that debian was easier to setup on it. I wanted the PCMCIA wireless card and the Adaptec scsi card to work. It was the only distro that I had everything working on the laptop.

I have not used this laptop much lately. I think woody and slackware 9 were what I used. Red Hat, Suse and Libranet were also tried.

Newer releases of these could produce different results from mine.

I'd get both and try them. My experience is that users that try different distros naturally settle on one that feels good to them. The "best" is purely subjective.

Good Luck,

[gwpritch]

DR_TE_Z

Actually compiling and installing a kernel in debian is a snap using the kernel-package (you use original source from kernel.org). After configuration make-kpkg combines most of the other steps into one and you end up with a .deb package that you simply install using dpkg -i. The fakeroot is pretty much irrelevent to the actual process other than you need to be root to install any package.

I decided to go with Slack simply because I've never tried it before. The install was pretty slick and fast. Even managed to recompile the kernel without any trouble.
Only hitch so far is when I startx I get an 'unidentified host' just prior to x start-up...everything seems to work fine however except the host 'gwpritch' does not appear at the prompt in the terminal window.
Finding various config files etc is proving a bit of a challenge since its definitely not the same as Debian...for instance where do I find the scripts to start services which I would have found in
/etc/init.d/rc.2/ under debian?

[je_fro]

/etc/rc.d/ I think...

[DarkDexter]

Maybe I'm a jerk about performance but every try a *BSD? They seem faster to me on older hardware for an X enviroment (486's and Pentium 1's run slick with it!) But never the less... i prefer Debian simply cause apt allows me to be lazy. And in my book lazy is good... I'm learning but still able to get something quick that i may need without pulling my hair out over dependances. Pkg_src and ports for the BSD's are ok... but apt is alot better in my opinon. Slapt-get is a apt for Slackware, never tried it though.. I might try out slackware to learn a bit more about compiling. Currently I'm gonna try NetBSD on my Pentium 1 cause I hosed FreeBSD while messing around as root... :D , live and learn.. either ways its just a experiment machine.

Hope you have fun in Slackware (If i hose NetBSD i'm gonna be on it... however my P1 dosent have a CD drive so it better have a floppy install :p ) and if it isnt your style and ur just having fun try a BSD. I've learned alot about Unix from BSD and Linux combined! Good luck!

[je_fro]

yeah. bsd's run faster for me too....if there were decent graphics drivers I'd be running freebsd right now and posting on justbsd.com :D

[dr_te_z]

I've got freeBSD and NetBSD sitting on my PC's too. At start I liked them very much.. but later on I found that "staying up-to-date" using the ports takes a lot of time/computer-power. When I learned that you'll need 1,5 Gb free space just to install java...pffff. Well I'm focussed back on linux again.