Yet Another Review of Slackware 10
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Boy do you love spiderman.
I just want to say that it wasn’t all nice and peachy for me until I installed the 2.6 kernel in /test. I think you should try it. It’s pretty stable for me although for server application, you should just trust Pat.
Slack 10 is an incredible desktop performer. As always, Slack10 is also a distro that’s optimized for i686s and supports old architectures. This possibly is one of the reason Slackware 10 would IMHO, beat Fedora in terms of performance, considering that Fedora is still an i386 optimized distro.
Not true man .. Can’t speak for Fedora, but Slackware is compiled for i486. (As you would say “optimized”)
Speed has a lot to do with perception and less with architectural compiler settings. But well, there are always smarter people than me …
Hi,
“as I later discovered, this is a flaw consistent with all boards with the i810 audio system”
I am using an i810-based on board audio device, and alsaconf had absolutely no problems in detecting and setting it up (and it works both kernels 2.4.26 and 2.6.7).
Maybe I was just lucky?
– The Shaitan
vhe says he didn’t have acpi support in the kernel and had to re-compile.
in the instalation there is the option to choose ACPI kernel.
it’s not the default because of some buggy bios on some motherboards
Well, slack is compiled with “-march=i486 -mcpu=i686” IIRC meaning: Optimize for use w/ i686 but make it compatible w/ i486, so I think the statement is true regarding i686 🙂
Anyway, you are correct that arch. compiler settings isn’t everything when it comes to speed. Implementation and algorithms are far more important, no compiler can optimize that away…
I tried 9.1 with dropline gnome before. I didn’t keep it very long. It looked great, but the windows trailed badly when I moved them accross the screen.
With 10.0 I decided to try xfce instead. It didn’t help, I still get the trailing problems that I did not have with debian, or win2k. I do have X set up with the correct driver. My system = AMD 1600+ 384MB RAM, Cyberblade III w/8MB RAM.
I was dissapointed that slack has not fixed the mouse-wheel problem. It’s easy enough to configure manually. But this is a long standing problem, why can’t slack fix this?
To further comare slack to debian: in my very limited experience, slapt-get doesn’t work nearly as well as apt-get. Slapt-get can rarely find and install common packages, and when it does, it doesn’t resolve dependencies. Also, apt-get lets you know what’s happening every step of the way; slapt-get gets hangs there.
No need to flame. This is all just one inexperienced user’s experience, with just one PC. Could very well be that I just don’t know what I’m doing, or my PC is an exception. Your milage may vary.
walterbyrd have you tried KDE? I know it’s a lot faster than gnome for me on my Pent3..whether that’s gnome’s fault or gtk2 I don’t know though.
>>”Speed has a lot to do with perception.
True. On the desktop, a user’s recognition of speed is almost entirely determined by how fast the desktop visibly responds to the user’s actions. Responsiveness is crucial, and it is not identical to speed.
For example, suppose Desktop A responds to a mouse click to display a file by actually opening that file faster than Desktop B, but waits until the file is completely open before altering the display. Meanwhile, Desktop B takes longer to open the file, but immediately alters the display. Users will select Desktop B as the fastest and most responsive.
i had Slackware-10 installed for a couple of days, configuring CUPS at http://localhost:631 does not config like it did in Slackware-9.1 where CUPS in 9.1 found my printer and offered a correct driver for it, and yes i un-commented the part for the parallel port in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules & rebooted to see if dmesg would echo the discovery of my printer as per that article reccomended, (HP-842-C) HP-840 printer driver runs it too
i will keep 9-1 running for now till i resolve this printing problem, (i need to print)
I run a p4 2.4 ghz lappy with an ATI M7 and i810 audio with NO problems at all. Everything just works.
I compile Apache / PHP and tweak the x*.conf file and thats it. most everything else is stock.
I said it before and ill say it again.
Once you go Slack you never go back!
-Nx
>>walterbyrd have you tried KDE? I know it’s a lot faster than gnome for me on my Pent3..whether that’s gnome’s fault or gtk2 I don’t know though.<<
Haven’t tried on slack yet. But I will other windows managers.
Slack 10 is nice. I tested it out on my Dell laptop and it is pretty sweet. I posted a “quick take” on my blog about it:
http://www.rippleweb.org/2004/07/a_quick_take_on.html
I’ve also found CUPS on Slack 10 to be uncooperative. Typically, it refuses to recognize any of the ppd files in /usr/share/cups/model.
On one occasion, temporarily disabling my firewall did the trick. Presumably, it was blocking a port CUPS wanted.At other times, it simply refuses to function.
I haven’t had these issues with lprng and apsfilter.
The advantages CUPS brings to a networked environment aren’t at play for a single desktop workstation. Simpler would be better.
I’ve also noticed that different distributions — using the same CUPS-based print chain on the same hardware — produce hardcopy of widely varying appearance and quality. That is, printing the same file in different distributions produces different results. Same printer, same file, same CUPs, same GHostscript, but different hardcopy. Why?
This is especially aggravating in Slackware, which produces poor hardcopy: over-large fonts and ignored margins.
Hey, maybe you gave me an idea, i will try slack-10 again, and omit cups during install and only install lprng and the filters…
keeps my fingers crossed
Are you using the vesa driver?
the article had some stuff right and wrong. Mplayer isn’t in by default ’cause of the licensing of the codecs.
As for the attention slackware is getting, its a good and bad thing. Good because more people move away from a GUI to the CLI. Makes them learn more about the computer that they work in front of. Bad because people usually come in over their heads. For inexperienced linux users, I wouldn’t dare toss them a copy of slackware, I’d give redhat/suse. Why? Cause its a much easier transition in this windows world.
As for previous comments…
1. The X mouse wheel. I’m assuming this is the ZAxisMapping of xorg.conf. It ain’t a problem/bug. Its a feature that is technically unnecessary. Remember Slackware’s philosophy… KISS.
2. Packages. True. Slackware ain’t the nicest when it comes to packages. Not like the *BSDs or gentoo. But again, KISS. Personally, I don’t use any of the packages. Everything is from source. It takes longer, but in then end, the system will be exactly what i want.
3. CUPS… can’t say i’ve used cups. I rarely if ever print. I usually just export to pdfs or ps files.
/etc/X11/xorg.conf is just about exactly the same as xf86.conf
# this makes my optical wheel mouse work nice :^)
Section “InputDevice”
# Identifier and driver
Identifier “Mouse1”
Driver “mouse”
Option “Protocol” “IMPS/2”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5”
If only the back and forward buttons (Intellimouse) worked, at least, nevermind things like 9 button mice. Scroll buttons are so 1998 guys :/
If someone can tell me how to get these buttons working I’ll be everthankful. Even if that solution includes imwheel *sigh*
xorg.conf:
Option “Buttons” “7”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “6 7”
~/.Xmodmap:
pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5
~/.imwheelrc:
“.*”
None, Down, Alt_L|Right
None, Up, Alt_L|Left
$ imwheel -k -b67
Not to threadjack but can someone who has gone from Slack 9.1 to 10 tell me, is the upgrade worth it?? My system works pretty much how I want it to work and I have no problems except just a lingering thought that maybe I’m missing something by not having the newest version. Thoughts?? Comments??
from slack 9.1 to 10 … new gnome =:D
anyway… just get swaret and choose “current” then swaret –update swaret –upgrade
I’ll try that out when I boot to SLackware!!
I don’t agree with the notion that being compelled to learn more about Linux in order to install Slackware is a good thing. Likewise, using GUI tools doesn’t make you dumber, either.
That said, Slackware does require a fiar amount of experience to install. Even then, it might do a better job about informing users — novice or expert — about some things. For example, why are all the parallel port probes commented out in rc.modules in Slack 10? More importantly, why doesn’t the install mention it?
Mouse wheels: My cheapie 3-button PCI mouse works fine with the usual ZAxisMapping statment in xorg.conf. My 5-button USB Intellimouse can’t use its 4th and 5th buttons without usinmg imwheel. This isn’t a Slackware issue as much as it is a broader issue for the Xorg folks and for Linux, in general. Multi-button mice have been around long enough; we ought to be able to make full use of them without rolling on flaky gizmos like imwheel.
If you install both cups and lprng you may have problems with some of the symlinks that point to different services etc..
Either only install one of the above or install the one you intend to use last.
A couple of articles that might help
http://www.userlocal.com/articles/slackwarecups.php
http://www.userlocal.com/articles/slackware-printing-faq.php
mRgOBLIN
yeah, i need to resolve the printing issue, thanks for the info & links mRgOBLIN
this is insight that i should have just looked at via man pages on my own desktop. (my bad for getting just a little lazy)
“If you install both cups and lprng you may have problems with some of the symlinks that point to different services etc..”
absolutely you can install both of them. however, keep in mind that if you want one of them doing the jobs, just deactivate the another. see more in /etc/rc.d/
“slack is really nothing special, :/ sorry”
yeah not only slackware is not special, but so does everything. Nothing else s matter at all..