Message For Iccaros, Jcl, And Shanenin

[hitest]

Hi iccaros, jcl, shanenin,

Two days ago I finished tweaking my Fedora Core 3 install on my Plll 667 IBM 300 PL, with 256 MB RAM. Everything works well. The only beef I have with Fedora is it is a bit of a RAM hog; I had to pare down the services, programs running on start-up, to make it run properly. On a faster P4 system this wouldn't be an issue.

I'm trying to decide if I'll keep this system for a bit or run Slackware 10.

Advantages as I see it for Fedora Core 3, are a plethora of programs and effecient software updates using up2date and yum. I haven't run Red Hat products for some time.

Advantages to using Slackware may be that it'll run faster on this older PC. Package updating with Slackware will be an issue.

Decisions, decisions.

Do you guys have any thoughts about the advantages, disadvantages of Fedora Core 3 verses Slackware 10? I know you guys have all run Slackware and are now using Gentoo.

Any and all feedback is appreciated.

Thank you.

hitest

Edited March 5, 2005 by hitest

[shanenin]

slackware is a great distro if you want to compile stuff by hand. It seems to have all of the needed libraries in standard places(unlike fedora). The biggest negative to slackware is a good package manager. I know it has slap-get, but i am not sure how reliable it is. To me a good easy reliable way to install software is important. Slackware uses bsd init scripts which to me are more complicated then system V scripts like most linux distros use, that may not be an issue.

Fedoras biggest advantage over slackware its is package manager, YUM. YUM seems like a very reliable and easy way to install software. It seems to handle dependencies well: I have only used it a little while so don't have a lot of experience with it.

Of those two choices I would probably go with fedora, that is mainly becasue of slackwares lack of a good package manager. Other then the previous point, slackware is a solid very well made disto. I would recommend a third choice, vidalinux. IT has a great package manager, portage. It does come with gnome, but kde would take less then 24 hours to compile on your slower machine. If vidalinux is anything like gentoo, most services are off by default, so that should help with your memery issue.

[hitest]

slackware is a great distro if you want to compile stuff by hand. It seems to have all of the needed libraries in standard places(unlike fedora). The biggest negative to slackware is a good package manager. I know it has slap-get, but i am not sure how reliable it is. To me a good easy reliable way to install software is important. Slackware uses bsd init scripts which to me are more complicated then system V scripts like most linux distros use, that may not be an issue.

Fedoras biggest advantage over slackware its is package manager, YUM. YUM seems like a very reliable and easy way to install software. It seems to handle dependencies well: I have only used it a little while so don't have a lot of experience with it.

Of those two choices I would probably go with fedora, that is mainly becasue of slackwares lack of a good package manager. Other then the previous point, slackware is a solid very well made disto. I would recommend a third choice, vidalinux. IT has a great package manager, portage. It does come with gnome, but kde would take less then 24 hours to compile on your slower machine. If vidalinux is anything like gentoo, most services are off by default, so that should help with your memery issue.

Hi shanenin,

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate that.

Given my system resources do you think a third choice, Gentoo, would even be possible on this system? Or would a stage three tarball take weeks to compile on this unit?

I thought updates were a problem with Slackware, thanks for the confirmation. I may go with Slackware as a learning aide like you did when you dropped Red Hat 9. That might be a good starting point before attempting Gentoo and set me up for success.

I've used fdisk before when I installed Free BSD 5.2. I appreciate your advice, that gives me information to make a good choice.

later,

hitest

[shanenin]

if you go the vidalinux(has portage) route, you will have a fully compiled system with X and gnome, plus some software after a few minutes. It is like a stage three gentoo sytem plus gnome. It uses anaconda, so the install is quick and easy. The only thing you would need to compile would be KDE, that is assuming you would like it.

[hitest]

if you go the vidalinux(has portage) route, you will have a fully compiled system with X and gnome, plus some software after a few minutes. It is like a stage three gentoo sytem plus gnome. It uses anaconda, so the install is quick and easy. The only thing you would need to compile would be KDE, that is assuming you would like it.

Very cool. I'm taking a look at the beginner's gentoo. Sweet. I read in the review that there were some issues with setting up networking and sound.

Did you experience that?

[shanenin]

it configures the same way gentoo does. I just had to run the program alsaconfig, that allowed my to choose my audiocard(onboard via chipset). Then alsamixer, to turn up the volume. It was very easy.

edit/added later

what review, madpenguins? It set up my network automatically. I do not think you would have any problem.

[hitest]

it configures the same way gentoo does. I just had to run the program alsaconfig, that allowed my to choose my audiocard(onboard via chipset). Then alsamixer, to turn up the volume. It was very easy.

edit/added later

what review, madpenguins? It set up my network automatically. I do not think you would have any problem.

Yep, the madpenguin review site that you provided a link to.

I've got a fairly standard NIC, a Realtek. I agree networking shouldn't be a problem.

[iccaros]

im looking at adding one of the following to my distrobution.. of course I am deciding on a 100% rebuild and I have not decided how I am going to build the base yet (linux from scratch or Gentoo)

Smart Package manager:

http://zorked.net/smart/doc/README.html

this woudl be really cool if some one added pass through portage support. Then if it cought on all Linux versions could use the same package manager (at least the same tool name and look and feel)

SWARET

http://sourceforge.net/projects/swaret or http://swaret.sourceforge.net/index.php

swaret lets you keep your Slackware system up to date. It functions similarly to apt-get, the Debian package manager.

[hitest]

im looking at adding one of the following to my distrobution.. of course I am deciding on a 100% rebuild and I have not decided how I am going to build the base yet (linux from scratch or Gentoo)

Smart Package manager:

http://zorked.net/smart/doc/README.html

this woudl be really cool if some one added pass through portage support. Then if it cought on all Linux versions could use the same package manager (at least the same tool name and look and feel)

SWARET

http://sourceforge.net/projects/swaret or http://swaret.sourceforge.net/index.php

swaret lets you keep your Slackware system up to date. It functions similarly to apt-get, the Debian package manager.

Hi iccaros,

Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate that a lot. I'll read up on the links you gave me.

I agree, it would be wonderful if there was a universal package management system in place for most distros.

swaret sounds promising to me.

Your 100% re-build sounds fanatastic, both systems sound great, LFS, or Gentoo.

hitest

[shanenin]

I know there is documentation about installing portage on another system. I wonder how hard it would be to install portage on slackware. Their would be no advantage to that over an all gentoo system, but it would be a fun learning experience. I am sure the gentoo docs are very noob freindly, I might just give it a try.

[hitest]

I know there is documentation about installing portage on another system. I wonder how hard it would be to install portage on slackware. Their would be no advantage to that over an all gentoo system, but it would be a fun learning experience. I am sure the gentoo docs are very noob freindly, I might just give it a try.

Cool idea.

[iccaros]

I know there was talk aout portage on linux from scratch. and portage for solaris.