This months formal meeting, Chris Clymer will present Slackware Linux.

Chris will start out with a little background on Slackware and their distribution install and upgrade procedure.
More on "features" and what Slackware has to offer over the other distros.

From Chris:
Slackware 10 is fairly similar to 9.1, just updated. The most obvious changes are Gnome 2.6, KDE 3.2, and an available 2.6 kernel(its in /testing on disk 2). It comes with 2.4, but is repeatedly advertised as "2.6 ready." This new version also comes with the latest versions of wireless tools, a big plus for anyone running wi-fi. Another notable change is that Slack10 switches from XFree86 to X.org(mostly a superficial change at this point).

Even with current versions of the latest-and-greatest, Slackware still only reaches 2-3 gigs for a complete install, and obviously much, much less if you choose any of the smaller options. If you want neither Gnome nor KDE than you can even get by with just disk 1!

Personally, I enjoy Slackware over other distros for many reasons. Slackwares greatest "features" are the ones it doesn't have. It doesn't have sophisticated package management like Debian, SuSE, or Red Hat. It doesn't have heavily customized configuration files and commands, themes, backgrounds, etc. Out-of-the-box, Slackware is the most "vanilla" of any of the current distributions. The strength of all these things is that it is infinitely easier to customize than a distro like Red Hat or SuSE. Fewer things may work out-of-the-box, but the ones that don't are easier to fix. Slackware is the oldest surviving Linux distribution, and after 10 years it seems Patrick has really found his niche.

Another great "feature" worth mentioning is the seemingly endless supply of highly knowledgeable slackware gurus in places like #slackware on both irc.oftc.net and irc.freenode.net. Because Slackware tends to make you learn quite a bit to get everything how you like it, its users all tend to be very knowledgeable about slack, and how it works. It is a very transparent system. I'm not sure if I would run it for a server(plenty do), and I certainly wouldn't reccomend it for someone who likes things that "just work"(they've got SuSE). But if you'd like to learn, nothing beats Slack. Truth be told, i was often annoyed at first...but after learning the power of the CLI and easily identifiable config files, I find it infinitely easier to use everyday than any of the purportedly user-friendly, RPM-based distributions that are out there.

In short, I like Slack. I run it on my laptop and workstation, daily. If you are the kind of user who dislikes RPM's, it is perfect for you.

Chris

The Spaghetti Warehouse is located in downtown Akron just two blocks south of Exchange St. For a map of this location, see: http://alug.adg.org/maps