Thoughts of Linux
I have been a linux user for 10 years now. Yes I started when ol' Linus just released his baby called linux.
I started with a distribution called Slackware. It was one of the very first available. I went on to use redhat, mandrake and very recently went completely back to Slackware.
Why? compatability and speed. Slackware is everything about linux. it is about lean mean and fast, without any of the foo-foo easy to configure parts of mandrake and redhat. a very recent event caused this change. I am trying to create a nice fast computer for Lynne. she wanted to give linux a tyr because it is immune to all the online spyware and viruses that cause your computer to slow down and act like a piece of junk in short order. So I installed Mandrake because it was easy and is what I suggest for the local LUG group MALUG members to use. And it's true, its easy to use and configure. but it hated this computer I built for Lynne. it would not use the high end video card I put in the machine to make games faster, it would not could not read from the usb thumb drive I bought her reliabily. and finally it was slow as molasses even though it had a 1.2 ghz processor in it with 5120 meg of ram.
so in a final bit of disgust, I moved her files to my laptop at home, and grabbed her computer. took it to work, put that nice video card that i KNOW works great with linux and was ready for a nice fight... I saw the latest Slackware disks I made recently sitting on my desk so I said to myself "eh, let's give this a go to see if Slackware like it better."
and it did. the 3d video card is working great, the computer is running 50% faster than before without tweaking and I have her usb thumb drive working perfectly.
I had to manually configure everything. but it works which is all she cares about. Now I'm spoiling her as I have a 2.6ghz processor coming to speed this puppy up as well as a dvd/cd writer that I will be installing so she can back her things up without effort.
Slackware has not let me down again. but be forewarned, you HAVE to know what you are doing and be happy with finding helpful HOWTO's on the internet for almost all tasks. but in the end it's faster, better and simply works.
I like that.
I started with a distribution called Slackware. It was one of the very first available. I went on to use redhat, mandrake and very recently went completely back to Slackware.
Why? compatability and speed. Slackware is everything about linux. it is about lean mean and fast, without any of the foo-foo easy to configure parts of mandrake and redhat. a very recent event caused this change. I am trying to create a nice fast computer for Lynne. she wanted to give linux a tyr because it is immune to all the online spyware and viruses that cause your computer to slow down and act like a piece of junk in short order. So I installed Mandrake because it was easy and is what I suggest for the local LUG group MALUG members to use. And it's true, its easy to use and configure. but it hated this computer I built for Lynne. it would not use the high end video card I put in the machine to make games faster, it would not could not read from the usb thumb drive I bought her reliabily. and finally it was slow as molasses even though it had a 1.2 ghz processor in it with 5120 meg of ram.
so in a final bit of disgust, I moved her files to my laptop at home, and grabbed her computer. took it to work, put that nice video card that i KNOW works great with linux and was ready for a nice fight... I saw the latest Slackware disks I made recently sitting on my desk so I said to myself "eh, let's give this a go to see if Slackware like it better."
and it did. the 3d video card is working great, the computer is running 50% faster than before without tweaking and I have her usb thumb drive working perfectly.
I had to manually configure everything. but it works which is all she cares about. Now I'm spoiling her as I have a 2.6ghz processor coming to speed this puppy up as well as a dvd/cd writer that I will be installing so she can back her things up without effort.
Slackware has not let me down again. but be forewarned, you HAVE to know what you are doing and be happy with finding helpful HOWTO's on the internet for almost all tasks. but in the end it's faster, better and simply works.
I like that.
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