Hi

I have tampered with both Redhat and Mandrake a year or two ago on my old
desktop PC, and had good times and wanted to take it further, cutting long
story short i had to lose the desktop and get a laptop for travelling.. So
stuck to XP sadly.

I now got the time again to sit and play about a bit and i am longing to get
again to grips with linux and really knuckle down and learn it and use it
fully (goodbye xp!!) Only gripes is i still only got the laptop.

I want to try out "slackware" as i heard its the best to really learn linux
and the closest to Unix like, and said to be fast and secure/stable. I have
heard its a bit tricky and not really for newbies, but i hope i can get it
sorted with my 10 odd years on msdos and perl/sql and recently php, i think
i should be able to grip it and enjoy sorting it out.

I wondered if anyone can firstly agree that "slackware" is a good way for me
to go distro wise, i not too fussed about bells and whistles, all i want is
a good and grass-roots stable/secure system i can use well. And also is it
going to be able to setup on my laptop ok? As i know Hewlet Packard always
design there laptops "for XP" and i was worried i may not get linux to work
with it and the devices (cd/sound/vga/winmodem etc) also i am in UK and soon
to get broadband installed (adsl) and wondered if slackware will setup and
work ok on that?

I really want to get into linux and surf through it as windows seems so damn
insecure these days, and just fed up with holes viruses are finding etc..
But if my laptop setup wont work with linux then i guess i am stuck on MS!

So if anyone can shed some light and experiences on distros and laptops,
espiecally HP i would be very grateful...

Lee


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On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 21:39:17 -0000, The Professor <professor@ic24.net>:
>
> I now got the time again to sit and play about a bit and i am longing to get
> again to grips with linux and really knuckle down and learn it and use it
> fully (goodbye xp!!) Only gripes is i still only got the laptop.
>
> I want to try out "slackware" as i heard its the best to really learn linux
> and the closest to Unix like, and said to be fast and secure/stable. I have

Long ago and far away, I used Slackware as a newbie. It was a good
distro. It's probably even better by now. I haven't used it in a
while so I can't really say, but I'd be surprised if it was any less
than it was then.

However, as a newbie, your problems are more likely to be related to
installed software and how you use it. Do you really want to have to
fight with bare metal Slackware at the same time that you're trying to
figure out how to get Open Office to print address labels?

Distros like Redhat, SuSE, and Mandrake are "newbie install"
friendly. They get you up and running quickly. Maintaining and
upgrading afterwards, they can be fairly newbie hostile.

Debian has a reputation for being "newbie install" hostile (though I'd
tend to disagree), but very friendly for upgrading and maintenance.

Choose your poison. A few years ago, I'd have suggested SuSE as being
the drop-dead simple solution for newbies, but I haven't used their
latest either.

> heard its a bit tricky and not really for newbies, but i hope i can get it
> sorted with my 10 odd years on msdos and perl/sql and recently php, i think
> i should be able to grip it and enjoy sorting it out.

That too depends. Are you willing to learn vi(m) and/or emacs, or are
you expecting some whiz-bang perl IDE? Once you learn vi, you can
edit anything. emacs can (arguably) do even more.

> I wondered if anyone can firstly agree that "slackware" is a good way for me
> to go distro wise, i not too fussed about bells and whistles, all i want is
> a good and grass-roots stable/secure system i can use well. And also is it

Stable and secure, sure, as long as your hardware is adequate, and you
know how to secure it. You'll need to learn about iptables packet
filtering to lock it down, but there's tools (eg. fwbuilder) to help
you with that. You need to learn to disable services you shouldn't be
running that could open your box up needlessly.

> going to be able to setup on my laptop ok? As i know Hewlet Packard always
> design there laptops "for XP" and i was worried i may not get linux to work
> with it and the devices (cd/sound/vga/winmodem etc) also i am in UK and soon
> to get broadband installed (adsl) and wondered if slackware will setup and
> work ok on that?

For laptops, see http://tuxmobil.org and http://www.linux-laptop.net/.
Avoid Winmodems if you can. You can use a PCMCIA/PCCARD modem, or
just plug an external modem onto an external serial port.

> I really want to get into linux and surf through it as windows seems so damn
> insecure these days, and just fed up with holes viruses are finding etc..
> But if my laptop setup wont work with linux then i guess i am stuck on MS!

Nowadays, it's generally bleeding edge and esoteric stuff that people
have trouble with. 3D video, playing DVD movies, etc. may need a bit
of work/research. Go look at some of the reviews on linux-laptop.net
for installation stories.


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On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 21:39:17 +0000, The Professor wrote:

Please go take a look at http://www.linux-laptop.net

You didn't give us the model of the laptop so it's impossiable to tell if
it is going to ba compatable. Most modern linux distro's are really good
at hardware, but laptops are picky at beat. The above site will point you
in the right direction.

Jayson G