Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Introduce yourself, create test postings or talk nonsense
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Themis
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Joined: 27. Feb 2016, 22:17
Location: France

Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by Themis »

Hello,

French Newbie there.
It’s been a long time now since I’ve been using a Linux OS. Unfortunately, I’ve never had enough time to learn how it works exactly. I’m tired of using an Ubuntu distro, even though it is quite convenient since we don’t have to tweak a lot to get simple things work easily/quickly. But I’d really like to learn more and be able to fix some problems by myself. I build a new computer recently, with a 120Gb SSD dedicated to the OSs. So, There’s an Ubuntu MATE installed as the main distro (for the moment). I plan to install +1/2, just to play a little bit. I will probably try Archlinux (in a VM), and I am also interested in a Slackware OS. So… Salix sounded good!
I’d really like to be able to get involved in some open-source OS one day or another, and Ubuntu didn’t seem to be appropriate for that (learning how to build packages, etc.; I guess you know what I mean). For now, when I have time, little by little, I study The Linux Command Line, by W. Shotts. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll give a try to Salix with a Live DVD, and then… well, we’ll see. :)
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gaucho
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Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by gaucho »

Bonsoir, Themis,

Welcome to Salix OS and its User Forum. :) I hope you'll find it to your liking; there are several different DEs (desktop environments) and/or window managers you can try out: Xfce, MATE, Fluxbox, etc. I've been using Salix for a while, and it has always worked reliably for me -- no muss, no fuss. One thing I appreciate about Salix's philosophy is that it is designed for "lazy Slackers," i.e., although it is fully compatible with Slackware, gapan and the development team have added some extra features / tweaks to make it more user-friendly than Slack (without dumbing it down).

The Shotts book you mentioned is an excellent introduction to the CLI (command line). Since it sounds like you enjoy researching topics on your own -- a valuable trait for Linux users to have -- I'd like to mention a couple of other resources which I think you'd find helpful:

http://guide.salixos.org/
The Salix Start-Up Guide.

http://www.slackbook.org/
The Revised Slackware Book Project. (in English)

Unfortunately, a French translation of it is not available; however, there is a series of four detailed articles about Slackware, written by Kiki Novak for the French magazine Planète Linux (issues 67, 68, 69 and 70, November 2011 - May 2012). (Slackware 13.37 is not the current version of the OS [14.1] but as Slackware is very conservative/stable, there should not be drastic differences between 13.37 and 14.1):

"Slackware 13.37: une distrubtion Linux `a (re)decouvrir"

http://www.microlinux.fr/articles/pl67- ... 3.37-1.pdf

http://www.microlinux.fr/articles/pl68- ... 3.37-2.pdf

http://www.microlinux.fr/articles/pl69- ... 3.37-3.pdf

http://www.microlinux.fr/articles/pl70- ... 3.37-4.pdf

Again, welcome to Salix and Have fun!
Registered Linux User # 442201

Dell Latitude E4300 laptop: Intel Core2 Duo P9400 CPU, 8 GB RAM, Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB SSD, Intel Wireless 7260
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mimosa
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Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by mimosa »

Welcome!

It certainly sounds as though Salix may suit you well. Although it wasn't conceived for people who are outgrowing Ubuntu, but rather for "lazy Slackers", its extra home comforts may be just the thing.

As gaucho said, please be sure to check out the Salix Startup Guide, which should set you off in the right direction. The forum is here if you have any queries.
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Themis
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Joined: 27. Feb 2016, 22:17
Location: France

Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by Themis »

Hi,
gaucho wrote:I've been using Salix for a while, and it has always worked reliably for me -- no muss, no fuss. One thing I appreciate about Salix's philosophy is that it is designed for "lazy Slackers," i.e., although it is fully compatible with Slackware, gapan and the development team have added some extra features / tweaks to make it more user-friendly than Slack (without dumbing it down).
This is exactly why I outgrow Ubuntu. I’m looking for something which could be both still not too hard to use (until my CLI/Linux skills improve) and not as catch-all as Ubuntu. Also, a human-scale community won’t displease me. :)
gaucho wrote:Since it sounds like you enjoy researching topics on your own -- a valuable trait for Linux users to have -- I'd like to mention a couple of other resources which I think you'd find helpful:
Yes, I am. Thank you for the links. I had already started reading the Salix documentation you mentioned. The only pity thing is that some sections are empty… but the important ones remain. :) It is not a problem if books/articles are written in English. I do some grammar mistakes, but understanding Shakespeare’s mother tongue is OK (but I appreciate your kind attention, thank you!)
gaucho wrote:Again, welcome to Salix and Have fun!
Thanks!

mimosa wrote:Welcome!

It certainly sounds as though Salix may suit you well. Although it wasn't conceived for people who are outgrowing Ubuntu, but rather for "lazy Slackers", its extra home comforts may be just the thing.
Thank you!
Yes, this is what I’m looking for. I’ve downloaded the MATE Desktop Live DVD (64bits) and will try it out quite soon.
mimosa wrote:As gaucho said, please be sure to check out the Salix Startup Guide, which should set you off in the right direction. The forum is here if you have any queries.
Yep, I will. :) Thanks again.
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gapan
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Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by gapan »

Themis wrote:The only pity thing is that some sections are empty…
They're not empty. It's just that they are headers for the next subsections. The guide is a single document that is (automatically) cut into smaller sections and the software that is used cuts right before each header.
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Themis
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Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by Themis »

gapan wrote:
Themis wrote:The only pity thing is that some sections are empty…
They're not empty. It's just that they are headers for the next subsections. The guide is a single document that is (automatically) cut into smaller sections and the software that is used cuts right before each header.
Hm, Haven’t thought about that. Thank you for the explanation.
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ChuangTzu
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Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by ChuangTzu »

Themis,

Welcome. We are a friendly bunch of Slackers. The longer you hang out and use Salix the more the community will grow on you. :)

Appréciez votre sejour !
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Themis
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Joined: 27. Feb 2016, 22:17
Location: France

Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by Themis »

Hello, everyone!

Well, it’s been a while. Things have ran pretty fast, and I finally ended up using only a portion of my SSD with an Ubuntu (MATE) LTS on it… Since it is pretty user-friendly, with a big community, I think that my desktop PC will keep running Ubuntu for a while, but I needed a backup Linux station for studies (and after that work) purpose and just bought a refurb Lenovo ThinkPad T420 (with the old traditional keyboard, not the new one :P ), and I thought that it could be the perfect occasion to install something else than Ubuntu. This computer will be useful for development and some IM, so its purpose is not to host too much personal data (not too much data at all, actually). So, here I am again, willing to ask you a couple of questions.

First and foremost, I had started reading the documents gaucho had suggested me, but I’d better do it again.
Will Salix run OK on a ThinkPad?
I’ve seen that Salix OS doesn’t use systemd. Is that right? I’ve heard some things about it, so I’d like to try something that doesn’t use it, just to see. But that’s not mandatory for me.
I’ve also read that Salix comes with about everything we need in order to do some programming. What is it exactly? I mean I guess it provides tools for C/C++ of course, but is there a list of what is exactly installed by default?

I’ll give it a try with a live CD, but I just wanted to ask you those questions anyway, at least to kind of introduce myself again after all this time. :)
Last edited by Themis on 13. Oct 2017, 19:12, edited 1 time in total.
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mimosa
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Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by mimosa »

Just plunge in, and it will grow on you. Bring any problems to the forum as they actually arise. You shouldn't have any difficulty with your hardware, but if you do, search the forum and wiki, and ask any questions you still need to.

Slackware (Salix's parent distribution) doesn't use systemd, and so neither does Salix.

Everything you are likely to need for programming is either installed or available from the repositories. However, don't expect the very latest versions of everything - not that that is likely to matter, but some people get hung up on it. You can search available packages using Salix's package management tools (see the Startup Guide) or using the web interface linked to on the homepage.
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ChuangTzu
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Re: Newbie willing to discover the Slackware universe

Post by ChuangTzu »

I've found that Salix and Slackware run on just about anything you throw at it as long as its not a brand new rig.
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