Featured Comments: Week of 2010 December 26

There was only one post last week that garnered comments, but there were a lot of comments. (I find it interesting that most of last week was part of last year.)

Apologies about the Slackware Review

Reader dick had a long comment, so I'm only repeating part of it: "Just a suggestion if you try Arch. I did a couple of years ago and found it really an interesting period of time. I tried first on my own and had no success at all. Then I stumbled across a website called Raiden, if I remember right. Raiden had a huge instruction manual on how to install Arch from beginning to end. It was great as it answered all my questions and pointed me in the right direction. Slight problem with getting X to work but other than that it was not bad at all. The distro itself is great. Worked like a charm for a bit until someone put an update in the wrong place and it hosed my installation. [...]"
Reader John had this advice if I try Slackware again in the future: "Slackware is not a distro for newbies, that's for sure. I tried it several years ago when I first switched to Linux and was totally lost. After a couple of years of using Linux I decided to try it again but used Zenwalk to do it. It made life simpler for me. Then I did switch to Slackware 13.0 its self and found that I could use it. It gives you all of the basics and that is about it. I found the support on the forum and the instructions found through the site to be friendly and helpful. You should have visited slackbuilds.org. You can build almost anything from there. And that is what you should expect to do with Slackware. I did move from there to Salix which is pure Slackware. You should give it a try, it is Slackware made easy. You will find some very friendly and helpful people there with a growing repository of software to use."
An anonymous commenter had a thought about me trying to cultivate a positive reputation in this blog: " The sad thing about this...how correct you are on how the Linux community approaches users. I find usually merciless and condescending. They say there two types of people that fly. Those who get air sick and those who have yet to get airsick. I kinda approach Linux users the same way. Those that have an problem and those that yet have a problem. "Newbie" and "Pro" are arbitrary status'. This is always from the point of the observer. Either way, I think you are on the way to gaining the reputation as an honest person concerning Linux it's "quirks". Just a thought."
Commenter DoctorPepper had quite a few helpful links regarding Slackware, along with a couple other thoughts: "Slackware was my third distro, back in the late 1990's (Red Hat -> Mandrake -> Slackware), and it was a bit easier for me to deal with, having cut my teeth, so to speak, on the other two. Back then you still had to do a lot of compiling to get extra software installed, but these days it is somewhat easier."
Reader Sum Yung Gal said, among other things, "I use Slackware mostly on my laptops. The reason for this is that it's just easier, as a technical engineer, for me to do things with it than with Ubuntu, Red Hat/Fedora, or most other distros. For me, wireless connectivity is just easier with Slackware. When I do things "the Slackware way", I can do them on any other distro as well as the BSD's. Everything is pretty much the standard UNIX way, which I like. Now, would I have Aunt Tillie the teacher on it? No, not typically, unless it's in an LTSP-style thin-client environment where I, the sysadmin, can control what the users see."
Commenter V. T. Eric Layton had this to say about Slackware and the two posts I wrote: " Prashanth, I don't believe you should be apologizing for your review of Slackware 13.1. You did a fine job of writing your review. Reviews are nothing more than a reviewer's opinion. I think you did a fine job of expressing yours. Slackware is not a distribution that I recommend to new Linux Adventurers. Most folks are GUI dependent, having come over from MS Windows. It's best for them to get acquainted with Linux using a kinder and gentler distro such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc. Slackware isn't designed to be the "all things to everyone" type distribution. It's the oldest still maintained distribution of GNU/Linux. It is based on the philosophy of stability and simplicity. What you saw as complications and annoyances are the reason those of us who use Slackware as a primary operating system love it. Feature richness inherently includes complexity. Complexity walks hand in hand with fault and failure. The more simple something is, the less likely it is to fail. This is why Debian is also a rock solid platform. The more bells and whistles, the more there is to break. It's just the way it is."
An anonymous commenter said, " No need to apologize. I am a Linux noob as well, but I've been running Slackware for over a year as my only distro. Contrary to what you said in the comments of your other post, I don't run Slack because I'm too lazy to try Arch. Slackware is not a larval state distro from which people will depart once they find a better one. In my opinion, it IS the best one. There's a saying about Linux that I think fits Slackware like a glove: 'Slackware IS user-friendly. It is NOT, however, idiot-friendly or ignorant-friendly.'"

Thanks to all those who commented this week. I will have a couple more reviews and other related posts coming up. Remember, if you like the material I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!