Slackware

Post by **Dapper Dan** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 2:53 pm

Sky, I've been looking at different distro's, just to see if there is a better "fit" out there for me. I took Troodon's advice and downloaded rehat 7.3. It works well except I couldn't make IceWM and IceWM Control Panel install or work properly. Without a configuration tool, IceWM is pretty much useless. As it kept begging for newer Python packages to install, I downloaded RH 8.0. Still having problems with IceWM Control Panel, which by the way is an EXCELLENT piece of software, and works flawlessly under Mandrake 9.0. I downloaded Debian, as I like the idea of getting away from dependancy hell. I got the minimum installation, of Woody which was suppose to go online and download the rest of the packages. Trouble is, I can't make it see my cable modem!

Through all of this, I've been researching, and like the idea of Slackware's speed and simplicity. My question is, if I try Slackware, am I going to be in dependancy hell again, or do most of the tarballs configure and make without too much fuss? Do you have to manually gunzip and install, or does the Slackware package manner, give you a nice GUI that will help with the install? As far as speed goes, IceWM runs circles around Gnome and KDE. A Slack/Ice environment should be truly smokin'!
Your thoughts on all this will be appreciated. Thanks!

Sky · Post by **Sky** » Tue Apr 15, 2003 10:48 am

Dapper Dan wrote:Sky, I've been looking at different distro's, just to see if there is a better "fit" out there for me. I took Troodon's advice and downloaded rehat 7.3. It works well except I couldn't make IceWM and IceWM Control Panel install or work properly. Without a configuration tool, IceWM is pretty much useless. As it kept begging for newer Python packages to install, I downloaded RH 8.0. Still having problems with IceWM Control Panel, which by the way is an EXCELLENT piece of software, and works flawlessly under Mandrake 9.0. I downloaded Debian, as I like the idea of getting away from dependancy hell. I got the minimum installation, of Woody which was suppose to go online and download the rest of the packages. Trouble is, I can't make it see my cable modem!

Well, i guess you cablemodem works with Mandrake - thus it will work with debian too

You should just have a look at google, where you find alot of howtos. Just to show some which might help you:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Cable-Modem/
http://www.linuxhelp.net/guides/cablemodem/

I'm very sure that you will find a solution in one of those pages

And if you have problems with debian using your cable modem during installation, install everything you need from the CD you downloaded and after the installation is finished, you setup your modem by using one of these howtos and install the rest of the software from the internet

Dapper Dan wrote: Through all of this, I've been researching, and like the idea of Slackware's speed and simplicity. My question is, if I try Slackware, am I going to be in dependancy hell again, or do most of the tarballs configure and make without too much fuss? Do you have to manually gunzip and install, or does the Slackware package manner, give you a nice GUI that will help with the install? As far as speed goes, IceWM runs circles around Gnome and KDE. A Slack/Ice environment should be truly smokin'!
Your thoughts on all this will be appreciated. Thanks!

Well there is a tool called pkgtool. It will install packages for you. BUT: It does not check any dependencies at all! Thus you have to know which deps a pkg has and if you fullfill these deps. (Though all packeages i tried from http://linuxpackages.net/ worked without any problems

)
If i compile a package myself i seldom have any problems. Slackware doesnt distinguish between a package and a "devel" package (most other distros do). So normally you do have the required header files needed for compilation (with slackware,). But if there is a missing dep i wont be resolved like Debian will do with apt-get or gentoo with emerge.
So i would give you the advice to get your cable modem working with Debian. I guess you will really like it

And do not hesitate to ask if there are any Problems google cant answer

Post by **Dapper Dan** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 3:04 am

Sky, Troodon, could y'all please have a look at this and see if you can help me figure this out..

http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.p ... adid=98531

I put Slackware 9.0 on my "experimental box" and so far am liking it a lot. The install was pretty sraight forward and FAR simpler than the Debian install nightmare!

Y'all probably already know about it, but I found out about, and am using apt-get RPM for Redhat 8.0. It has a nice and simple graghic front end called "synaptic" and it works well. The only drawback is, thus far, there aren't as many packages as you can "apt-get" with Debian. apt-get rpm is also available on Mandrake 9.1. I'd like to upgrade my home machine from 9.0 to 9.1 but can't yet because of the glibc 2.3 problem with wine. Half-Life, and Team Fortress work very well with winex and I don't want to upgrade until Transgaming figures out a work around for it.

Sky, thanks for those links. I had gone through some of them before. I think my Realtec NIC is just plain broke. It worked with both Mandrake and Windows before, but since it was taken out and put back in my experimental box, it won't work with Windows or Linux. In Windows, plug and play finds it and installs the drivers, and divice manager says it's working properly, but it will not connect no matter what I do. A friend is going to let me use a Linksys he bought new which should work under both O.S.'s

Sky, except for the gtk problem with IceWM Control Panel install, I'm really liking Slackware 9.0 !

Troodon · Post by **Troodon** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 2:53 pm

Dan, alas I don't know the answer to your your question. The only systems I am somewhat familiar with are RH 6.2 (server) and MDK 8.2 (desktop), which is what I have on my network. On MDK 8.2 I run Gnome 1.4 w/ Sawfish so I wouldn't know about IceWM. I use Gnome Office and I finally managed to install GnuCash 1.8.2; they claim it has some much awaited small business features and I will soon know whether it's true or not.

Post by **Dapper Dan** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 9:19 pm

Troodon wrote: I use Gnome Office and I finally managed to install GnuCash 1.8.2; they claim it has some much awaited small business features and I will soon know whether it's true or not.

I havn't been keeping up with Gnucash lately. If they would just add a payroll module to what they already have, it would be excellent for small business as it is! I just don't get the Gnome software offerings. They run the ball to the 95 yard line and just when you think they're gonna score big, they drop the ball. They have a lot of good office software that, if they would just spend a little more time working on it, it would be useful. As an example, Abiword is a reliable word processor that will open and can create a variety of filetypes including .wpd and of course .doc. It will do just about anything an office could want EXCEPT print an envelope! What's with that?? They keep promising envelope printing is coming but I've given up hope. Let me know if fixing that, is one of the improvements. The envelope problem renders it pretty much useless to me in an office environment although I love using it at home. At work we use WordPerfect 9.0. There are problems there too, but at least it will print envelopes! I know a lot of folks like it but I'm not a big fan of Open/StarOffice.
Let me know what you think of the new Gnucash. I'll certainly give it another look if it will do payroll!

Troodon · Post by **Troodon** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 10:02 pm

Hmm.. it doesn't seem to have a "payroll" feature but it does have customer/vendor tracking, payable and receivable accounts, invoicing and other stuff like that. Here is what they say about payroll:

Payroll introduces a sizable amount of complexity in terms of the need to comply with constantly-changing government regulations in whatever country one is in. While the GnuCash "engine" might remain free, maintenance of payroll functionality would require "subscribing" to an update scheme; it might be troublesome to try to provide such a "subscription" free of charge.

For a list of GnuCash features check these out:
http://www.gnucash.org/features.php3
http://www.gnucash.org/roadmap.php3

Post by **Dapper Dan** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:05 am

Troodon wrote:
Payroll introduces a sizable amount of complexity in terms of the need to comply with constantly-changing government regulations in whatever country one is in. While the GnuCash "engine" might remain free, maintenance of payroll functionality would require "subscribing" to an update scheme; it might be troublesome to try to provide such a "subscription" free of charge.

Troodon, that's kind of a "cop-out'" on their part. Their statement is true, insofar as they might model payroll support after the industry standard set by QuickBooks. However, just because QuickBooks offers payroll subscription updates, (for $189.00) per year, doesn't mean that GnuCash has to model their payroll after QB. We did try MyBooks, which for other reasons, did not work out for us, but they did have a good model for payroll. The payroll module was there, for you to fill in your Federal, State and Social Security, and insurance withholdings. Gnucash could simply add a module that would allow a business to fill in their own blanks about taxes and withholdings that would not require updates from Gnucash.
I think what has happened is, Gnucash has wrongly determined that the QuickBooks method is the only way payroll can be done, which is not true. They could give us a module that would allow the user to configure and update the tax tables that wouldn't require any further service on their part.

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