I''ve been using slackware for about 4-5 years or so, well now I''m starting to get irratated with it. I''ve tried a few diffrent distros (lunar & gentoo) and axed the idea of a few others (redhat & mandrake). I was looking into SuSE, for the most part it looks like a good distro (a little to flashy looking in so aspects), so I decided to download it... hummm to my suprise the only iso you can have is the live trial version, apparently there are a few commersal packages =/ this isn''t realy so bad I wouldn''t mind pay the $80 for the pro version, but it would be nice to beable to use it on multiple machines (I''ve got 2) & be able to give copies out to friends. debian looks like a possability, but its still using a 2.2.x kernel of course its probably patched up quite a bit & its probably not to hard to upgrade to a 2.4 kernel (all the other packages look up todate...), but this is why I''m trying to get away from slackware (having to spend more time updating everything than installing it) I''d like to find a distro that is up todate (dosen''t hafta be the absolute latest version, I''m just talking last 3-4 month). has gnome, kde, 2.4.x kernel, fairly comprehnsive set of multimedia tools (both edit & play back) anyone got some sugestions?

Debian 3.x uses 2.4.18 as the default kernel if you type ''bf24'' at the boot prompt of the CD. If you upgrade to unstable you can get a pre-compiled package for 2.4.20.

You can download a SuSE install CD, from which you can install the full SuSE distro over the internet. A wee bit sucky if you want to install it on more than one machine, or reinstall, but you can get it over the net!

Stu

Send an email to them debian people and remind them of how nice it would be if they actually had a release cycle other than "hack on -unstable until death"


if you can call that a cycle...

quote: Original post by C-Junkie
Send an email to them debian people and remind them of how nice it would be if they actually had a release cycle other than "hack on -unstable until death"

if you can call that a cycle...

Debian unstable is unstable for a reason: every package or something it directly or indirectly depends on causes a problem that doesn''t exist in testing. So, instead of making their next stable release (which is the current testing release) less stable, they try to fix the problems; which obviously takes time.

Since unstable is still mostly stable releases of software, if you don''t mind that it may be less stable overall than stable and testing, you''re free to use it on your desktop (I do).

Unstable normally keeps fairly up-to-date versions of most software: it''s kind-of the stable release of most other distros. Just because Debian has different priorities that other distros doesn''t mean it doesn''t have a release cycle (complaining that the release cycle is relatively slower is a whole other matter).

quote: Original post by Great Milenko
I''d like to find a distro that is up todate (dosen''t hafta be the absolute latest version, I''m just talking last 3-4 month). has gnome, kde, 2.4.x kernel, fairly comprehnsive set of multimedia tools (both edit & play back)

anyone got some sugestions?

Gentoo is at least worth taking a look at it. Those that get it working and like it always seem to love it.. Not much middle ground

You have your choice of a dozen different kernels (gentoo-sources, "vanilla" 2.4.x sources, gaming-sources, ck-sources, etc...), just about everything is up to date, and if you decide you want to keep them updated it''s extremely easy.

quote: fairly comprehnsive set of multimedia tools (both edit & play back)

I''m not sure what all you are looking to do but xmms, xine, mplayer, mpg321, lame, oggenc, audacity, and many others are just an emerge away...

Just about every popular program is available through portage, and if by some chance it''s not it''s pretty easy to make an ebuild and you can submit it so everyone else can emerge the program too!

If gentoo isn''t your thing then the best I have found is Slackware. If there is something in particular you don''t like about slack you''ll have to point it out and maybe I can think of a different distro that fixes that.

quote: Gentoo is at least worth taking a look at it. Those that get it working and like it always seem to love it.. Not much middle ground

Damn right :D

quote: If there is something in particular you don''t like about slack you''ll have to point it out and maybe I can think of a different distro that fixes that.

Well if he''s talking about Slackware 9.0 I know exactly what it is...

<img src=http://webspace.utexas.edu/~mvdepala/random/resist-ignorance.png

quote: Original post by CmndrM
Well if he''s talking about Slackware 9.0 I know exactly what it is...

Hmmm.. I haven''t been using slack for a while since I found gentoo... has something bad happened to the 9.0 release?

Yes. Patrick Volkerding, since of COURSE he knows exactly what''s best, has decided to not include half the stuff that used to come standard with Slackware. This includes many libraries, which vastly complicates the process of installing various applications, especially considering Slackware''s package management system.

Don''t get me wrong, it would still make a great server. But as a desktop system, it now officially sucks. Volkerding is an idiot as far as I''m concerned, as I have personally dealt with him on another unrelated issue. At that time also, he responded and basically said (though not quite as harshly) that his opinion was right and mine was wrong.

It''s always disappointing when something good goes bad...

<img src=http://webspace.utexas.edu/~mvdepala/random/resist-ignorance.png

You aren''t Norman Nesco (or something like that?), are you?