Debian or slackware?

[Jacob Schmude]

Hi
Well, I've always liked slack, so I may be a bit biased here. IMHO, if you really want to understand the structure of linux, slack is the way to go. Almost all 
the configuration is done through the config files, no fancy config tools that hide things from you. This is largely the case with debian as well. Slack also has 
an easier structure than debian in my opinion, it seems to centralize all related files in one place, whereas in debian they seem, to me at least, to be all over 
the place with symbolic links all around. Also, with debian, you really do need to know the names of the packages and what they do. With slack, just select 
your package groups during install, use a full installation, and you're up and running. Again, I'm probably a bit biased, since my first linux run was with slack 
and, no matter what other distros (debian, redhat, fedora, etc) I try, I always wind up coming back to slack in the end.
You do need two cd images to install slackware, you can get them from:
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/slackware-9.1-iso/
I find this is a relatively fast mirror to download the iso images from. You only need the first two disks, install-d1 and install-d2. The other two disks are source, 
which you don't need.
HTH
On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:53:30 -0500, Jes and guide dog Harley wrote:

>Folks, I have a few questions about my first installation of Linux. I'm wondering since I am a total newby, if I should go with
>debian woodie/potato first, or try slackware 9.1 for a trial run? I don't need a lot of packages right now, I want a lot but don't
>need a lot for an introduction to Linux, and I figure that if I'm going to get really introduced to it the less packages, the
>better. This way, I can be more focused on the structure of the operating system itself, rather than on what packages do what and
>which ones I have installed, etc. My final question is, I know that to install Debian's packages you must have an iso image of the
>cd unless you want to do a network install (which I'm not planning on.) but what about slackware? If I have to have an iso image,
	>where do I get the cd images?