OK, i am looking to build a linux based pc, and i am a newb to the whole "LINUX ERA" so, from what i have read, some games...hardware and other stuff dont work with certian versions of LINUX...I am really looking to run Slackware on this system, so if anyone has that, can you give me a heads up to what you are running, and what doesnt work...also, does anyone have a screen shot of some of the stuff in slackware LINUX, i was wondering about the layout...ok, i gtg, so just wondering.
The look of slackware depends on which gui yopu decide to run (there are a few of them) The normal choice between kde and gnome, both of which are customisable so you can get it looking pretty much the way you want. The games that have a nix version work (Otherwise you could use wine) And as for hardware, I've had better experiences with slacky/manny than I have with windows in some cases, hardware support is good
ok, thats good news, but still, even though the whole desktop seems customizable, can someone please post a screen shot of their slackware desktop....just so i can get an idea, even though it may mean nothing....
in terms of gaming, i've never managed to get hardware opengl support installed under linux (i normally use redhat when i do, but have tried mandrake and suse aswell), apparently nvidia cards are better for their linux opengl support.
I'm not sure if ati cards even support linux drivers as of yet ? i dont own an ati card so i wouldnt know. With an Nvidia card it's a piece of cake. As for your first linux install being slackware..... i hightly reccomment you install something a "little" easier first of. something with a prettey gui to get you throught it. The disk partitioning of slackware might send your brain into some sort of comotose state if your not prepared for it the first time. It's quite simple acctually, just takes a little bit to get used to. good luck though.. p.s. Keep windows installed as well and dual boot with linux. That way if you cant get WineX (not wine as some here have said) to work then at least you wont be left without. (WineX is Wine with Direct X support)
I run redhat fedora and have got my ati radeon 9700 pro going with hardware support for opengl its not that bad to setup And fedora comes with a very good gui for installing and partitioning For gaming I would also recommend keeping windows because there are very few native installers for linux (unreal tournament 2004, quake 3, enemy territory, america’s army that’s all I can think of) so you would have to use winex for the rest and I have only gotten sim city 4 to work properly in that
well I just downloaded the drivers from ati and installed them following there guide if you haven’t done it before there is a good guide on the rage3d forum plus I used the 2.6 kernel as setting them up on any other version is near impossible
I was using shrike, and i tried every driver i could possibly find, that was about 4 months ago though. </offtopic> thanks.
Slackware is a very hard to use distro, as it requires lots of reading. You won't be able to do alot by pressign a button. Yor best friend will probably be 'man' and google. A lot of newbies choose Slackware of a reason beyond my knowledge. Many think they are cool if they run Slackware, mainly because a lot of "hackers" (script-kiddies) run it. If you would like a good-running, easy to use linux distro, choose RedHat9 or eventually Fedora. I don't like the latter, maybe I'm too much of a RH guy? Anyhow, it's a matter of personal taste. As suggested, take a chat on #linuxhelp at IRC, it exists at both the Undernet and EFNet networks. Also, google is your friend... And, good luck!!
Thanks j4ck...umm, either i wa snot clear or someone misunderstood, but this will be a low end pc, for essentially fun, practice building and case modding, and will be a dedicated linux machine. I will still have my laptop and my soon to be built gaming machine running on windows... Also, i have since my origional post changed my mind about slackware, i simply chose that because it looked intriuging, and at the time i had really done very little research on the linux distro's. I have considered others and i was wondering about redhat, what is the best version of it, i was at their site today, and was semi-confused with their many diffrent versions...(i hope this is understood) well, that where i'm at at this point.
The latest version of Red-Hat that was released was RH9.0 However this will be the last version as redhat partnered with somebody else (i forget who ) and are now going by the name Fedora. Apart from redhat you might also want to look at another user friendy distro called Mandrake. The newest version is 9.2 which i havent yet tried myself. EDIT : Mandrake 10 .... not 9.2
yes, i need the most user friendly version of linux, just the basics so i can get used to it, then i will move up to a "Big Boy" distro of LINUX... UPDATE: I was looking around my house, and i realized that i can use an old comp that i got for free from my old neighbor..(i love free stuff) and, it will require only minimal upgrades...more stuff on that later.
rh9 and fedora are very similar fedora has all the same components as rh9 and the installer is almost exactly the same
