Purpose of Slackware?

[rjensen11]

What is Slakware's main purpose? Who is it aimed for? I havn't been able to figure this out yet. Is it targeted as being specifically a web server? Or for business? Or is it targeted for residencial home computers?

 

[Shannon]

Slakware?

 

[rjensen11]

Please, if you don't know what it is, don't reply.

 

[Jordan]

I think it's just a Linux distribution designed with stability and ease of use in mind. I doubt you'll find it being used for anything other than webserving, although I'm probably wrong about that. See this page for a bit more information.

 

[LoudMusic]

Originally posted by rjensen11
Please, if you don't know what it is, don't reply.

Well that's kind of rude.

But anyway .... I believe slackware was originally a pretty bland distribution. Sort of a "build your own" thing that only included the necassary tools. I haven't installed it in a long time. I've gone pretty much to Mandrake for playing with Linux on the desktop, and Red Hat or FreeBSD for servers.

A friend of mine tells me gentoo is pretty cool. Supposedly it downloads and installs everything from source code, so it's all custom for your machine. The theory is that it'll be extra lean and clean, super fast, yadda yadda. Meh, Mandrake makes it easy.

 

[rjensen11]

Originally posted by LoudMusic
...Meh, Mandrake makes it easy.

Yeah, but I'm looking for a free OS, and Mandrake costs something like $40 or $80, I forget. Anyway, if I can find it mirrored on some other site for free, I'll look into it.

Jordan, thanks for the link, but I already looked through their site and didn't see if Slackware was targeted toward residential servers, commercial servers, business PC's, or home PC's. I'll dig around some more and tell you if I find anything.
I just wish that they didn't make it so complicated for installing, RedHat was easy... For this one, you practically need to purchase the OS soley for the book. But I'm thinking I'll save a few steps by reformatting with Partition Magic before hand and move everything off of the HDD I'm going to use. Wish me luck when I upgrade!