2.6.23 kernel

[Ed Greshko]

Somebody wrote....

> http://polls.ausics.net/v7.php     <-- RH lags way behind, when a few
> years ago it would have killed al hte competition, but shit happens when
> you let politics dictate your distro.

Of course that poll is biased....  Besides half of the world can't access it
due to the xenophobic nature of the admins.

One should look to a more neutral site such as distrowatch....

Rank  	Distribution  	H.P.D*
1 	PCLinuxOS 	2808>
2 	Ubuntu 	        2389>
3 	openSUSE 	1508>
4 	Fedora 	        1239>
5 	Sabayon 	1125<
6 	Mint 	        1032<
7 	Debian 	        896<
8 	Mandriva 	778>
9 	MEPIS 	        745<
10 	Damn Small 	631>
11 	Slackware 	561=
12 	CentOS 	        486<
13 	Zenwalk 	482

One should also read the review on that site of the various distributions.
For slackware....

Slackware Linux, created by Patrick Volkerding in 1992, is the oldest
surviving Linux distribution. Forked from the now-discontinued SLS project,
Slackware 1.0 came on 24 floppy disks and was built on top of Linux kernel
version 0.99pl11-alpha. It quickly became the most popular Linux
distribution, with some estimates putting its market share to as much as 80%
of all Linux installations in 1995. Its popularity decreased dramatically
with the arrival of Red Hat Linux and other, more user-friendly
distributions, but Slackware Linux still remains a much-appreciated
operating system among the more technically-oriented system administrators
and desktop users.

Slackware Linux is a highly technical, clean distribution, with only a very
limited number of custom utilities. It uses a simple, text-based system
installer and a comparatively primitive package management system that does
not resolve software dependencies. As a result, Slackware is considered one
of the cleanest and least buggy distributions available today - the lack of
Slackware-specific enhancements reduces the likelihood of new bugs being
introduced into the system. All configuration is done by editing text files.
There is a saying in the Linux community that if you learn Red Hat, you'll
know Red Hat, but if you learn Slackware, you'll know Linux. This is
particularly true today when many other Linux distributions keep developing
heavily customised products to meet the needs of less technical Linux users.

While this philosophy of simplicity has its fans, the fact is that in
today's world, Slackware Linux is increasingly becoming a "core system" upon
which new, custom solutions are built, rather than a complete distribution
with a wide variety of supported software. The only exception is the server
market, where Slackware remains popular, though even here, the
distribution's complex upgrade procedure and lack of officially supported
automated tools for security updates makes it increasingly uncompetitive.
Slackware's conservative attitude towards the system's base components means
that it requires much manual post-installation work before it can be tuned
into a modern desktop system.

    * Pros: Highly stable, clean and bug-free, strong adherence to UNIX
principles
    * Cons: Limited number of officially supported applications;
conservative in terms of base package selection; complex upgrade procedure;
no official 64-bit edition
    * Software package management: "pkgtools" using TGZ (TAR.GZ) packages
    * Available editions: Installation CDs and DVD for 32-bit (i486) processors
    * Suggested Slackware-based alternatives: Zenwalk Linux (desktop),
VectorLinux (desktop), SLAX (live CD), Slamd64 Linux (64-bit), Bluewhite64
Linux (64-bit), Wolvix (desktop, live CD), GoblinX (desktop, live CD)
    * Other distributions with similar philosophies: Arch Linux, Frugalware
Linux, KateOS

Copyright © 2007 Ladislav Bodnar.