🚀 go-pugleaf

Just to inject a slightly different point of view.

|>I am currently seeking installing linux on my dos/win machine, and would
|
|*EXCELLENT* choice!  I salute you on your taste!   :-)
|
|>like some advice on which version of linux can be recommended, what
|>some advantages are of different versions, like caldera vs. slackware,etc.
|
|The rest of the disk series comprises of a range of applications in
|"sets" with things like editors, X windows, compilers and so on.  I
|regret using the distributions because they gave me heaps of junk that
|I don't need and/or don't know what they are for - I now need to
|carefully remove a lot of this.

Well, you do have the option to reject optional items at setup time.
IMO, most of the required items are really required. And if you want to
remove items later, it's no big deal with pkgtool. Unless you are very
tight on disk space, choosing most of the optionals will only cost you
50-100 Mb more, which you can recover later when you realise what
packages are of no use to you.

|Also, the distributions carry not-quite-the latest versions of many
|things.  Perhaps that's not a big deal, especially if you end up with
|a stable kernel and a configuration that suites your needs.

For most people I think the best way is to get something working and
then upgrade from there. Otherwise you may not know what to blame when
something goes wrong.

|More relevant to the present situation, there is currently a move from
|the current "a.out" shared library format, to something called ELF
|(read the faq about it).  I would strongly advise anyone to go with it
|right from the start if they can (and they now can!), as converting an
|a.out system to ELF requires very careful treading in delicate areas,
|recompiling just about everything you have, and having two sets of
|shared libraries on your system.

The HOWTO for upgrading to ELF is quite straightforward and you don't
have to recompile everything at one go, you can continue to use the old
a.out binaries and upgrade slowly. As for two sets of shared libraries,
that only cost some disk space.

|Stay away from the Linux 1.3.x development kernels (now at 1.3.21).
|They are unstable, believe me, on the bleeding edge of
|experimentation and beta-testing.

For beginners maybe, but I've been running a 1.3.x kernel with no
problems. For my friend, he had no choice because he had DDO6 on his
disk.

|Both of these Slackware versions come with gcc v2.6.3, and it known to
|be buggy.  The latest version is 2.7.0, and it appears to be a lot
|better.  Get the linux binary distribution (careful! - a.out or ELF!!)
|and install that instead of the `d' Slackware series.  The bugs in it
|haven't hit me yet (they are obscure"ish"), but it just means that I
|will have to upgrade it (manually).

All the gcc compilers have bugs. :-) But seriously, I haven't hit across
a problem caused by the 2.6.3 compiler and I have compiled quite a lot
of programs. Upgrading to ELF would be a good time to upgrade to
2.7.0.

|Perl in Slack 2.2 is a 4.x version, but 2.3 has perl5.  Perl 5.x would
|be the one to have.

Nope, 2.3 has Perl4.036. Another reason to go to ELF---you can have
loadable modules (with less hassles than dld) in Perl5. Then you
can run PerlTk.

|But don't let this put you off getting it!  The wonderful thing about
|linux is that you have the freedom to set up your system the way you
|want.  The distributions are a great start, so go with one of them -
|initially anyway.

Absolutely.