I did some research and found out that Debian is supposed to also be a very challenging distro like Slackware which claims to be "the most unix like distro" out. Which do you guys think is the best/stable distro, Debian or Slackware and why? i am downloading the beta "woody" ISO's for Debain and going to try it out on my second machine, second hard disk. I tried installing Slackware *8* on that second computer but when i ran "cfdisk" to make my Linux ext partitions it only showed up my primary master hard disk, but my primary slave hard disk wasn't listed and i have no idea how to make it POP UP instead of the master which i am not doing to mess up since i have a Windows 2000 Pro install on there. Tks!

well, Slackware is the most Unix like.. but Debian is a very or the most robust linux out there. Its harder than Slack to install and definitely the hardest distro to work with... well its not actually a distro.. but hardest version of Linux to use.

Both are very stable, as which all Linux Distros and Version are.

Good Luck, if you couldn't get Slack installed, you'll have a harder time with Debian.

Damnit!!! none of these cd burning programs included in Mandrake 8.1, X-CDroast, and gcombust work right. cdroast stalls when checking for the cd, and for gcombust i get SCSI errors, i dont know are these programs just for SCSI burners? I have a HP cdWriter Plus 9350i, its a 10x8x32 speed i believe, i know its old but it works.

gcombust from md81 works fine for me, and you'll always get scsi errors as cd burning uses scsi bus emulation

There should be no question which distro to install, you should install Slackware 8.0, It s the best by far!!!

About "cfdisk" , your windows hard disk is going to be /dev/hda1 and the second disk ( that has linux on it ) is /dev/hdb1 so when you run cfdisk you should run this command-------- cfdisk /dev/hdb1---------- yoou just need to tell it which drive to format, any more problems just post back here!!!

Thanks, ill try when i return home, i'm stuck in school now

It didnt work with /dev/hdb1 and i tried lots of other ones that seemed logical. So i am installing Debian "Woody" beta release on my second machine as we speak. The INSTALL is definatly EASIER than slack...we'll see what happens. I can be a beta tester since i have two hard disks on the other machine (i.e. I dont have to mess up my windows 2000 install).

P.S. The reason the cdwriter software wasnt working was becuase it needed 'root' previlages to access the cdburner.

DEBIAN WOODY = Failure, it keeps saying it has a curropted file even tho i specified the FTP site as a location to get it from...oh well.


Just double checked the md5 sum and noticed that it was a bad downloaded .raw file!!! oh well i got like 50 pack of cdrs from the computer show for $16;....grrr all of the ones were bad...

I am going to try FreeBSD Linux it is supposed to be the best...better than Slackware.

hmm.. i seem to have a habit of being picky with you therion ehh? well FreeBSD isn't linux, it's a version of BSD, which is an equivalent to linux. don't erally know much about it tho... it's generally got less pretty things on it, but is more secure.

I got a buddy on MadOnion forums who uses FreeBSD and claims he is a "hacker". He's got KDE set up on it, Quake3 and everything you'd expect from a typical linux distro although i know its not exactly Linux.

just to let you know though.. FreeBSD, based directly off Unix, you have to basically configure everything after the install.. really no GUI tools to help you out with it either...it is more secure though, good luck..

Heheh, actually the whole installation process was easy..much easier than Slack 8 which i couldnt even get to format my partitions right. mmmm my USB Mouse i still cant get to work though.

It asked me if i am using a USB mouse and i clicked yes and then it brought up another screen with parameters i need to choose like which COM its on and stuff...im stuck ( Maybe ill try to use the USB--->PS/2 adapter to get it working right.

About the cfdisk problem, I had the same prob, The command is cfdisk /dev/hdb not hdb1, your cfdisk'ing a disk not a partition.

I tried FreeBSD early on in my linux learning, and i was lost. it was a few years ago, before i got to know solaris and the easier distro's of linux. I still use redhat on some of my machines just because I dont want the downtime. I just recently installed Slack on my laptop and am very happy with it, and yesterday i blew away my win2k file server and installed slack with samba, and its humming away nicely, serveing files and running setiathome. With windows it would lock up when someone
would try to even browse the shared drives, with seti running.

I tried SuSE, reah hat and Slackware so far. When i started 2 years ago i used SuSE, it was easy and i liked it, then i tried RH and after 2 days got rid of it, it looked like crap for me, and quite slow too..

Then i got Slackware, the best! It's a real bitch to configure, and im still trying after 6+ months to get DRI and OpenGL in slack with a voodoo2, but its the fastest and simplest, as in all the configuration files are were they are supposed to be, not in some starnge places. To setup X xf86config works but one has to always edit the XF86Config file because it xf86config just never got everything right, but after editing the file everything is great (except OpenGL that is)

Another problem with X, I tried today to get two monitors working, each with a seperate X session on. It didnt work, i still have to try some things but if i fail i will ask for help later.

I heard Debian is pretty hard, equivalent to slackware and it has a GREAT software update/install system (apt-get if im not wrong) I will try it as soon as i get another HD. Now i have slack8, suse 7.1, win98 (for games), and win2k (to check devices and get device info such as adress, DMA, IRQ so its easier to set them up in linux) and i use slackware's LILO (mbr) to boot up, works flawlessly. (Never forget to run /sbin/lilo after modyfing lilo.conf to apply the changes!!!)

Ohh and yes, im new, so hello to everyone and i know its late but happy new year too!!!

p.s. I've used rpm2tgz (slackware) a coulpe of times cuz i had to, it seems it works well but im not 100% it is, any input on this?

Gave Debian a try, i didn't bother to check my download and mine was curropted so it didnt finish the install.

Debian was pretty easy for people who can figure things out, complete newbie friendly? i think not, but its not too hard.

UPDATE on FreeBSD. I have it installed with KDE, and yes i got my mouse to work. it took alittle bit of trial and error editing the xf86config file which is in /etc/xf86config & NOT in /etc/X11/xf86config which got me stumped for alittle bit and then i knew that if i ran Startx (knowing it will give me errors), it will at least show me into what directory is it scanning for to get the XF86Config-4 file and i was right.

The system i installed freeBSD 4.4 is the following:

Pentuim 3 733@800
256MB RAM
VOODOO 5 AGP <---this one is a bugger to get set up
Linksys LNE100TX v.2
Gamesurround Muse XL (CMI8387 chipset)
Asus CUSL2 815i Solano 2 (rules)

Everything works pretty good in FreeBSD, But my video mode is in crappy 256 colors and like 400x300 res. But i need to know the COMMAND to bring up the GRAPHICAL xf86config utility...i forgot what it was and the text one really doesn't get much done and is a huge hassle which in the other one i can just click away since i have the mouse working. THX.