After a year I’ve been using Ubuntu 7.04 on my company laptop, I think this is a time for me to change to something better. Actually, I can choose between Ubuntu 8.04 (just received this week) and Slackware 12. I like Ubuntu and I admit, Ubuntu really help me a lot for the past year. I’ve had no problem to do project implementation and doing support at customer site with Ubuntu. Remote support, VMware-server, project documentation all can be done with Ubuntu. But, why I still prefer Slackware?

If you have an experience with Slackware, probably you will notice that Slack is not for newbie. The installation wise is bit confusing, not easy as much as Ubuntu and you may give up with it even during installation process but nevertheless, I’m having so much fan with Slack.

The first thing I did when finished with the installation is “Kernel Compilation”.
Go for KDE instead Gnome is another factor why Slack favorite to me even though I knew we can have it with Kbuntu. This is down to memory usage handle by Slack on my Acer Turion laptop seems a lot better than Ubuntu. Not to forget, KDE desktop manager make me to recall back my sweet time while using Slax Linux Kill Bill in 2006, ohh kopete, superkaramba, konqueror, kwrite and etc, I really miss that time.

Hardware detection works as expected except for Suyin camera & atheros wifi card. But hey! Headache is still there especially sound driver that need some tweak before I can use it. Open Office 2.4.1 package only work if you using OO from slackbuild.org and the icon in the panel you have to add it manually. Unlike Ubuntu you can’t download packages and straightly use it. On some cases, you may need to make slack build first, then install it using pkgtool or installpkg.

Since this laptop will be used for my daily job, I really need vmware-server to be installed and till now, I’m still working on it. Even after kernel recompile, vmware patch with vmware-any-any-xxx the vmmon issue still can’t be resolved.

After all headache, I’m glad to be one of rarely Slackware user.

athlon_crazy 12/10/2008 12:18PM