Archive for December, 2010
People sometimes ask which distribution to try if they want to learn how Linux works. Common answers are Gentoo, Arch, or Debian. However, I disagree. Each of these distros teach users their particular brand of Linux. There’s only one truly pure Linux, and that is Slackware. Slackware is the oldest surviving Linux distribution. In its [ READ MORE ]
Introduction From Wikipedia: Slackware is a free and open source operating system. It was one of the earliest operating systems to be built on top of the Linux kernel and is the oldest currently being maintained. Slackware was created by Patrick Volkerding of Slackware Linux, Inc. in 1993. The current stable version is 13.1, released [ READ MORE ]
The Debian development community has officially released version 5.0 of the venerable open source Linux distribution. The new version, which is codenamed Lenny, includes updated software, security enhancements, and improved hardware support. Debian is known for its broad architecture support, lengthy development cycles, and strong ideological commitment to software freedom. Debian provides the foundation for [ READ MORE ]
Slackware is old. No really, it’s OLD! If you’re used to the likes of Ubuntu or any of the other modern GNU/Linux systems, setting up Slackware would seem like you’re back in the early 90s. Some will argue that Ubuntu and the rest that try to make life easier for desktop users don’t give that [ READ MORE ]
This week Gentoo Foundation joined Open Invention Network as a licensee. OIN is an organization which helps protect the Linux ecosystem by building a variety of defenses against patent attacks. These defenses include both traditional mechanisms, like defensive patent pools, and more innovative approaches, like the Linux Defenders project, which uses a variety of methods [ READ MORE ]
The Microsoft Windows operating system is developed and released by a single company. It comes with a minimal set of applications (a calculator, a few games, some networking tools, an Internet browser.. etc). Other software can be obtained by users from various sources and installed on the operating system. GNU/Linux is different. A GNU/Linux operating [ READ MORE ]
Gentoo Gentoo is often said to be not a distribution so much as a philosophy. If so, that philosophy may be that of FreeBSD, from which it originally developed its emphasis on security and optimization. First released in 2002, it quickly gained a reputation as a geek’s distro, largely because it required all packages to [ READ MORE ]
Linux creator Linus Torvalds gave an interview in which he talked about what he likes and doesn’t like in a Linux distribution: I’ve used different distributions over the years. Right now I happen to use Fedora 9 on most of the computers I have, which really boils down to the fact that Fedora had fairly [ READ MORE ]
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