Vector Linux.

[Craige]

Anybody ever try out Vector Linux before? I am downloading it now. Fedora has never been working correctly. Maybe something currupt on the disk. It would not be able to locate packages it said were installed, or just say packages were installed that wern't. Also it uses up most of my memory while idley sitting (I only have 256 at this time). So I have decided I need to download a new OS. I came across Vector Linux, and it looks to be a pretty decent light weight system. Has anybody ever tried it?

http://www.vectorlinux.com/

[Ravens-Grin]

I've never heard of vector linux, but I have been running slackware for a while now. Saying that vector linux is derived from slackware, I'd say it should be a pretty good flavor of linux. Have fun experimenting!

[jarrydn]

I must say, I am ever so slightly intrigued :)

[thoughtpolice]

Shameless plug:

ArchLinux.

[kerorogunsu]

what r u talking about???

[Shaun]

id love to try linux..
but it all sounds way to complicated to get installed and running..
then have to learn to use it!

[whatthedeuce]

Don't try it. It's horrible. I had it installed on my computer for about a week before I got rid of it. There's not a single thing out of the ordinary about it, except the fact that it's package repository doesn't seem to have anything you want to install in it.

[Inglor]

I might give it a shot

[liam]

At 4/21/06 01:52 AM, madknt wrote: id love to try linux..
but it all sounds way to complicated to get installed and running..
then have to learn to use it!

Download something like Virtual PC (free trial at Microsoft.com - Google et) then download an .iso to something like Damn Small Linux. That's what I did - I prefer Windows but DSL is pretty good, it's amazing how they fit so much in just 50mb..

[Absorb]

At 4/21/06 01:52 AM, madknt wrote: id love to try linux..
but it all sounds way to complicated to get installed and running..
then have to learn to use it!

You can get CDs from ubuntu.com.
CDs are free, so is shipping.
It uses GNOME so it's easier.

[Craige]

At 4/21/06 03:41 AM, whatthedeuce wrote: Don't try it. It's horrible. I had it installed on my computer for about a week before I got rid of it. There's not a single thing out of the ordinary about it, except the fact that it's package repository doesn't seem to have anything you want to install in it.

From what I saw, it's packages did not look to be that bad off really. And still, there are tarballs of pretty much every linux-available software available. Just because it does not come with the packaged software you want, does not mean you should give up on it.

[Alcalde]

Oh god... vector linux...

I used that a while ago. For a month. My computer was stuck with it because I had lost my CD binder, and it didn't work with my wireless card, so I was without internet access to download a new ISO. I don't really live near anyone willing to lend me their computer and bandwidth for that long a time to download an ISO and I kept on trying to shuffle my partitions around to keep my data. I eventually ended up borrowing someone's external DVD drive to back up my data (Vector had no CD burning software which worked) and using an MCN live CD to burn the data. It was horrible.

Vector = good eye candy boot screen and login screen, and nice backgrounds, and a good array of terminals, too. But the drivers are shit.

Sound didn't work for me. Internet didn't work for me. Printing (surprise, surprise) didn't work. The X server originally didn't work at all. Once I got it to work by messing around with it enough, it couldn't use the full resolution available to my monitor. My cooling hardware just stopped working on me when I installed it. Nevermind anything like screen brightness or hibernation or sleep or hotkeys or anything like that. No, that was beyond possibility. Now I was using a Toshiba Sattelite laptop, and your mileage may vary from mine. Vector might work on your hardware for all I know. But don't count on it.

Not only that, Vector's "control center" or whatever it's called isn't nearly as useful as they crack it up to be. It's obfuscated, redundant at times, doesn't work at times (and that's the important thing) doesn't change the things it's supposed to, or doesn't change them the right way.

I used the standard edition. The SoHo edition is likely to have more eyecandy and certainly will have more software, but I doubt it will have much more functionality when it comes to the actual system itself, which, when it came to functionality, sucked.

Do yourself a favor: unless you don't mind having your computer locked up a hard-to-manage distro, and you'll only be wanting to work from the terminal, and you're fine connecting to the internet all the time solely via ethernet, and having trouble with that connection nevertheless, don't waste your time on Vector linux. Yes, it can be fast, and efficient, and it's got it's eye candy. But the interior coding is so lacking in substance (in part because of its slackware base which asks of the user to configure their hardware on their own damn time) that it's just not worth it if you can't get your hardware going.

[whatthedeuce]

At 4/21/06 07:10 PM, Craige wrote:

At 4/21/06 03:41 AM, whatthedeuce wrote: Don't try it. It's horrible. I had it installed on my computer for about a week before I got rid of it. There's not a single thing out of the ordinary about it, except the fact that it's package repository doesn't seem to have anything you want to install in it.

From what I saw, it's packages did not look to be that bad off really. And still, there are tarballs of pretty much every linux-available software available. Just because it does not come with the packaged software you want, does not mean you should give up on it.

There's not a single reason to use Vector Linux. It didn't appear to run any faster than Ubuntu/Debian (I'm running Debian right now) despite it's many claims, it didn't have any of the packages I wanted to use (sure I could build them from source, but why when there are good tools like apt around?), and it didn't even look good. The only thing it has going for it is that firefox came fully tuned up with multimedia (which take about 10 minutes to do on any other distro I've used).

[Craige]

At 4/21/06 07:27 PM, Alcalde wrote: Stuff

Hmm, maybe it is not a good choice then. I really need a new system install though. What flavors are recomended by those more frimilar with Linux?

[whatthedeuce]

At 4/21/06 11:53 PM, Craige wrote:

At 4/21/06 07:27 PM, Alcalde wrote: Stuff

Hmm, maybe it is not a good choice then. I really need a new system install though. What flavors are recomended by those more frimilar with Linux?

Ubuntu. It's easy to get set up, it uses apt, and it has a massive community to help you if you ever have a problem.

[White-Rhyno]

I run Slackware with WindowMaker. Then I change my monitor settings to monochrome and pretend it's 1990 and I'm John Carmack programming Doom.

[Craige]

At 4/22/06 02:36 AM, whatthedeuce wrote: Ubuntu. It's easy to get set up, it uses apt, and it has a massive community to help you if you ever have a problem.

I have heard it is not that gerat either, by others on this forum.

[thoughtpolice]

Ubuntu is fine, most people don't like it because it doesn't come with GCC or something, which can be installed with trivial work.

Again, I'd recommend ArchLinux, it's fairly easy to set up, and really a damn good distro (excellent package management and very minimal.) Upgrading an entire system is just a 'pacman -Syu' away.

[whatthedeuce]

As SrgntJack said, people don't like Ubuntu because it doesn't come with gcc (all it takes to install is apt-get install build-essential) and because it installs Gnome by default (again, all it takes to install kde is apt-get install kubuntu-desktop, and all it takes to install xfce is apt-get install xubuntu-desktop).

Personally, I've never used ArchLinux, so I can't comment on it.

[Craige]

At 4/22/06 05:18 PM, SrgntJack wrote: Again, I'd recommend ArchLinux, it's fairly easy to set up, and really a damn good distro (excellent package management and very minimal.) Upgrading an entire system is just a 'pacman -Syu' away.

I will give it a try. I am downloading it now.

[Craige]

Oh, shit. I didn't realise that was a 64 bit system. That is not going to work.