Forgive for I have sinned.....................

[Pita]

Since early last year I am happy user of VL-5.8 comning over from slackware.
Soon after Vl-5.9 came out and I was supposed to make again new install for which I
was not prepared. So I stayed on with VL58, however  realized I have to
move to higher spheres if I want to use more secure and better programs, like skype with
a digicam.

I purchased two versions of VL-59, however, in some way they did not feel good for me.
Besides I dislike uneven numbers.

So I tried to look for other distros. I installed Mandriva and it would not boot since it
 had a bug in the kernel, believe it or not. A brand new release. Junked it.

Went to my old friend Fedora which had grown to be a real monster. I aborted the installation
when I asked me for 5 CDs. And their GUI installer should surely not be copied. Not user
friendly.

Went back to slackware-12.1 since for some reason I can't print anymore in VL58 and that distro
has  quite a few old programs I am used to readily installed which I have to pull over into VL, like xpaint, xv, joe ,
mailx you name it every time there is a new version.

Now I am looking forward to VL-6-LIGHT to replace my VL5.8. I have the gut feeling
I will be happy in it again. I need a GUI installer like another  hole in the head.

Now my printer port on the MOBO apparently got bust. Luckily I have a spare USB adapter
cable handy. Will check if this was the reason VL58 would not print anymore, so VL6-L-alpha still did
till yesterday and than conked out as well.

The gist... go VL go.

[kidd]

(...)however  realized I have to
move to higher spheres if I want to use more secure and better programs, like skype with
a digicam.

Hopefully from 6.0 on, we'll be able to provide packages for old vl's for longer time.  The secret is automating the builds

I did a kind of autobuilder that's beeing used to package some parts of vl6 repo (hey! thanks for testing rbistolfi It does dep checking, so it compiles new versions of deps if needed.  I think if we work a bit on that program, we'll support vl6.0 at least 2 versions ahead.

I have mixed feelings about graphical installer ... We'll have good old CLI installer too, so no problem    

[bigpaws]

Pita

Check that the parallel port is listed in lsmod.
Bigpaws

[Windozer]

As someone else mentioned in this thread - I'm not surprised by the other distro's having issues. We've got 6 machines here, ranging from a near pre-historic pentium mmc to a multi-gHz screamer. I've eval'ed a ton of other distro's and they *bomb* in similar ways to what most everyone has mentioned here.  Even my DOS box boots and runs better than some!  Actually, was very surprised that the Fedora and Red-Hat stuff was SO gnarly - took four or five attempts to install. Strange.

VL wins hands down, imho.   - I'm not intending any distro dissing here, btw 

Maybe this isn't the right thread to ask, but what is done differently in VL - or slackware in general - that makes it run (or seem to run) so much faster than other distro's?  Is the X-gui stuff running higher priority, giving a snapper UI --- or is there some kernal scheduling trick that just zips along more merrily than most?

What really surprised me was how SLOW Gentoo is --- isn't that one supposed to be a developers' dream OS?  Or maybe they leave the speed-up tweeking as an excercise 

cheers,
Howard in Florida

[Pita]

Pita

Check that the parallel port is listed in lsmod.
Bigpaws

Thanks! It's all in place. See my post about it under Office & Printing.