SEUL: SUEL: Install part trois

[Greg Bell <winston@atlantic.net>]

Installation Experiences, part III
Type of  Distribution: Slackware 3.2
Installation Media: CDROM
Equipment: Pentium MMX 166
                  8 bit soundblaster card
                  HD: 2.1 Gig & 700meg Western Digital drives
                  12xCDROM
                  Memory: 96 Megs
                  Video Card: Matrox Milleneium (4 meg)
                  Moniter: Princeton Graphics System EO50
                  Modem: Internal 36.6 data/fax/voice
                  Mass Storage: External ZIP drive

NOTE: This is my preferred linux distribution so what follows may, ah
hell probably is, prejudiced towards it.

Observations:
Installation of Slackware begins with two floppies (not supplied).

Once linux is loaded on a ramdisk you then begin the installation (with
a message about setting a partition for linux to reside on). By entering
'setup' you are placed in the installation program.

(NOTE: the entire distribution is already seperated into 13 seperate
'categories' such as base, development, info, Xwindows, Xwindows apps,
etc.  The entire disk set consists of 89 1.4 floppies)

The installation program itself is an Ncurses program so you have a
graphical interface to work from.  By using the arrow keys you can
select options to preform such as setting up a swap partition, setting
up a boot partition, selection of packages to install etc. etc. etc

The setting up of the swap/boot partitions goes as expected without much
problem.  The strong point, in my opinion, is the package selection.
During package selection you are first presented with a selection screen
that asks which of the 13 packages you want to install(with default
values).  After selecting the packages to install you are then asked
which programs from the selected packages to install.  This is presented
either as a default check list (that you can modify) or a listing of the
seperate packages (with the defaults alright set).
After selection of packages to install the installation program then
proceeds to install the selected packages (building a rudimentary
package tracking system at the same time).  Once installation of the
selected packages/programs is completed (about 5 minutes on my system)
you then proceed to configure your mouse, modem. timezone, and network
(only really works on an ethernet network), setup hostname, etc., etc.,
etc..  You are also presented with a choice to alter your display font.

Comparison of Installations preformed so far:

Of the three distributions that I have installed thus far (Debian,
RedHat, and Slackware) the easiest by far was the RedHat distribution,
the most difficult what Slackware. Debian falls short because of the
number of disks needed to install the 'base' system.

RedHat and Debian install a predetermined set of programs that are
deemed the user wants and this may cause a problem when the user wants
something that is not covered by the 'base' installation.

Both RedHat and Slackware give the user more freedom in the design of
their Linux system by the selection of seperate packages.


///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

NOTE: this completes the BIG 3 installations, if you feel that this type
of observation/comparison is a good idea I will continue with other
distributions.  Just let me know

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

            Greg


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