[Gllug] Re: Alcatel SpeedTouch on Slackware 10

Henry Gilbert henry.gilbert at gmail.com
Fri Nov 18 09:11:02 UTC 2005


On 11/18/05, Doug Winter <doug at pigeonhold.com> wrote:
> It sounds like you are going to a huge amount of effort compiling
> kernels here.  Why don't you use vendor kernels?  I've found the debian
> ones to be quite sufficient for most uses, and using them saves a lot of
> time (and risk in screwing up).  I know lesser distros don't provide the
> same range of kernels, but I'm sure whatever you are using must have a
> recent mainline 2.6 with what you need?
>
> doug.
>

Hi Doug

Thanks for the input. The machine is relative low spec. And I started
getting the feeling that different distros suits different situations
and machines. Whilst Debian ended up being the best choice for a
crippled Packard Bell laptop (setting pcmcia in Slackware was short of
a nightmare), I subsequently found Slackware the best choice for this
machine in this case; it made the Desktop extremely fast (provided
you've tweaked and trimmed the kernel). Also NVidia proprietory
installed without a problem, but previously Debian kept spitting out
the venom. I had to reinstall the driver on each reboot. Being a
speed-junkie, a permanent NVidia driver scoring 270fps (instead of
55Fps, 88Fps on Debian) and the promise of the modem working with this
distro (after all it does with 2.4.31 untweaked) - I thought maybe
Slackware found a home here.

Had a similar experience looking for a perfect distro for a specific
laptop. And that was Fedora 4 on a Samsung P28 worked like a dream -
as long as you don't install ATI proprietory drivers (for some reason,
everything goes wrong if you do). Also in that case had to install
proprietory OSS drivers; which worked when Alsa crashed. Yes there
were loads of kernel recompiling - - but the end result was a charming
fast-responsive that made me eventually green with jealousy. I never
find time to tweak my own Linux system; everyone else's gets
beautifully optimized, nicely decorated + the best apps ever.
Mine own just sucks :(

HG

(ps: maybe I put such effort in the hope they really don't contemplate
going back to Windows - and if they do, they miss Linux terribly. I
can't relax until the OS is at its' most optimal settings)
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