Thursday, May 17, 2012

Missing me some Slackware...

I haven't played with Slackware in quite awhile.  I still run a server through Linode.com but I no longer have Slackware installed as an OS (I'm using Ubuntu for ease of use...yes, it is easier to maintain compared to Slackware and I've not run into any 'gotchas' yet).  I run one machine that has Slackware installed (it's sorely in need of an update, though) and it is being used as a NIDS system.  I've another machine with Slack on it that hasn't been turned on in months (it's OS version is even older than the other system).  I'll probably turn on this system and begin to use it again, but it is in very sore need of cleaning (it has 4-5 hard disks with data ALL over the place).

I'm trying to resist the urge to run Slackware in a VM on my Alienware system.  It will require me to probably get more RAM (I'm trying to resist that idea for now).  I do not want to attempt a native install, as I don't feel like experimenting to get Slack to work on that system.  The integrated and dedicated GPUs will probably be an immediate issue, as well as the fact that my system is running two 750GB drives in RAID0.  And, that is also my gaming system.  There's no real need for me to install Slackware natively on my system.  But, I will definitely install Cygwin, since I can leverage it's tools (such as GnuPG) without having to open a shell and have an internet connection.  Cygwin is the less complicated of the aforementioned options.

But I am missing using Slackware, which is why I've been trying to be more active at ##slackware on irc.freenode.net.  The thing is, I also have a fetish for Open- and FreeBSD, so I've been focusing on both of those the past few years.