New poll for Indianlc

[Anand Avati]

> 
> Thats really nice to know. Btw after reading your mails I am now 
> itching to try out slackware. 

will count that as a potential convert !

> How good is the developement environment in slackware?

what kind of development? overall - good.. it has compilers for
c/c++/fortran/java (the entire gcc collection), with decent amount of
'helper's like ctags/cscope etc, its got emacs :D, guile!!, autotools,
and ofcourse python/perl etc.. also gprof, gdb (x bindings) and the
develpment header/libs of all softwares what it ships.. even stuff
like dist-cc .. not to mention cvs/svn.. on the X side its got glade
for gtk/gnome RAD, bluefish, gimp (for graphics dev)..

not sure if these were what you were looking for as a dev env..

i'v used slackware on my devlopment machine at my work places whever
i've been.. the compilers dint help me much 'at office' since all my
works have been on custom toolchains and libs for embedded
systems/routers/gateways or for building custom live distros.. but it
gave me the right environemnt (light runtime, without loading a
helluvalot stuff on boot) to enter 'screen' and glory away with emacs
leaving all the CPU just for my compiler [and emacs :P]

interstingly, it also makes an excellent server distro, and if you are
an old-school type of admin, you'll love it, it even ships uucp [fyi:
i still uucp my mails, hate smtp!] .. the fact of the matter is that
it comes with 'least-distro-policies' .. kinda 'unmoulded' .. its up
to you how you do the shaping of it..

after being a continous 7 year slack veteran, it makes me believe
slackware is the 'last of the unix' .. sad to say rest of the distros
are taking away the 'unix feel' in GNU/Linux.. for those who'r not
aware, slackware is a one-man show! its built and maintained by
patrick volkerding single handed and no 'team'.. so it has fortunately
NOT lost focus in its 'simple stable secure' philosophy with time..


> Btw has anyone tried out new SUN Solaris 10. Its open source now.

unfortunately, solaris doesnt bring along the 'freedom' of GPL and
freesoftware.. its practically as good as 'read-only' source code.

Cheers!
o
--
Anand V. Avati
http://hardcodecafe.com/~avati