Yeah Phantasm, I think I'm gonna stick with Slackware from now on...as for programming I'm gonna learn Python probably, because it is pretty easy and yet quite powerful.

That sounds like a good plan. Look at Perl as well, that would be nice.

Yeah, that'll be later on...oh wait:
[url]http://hardware.localhost.nl/index.php?ct=nothing&pic=/pictures/Miscellaneous/****_mod_perl.jpg[/url]

Hehe...yeah, I found this page called How to Be a Hacker (not that kind of hacker, you're probably thinking cracker) that listed some good programming languages to learn...here's the link to that (it's actually a good read):
[url]http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html[/url]

Funnily enough, I read that very document for the first time today.

Wait, you mean you read it before I posted it?

I mean I happened upon that very document for the first time just today.

It was hosted on a different server, but I was reading it just today. It was a good read.


Its got a good message. Basically.... get to grips with some powerful stuff like C++ and UNIX, but use it in a mature and adult fashion. That's what a "hacker" is - a "cracker" however is a person who uses these things to do malicious damage, basically being a stupid kid. Learn to be a "hacker" - a geek with a keen mind and a powerful grasp of computing, and use it in a positive and interesting, fruitful way, that benefits the whole computing community.

Sorry about going off topic, but he did ask.





I am sure that Debian does this as well - basically, you can download an image for a floppy disk, boot from it, use it to get your system prepped for an installation, and then it downloads source code and compiles everything for you, following exactly your specifications.

This gives you a lot of control over what sort of OS you are building up, but at the same time, makes it harder and less attractive for people to write compatible applications, drivers, etc for the OS in question.

A lot of hardware manufacturers only offer Linux drivers for very stablished, market leaders like Red Hat, etc. Sometimes, they only support the stock kernel that was installed as part of the "out of the box" install - i.e. you can't use a kernel you have compiled by hand. Certainly, a RAID controller card I just got from Promise had exactly this problem, and only wanted to work with the stock kernel that came along with Red Hat 9.

Even although I might get shot for this, I sometimes think that Linux (with all of its different distros) is too diverse, and could benefit from some consolidation.

Yeah, after I read that article I was like, "Hey. I'm 75% hacker!" So I decided to 1. Use Linux (instead of Windows) and 2. Learn some more programming.

Don't waste any more time not getting STUCK RIGHT INTO PROGRAMMING, especially C++, Java, C#, etc. I deeply regret neglecting it for a while. Look to perl, php, etc as well, but only to suppliment C++, which if you are learning to program, is truly the way forward.

C++, when combined with an operating system like Linux, being heavily UNIX based, is a very powerful combination, and you can start to do some very interesting things.

Sorry, off topic again I know.....

I'm starting out with Python .

If you are using Slackware, try installing dropline gnome - its got a nice dropline-installer program that can automatically get updates, etc.

But my favourate update delivery system is still red carpet from Ximian Gnome.

Cool, I'll look into that