Stepping up on the Geek Ladder

Hi Folks

You know what? I'm writing this from a CVS-self build of Enlightenment DR17 WM running atop my sandboxed Slackware 11 install !

I feel good. I should actually feel proud of me or something for achieving running one of the most respectfully regarded distro out there with a self-compiled up-to-date version of the most advanced WindowManager out here, but I do not:

- Slackware is not that difficult to install, and the 2.4.33 kernel does a good job, being the standard Slack one, choose it & it will reward you with a working solution.

- && Slack _is_ indeed the developper/hacker tool of choice: it means that for once, after so many attempt at compiling anything from small to serious, over many distros, I achieved compiling some 140mb of data into one workin' environnement! Try this with ubuntu, suse in any form, xandros wathever: there is so much needed for what is called a "sane build environement" that you can't get them from start on the other OS's.

It's not me, it's _them_, the Slack guy, the e guys, doing a great job, pushing me further up the Geeky Scale of Aristocratic Linux Elite Grounds.

Now, indeed, I gained knowledge, and call me the pope if all this went/is flawless:
-I had to edit some config files to get mouse & keyboard,
-I still don't have sound,
-This Slack Install is my third attempt actually,
-During instal, you define your Keyb & mouse, that's useless because it will forget it when logged.
-During instal again, I got a message "disk full" - switching to tty2 and running the "df /dev/hdb2" command showed only 21% used, which makes sense obn a 16Gb partition. I disregarded the message & the install kept on going (but Imay miss some softs from the disk).
-I didn't wanted LiLo, but Grub, so I edited the Grub "menu.lst" to recognise slack. What failed loading modules with the 2.6.17 kernel went right this time, Grub launches the thing without "initrd" file/target && I have all modules loaded by default - network, usb,...

It was fast, all-in-all, istall is about 1.30 hour in "expert" mode. add 15minutes to fiddle with "menu.lst" and "fstab".

Still on the workbench:
-Find a proper, elegant way to start e, rather than using kdm to log to failsafe mode then type "enlightemenment_start". Boring, and it further reveals my lack of skills. Am I ridiculous running such softs without even proper knowledge on how to start them :) ?

-Probe/troubleshoot sound / dvds
-Probe Print / scanner
-Understand how to update / install new softs the Slack Way [yes, ther is _no_ autoupdater in Slack!]
-I am running as root now -baaad-, still have to probe all this as Normal User because the dumb-ass I am ran the entire CVS job as root, while you are suppose to run it as normal user. Welcome the Permissions Issues...

-Run it for one month, then declare it "good" && start using it for 100% work.

Next Sandbox target is Gentoo, or FreeBSD, or ZenWalk.

-Happy *Nixer today. Tomorrow is another day-