On Sat, 29 Mar 2003, Aaron Howell wrote: > What's the difference between the 1 cd iso install and the 4 cd boxed set of slackware? > Regards The Extras CD contains some optional packages, but they can also be downloaded from the "extra" directory of the Slackware FTP site or one of its mirrors. Many of them are specialized, such as numerous packages for HAM radio plus an older version of Brltty and Emacspeak. There is also a copy of the source code of each and every package. Once again, it could be downloaded by hand. The only thing you really get with the boxed set that can't be downloaded from the Internet is the "Live" CD. I have the boxed set for Slackware 8.1, as I didn't have high-speed access at the time it came out. The Live CD is a complete self-booting version of Slackware with pretty much all the software. It could be used as a demo and I've used it as a rescue disk as it includes parted, fdisk, etc. It has all the Speakup kernels and even Brltty. It can be real handy. Slackware may be a bit scimpy on its packages and hard to get set up for some people, but its author has been very willing to make his software accessible. I'm willing to put up with some rough edges if the author clearly cares about his products being accessible. Besides, Slackware is getting more polished now to keep up with the big boys.
