In my last entry, I quoted Alien Bob stating that Slackware assumes you're smart. Part of what that means to me is having a sense a how to tailor the system to one's own uses, and having the freedom to do so without the operating system insisting it be done its way. But what, really, does running an OS entail? Beyond installation, most of it comes down to certain configuration options, installing additional software, and maintaining the whole mess. Everything else involves actually using the software....

I use Slackware Linux at home, where I play systems administrator for my wife and me -- and eventually our child(ren, after the next one is born in December). I'm going to quote an interview with Alien Bob to explain why I use Slackware:

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This has been a busy week. I had a couple of evening meetings, so the couple of hours of post-installation tweaking I usually do with any new operating system installation (including, maybe even especially, Windows) had to be spread out over a couple of evenings.

My post-installation routine is nearly done and the laptop is feeling like a slightly faster, more modern version of an old familiar home.

The major disappointment is Wicd. I can't seem to get it to connect to...

I posted this as a thread, but it makes a good blog entry:

This past weekend I installed Slackware 13_x86 on my IBM A22m laptop. The laptop is a Pentium III 1 GHz with 512 MB of RAM.

I was running Slackware 12.1 on this computer, so before I started I backed up my /etc, /home, and /root directories onto my desktop computer and then reformatted the hard drive. This gave me a clean slate for the new installation.

For the installation, I selected all of...

I've been using Slackware Linux since version 11 came out. So, that would be since late 2006. Prior to that, I used a free CD of Ubuntu -- and I just remembered, before that I used a free Knoppix live CD.

So for nearly three years, I've been using Linux (now pretty much full-time at home) and I haven't paid for anything. I figured that this time, I would pay for my upgrade to Slackware 13 -- except that money is very tight right now and the cost of the DVD is somewhat prohibitive....