Slackware is definitely the "hardcore" distro of choice. I would have went with Slackware but everyone I work with switched from it to Gentoo at the same time I was installing Linux on a new laptop.

My main workstation is running Debian and I recommend it to all of the people that are trying Linux for the first time, but all of my future installs will be Gentoo.

Hands down Slackware 9.1! Two thumbs up!

This gonna be un-ending flame war.
You should make more specific pool like:

- Distro for newbies
- Distro for Home
- Distro for Office
- Distro for Server
- Distro for Gateway/Router/Firewall

etc ...

- live distro

Slackware for me!
Slackware for you!
Slackware for everyone!

Go slackware go!

It's un-ending slackware winning!

Slackware forever.
I mean, it´s there another distro?

Haha. Nope! Slackware for all of the above! IMHO

I'm with that.

Let me just say: I used Mandrake 8.2 when it came out cause I was a newbie and everyone said Mandy was easiest for newbs. Well, I was extremely frustrated with the general bugginess of Mandrake at the time (yes, 9-9.2 have imporved greatly, but still are a bit aggravating) so I continued to dual-boot with WinXP. Well the moment I installed Slack I gave up on XP. Sure, I had what seemd like a million problems at first, but I was immediately addicted to really learning Linux and editing config files to overcome these problems. After a little work I had a perfect running machine that only has problems when I got bored and cause them and I never use windows anymore I also learned more about Linux in 1 month of Slack than I did in an entire year of using Mandrake.

Scruff, you just had told the story of mi life...
Slackhappy, you are right, i should said:

Slackware forever.
I mean, it´s there another distro?
For:

- newbies
- Home
- Office
- Server
- Gateway/Router/Firewall

etc ...

The SIN Raven

Hi

I switched from win2k to Debian 2 weeks ago... I'm still setting up the system and in unstable mode now, cause I need eclipse to be running. This is a process of sweat and tears, many of you will know it. but most of the stuff is running fine now.

apt-get is the finest piece of software my eyes ever saw!

I physically threw away my CDs of windoof, works, and whatever this shit is called and I'm not doing a step back!

voted debian, sure the others are great, too.

regards bR0Nk0

long live the penguin!

Personally, I would choose Slackware for the best general purpose distro.

But please consider, many distro are made for particular purpose.
They have speciality that deserve the recognition.
For example:

LSF/Gento => best source based
Slackware Live/ Knopix => best live CD
Smoothwall / Trustix => best gateway / router
Vector Linux / Libranet => best minimalist desktop
Mandrake/Redhat/Suse => best maximalist, for newbies
Slackware/Debian/Gento => best for experienced users

Linux question is certainly the oase of Slackers.
Being objective, rather than throwing fanatical opinion,
will make us more trustworthy.

--------------
My 2 cents.

ahh ... Slackware propoganda .... I think Gentoo and Knoppix made a lot of work to

Slackware for me
Although for generally lazyness I quite like RH/Fedora as a desktop OS, and RH ES does make management of groups of servers easy.

cheers

Jamie...

Uhmm..... up to the 26th December 2003 we've only had around

1.7 %

of our registered members who have voted for Distribution of the year.......

That could very easily skew the results to people who are more aware of this forum's expansiveness. And in general, I bet people more aware of this poll are more into linux --> more distros like slackware etc...