Slackware almost scared me off.
 

I've been reading and messing with Slackware, thinking about sticking with it, instead of the other distributions I've burned - or dual booting, at least, with Slackware as my primary distribution.
I just realized that you can download and install the security updates using slackpkg - basically because I searched this site for information. I thought you had to know what to get and download them and install them, and if you didn't know what to download and install, you'd waste your time. Plus, if you overlooked something, you've got bad security the whole time until you realize you need it, and to learn enough to just download what you need would take a while, while you have outdated security of all kinds ... and on and on.
I was thinking this would take a long time. Finding out that slackpkg will do this for you is very good news. I like to have freedom of choice when it comes to things, but this is good news - especially until I learn more. I like Slackware more and more, the more I learn about it.
I'll dual boot, though, because I like to have choices. :D

Add to that the fact that I don't know too much about xorg.conf and other configuration files, and settings, etc.
I thought it was going to take me half a year to figure enough out to not have to worry too much, and now I already understand the most important things that I need to know to use it and learn more about it.
Almost every distribution I've tried has ended up being easier to deal with than it seemed like it was at first.

Try slapt-get and the slapt-update-notifier applet. The latter will notify you of updates and slapt-get will allow you to download them easily.
You can find them here: http://jaos.org

Instead of slapt-get, I prefer sbopkg.

There's this myth circulating that Slackware isn't suitable for newbies that frightens some people off even trying it. If you're of average intelligence, can read, can follow instructions, and can think for yourself now and then, you'll be OK.
Yes, you can't go wrong (fingers crossed) with slackpkg, sbopkg, and src2pkg. Never actually tried slapt-get after reading some negative comments about it.

Interesting. I've never actually had any serious problems with it.

It was probably a couple of Slackware releases ago when I read those negative comments, so whatever problems there may have been could have been resolved by now. But I'll stick to using slackpkg and sbopkg.

I found all the other distros much more convenient than Slackware until I actually tried to compile software for something or install on a computer with fake hardware RAID. After that I realized the little bit of extra work to install Slackware was a small price to pay for the flexibility of the setup program, the reliability of the releases and the compatibility of the packages with other software.

I do hope to see the Slackbook updated in the near future because the distro has changed quite a bit from what's described in the Slackbook. That was one reason why I liked Slackware so well.

One thing that I think would improve the Slackware setup would be a more convenient way of resizing existing NTFS partitions and creating the Linux partitions. Using "cfdisk" or "fdisk" isn't too difficult but combining that with "ntfsresize" commands and the details of partition sizes and locations is complicated. I've always used other software to re-size partitions.

Erik, what's the 'other software' you use to partition & NTFSresize?


Slack-current has what looks like a clone of Gparted, called 'partitionmanager' which claims to have full ntfs resize/move/whatever support. (Assuming you use an X environment ;))

Sasha

I use Paragon Partition Manager but it has its problems. I use the Windows version (usually from a Windows PE boot CD). I guess I'm OS neutral. I use Linux, Windows and whatever else gets the job done. In many cases they can work equally as well. I'm spending more time in Linux and less in Windows. Except for compatibility with some software I'm finding more and more to like about Linux and less and less to like about Windows. That's partly because Linux is improving and partly because Windows is becoming less friendly. Windows sometimes reminds me of wicker furniture. It looks pretty but if you actually try to use it you find that it is uncomfortable or it breaks. It also tends to get a bit dusty as things fall through the cracks.

The Slackware setup is all done from a shell prompt without X so a text-based script to handle the partition resizing would be nice. I realize it is some work to do that and I'm not faulting Slackware for missing that particular convenience. That could be a reason for someone to prefer a different distro. I don't think that Slackware should try to be everything to all people and certainly shouldn't do something just because other distros do it. There are already too many nearly identical distros and fortunately Slackware isn't one of those. I do think that anything in Slackware that makes the installation and setup more convenient is likely to encourage less experienced people to use it. I started with Slackware 10.2 and since then it has only gotten easier to install and configure.

Convenience is not a solution to every problem. I can remember a frustrating time when I first tried to install Ubuntu. The graphical setup CD did not correctly detect the display resolution and all of the buttons that I needed to click were off the edge of the screen. It wasn't obvious what to do to get around that problem and finding something in the documentation was difficult. I gave up in frustration. A while later I accidentally stumbled on a post that described the key combination to move the display in the view port and make the buttons visible. The more a person is involved in the installation and setup, the more they can adjust for minor differences or problems specific to their coniguration. Automatic is great until it doesn't work.