Just make sure you have a secondary computer as backup so you know how to solve your early problems. It took me a while to figure out how to set up my ethernet card and how to get into Gnome, since I started Linux w/ RH7.2, but once I found out how to do that and how to fix my mouse and virtual desktop problems, all that's left is getting my Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO (ISA PnP card) to work....

Well, Yes. I think i can handle that... i've been using Linux for quite some time now and i figured that i should try more advanced distros....

Slack is great. Definitely faster and more stable right after install than any RedHat Distro. But RedHat just has that uber kicktrash hardware support that just blows everybody away... besides, you can get a different kernel for it and then it runs just as fast and stable as any other distro of linux... For newbies however I would actually recommend a minimalist or source distro of linux such as gentoo or peanut... Just cuz these types of distros tend to be non user friendly to set up just how you want it... This helps a lot cuz it forces you to learn some of the nooks and crannies of linux better than just jumping into a more user friendly distro such as RH or Mandrake....

kde and blackbox

Its not hard at all, the only thing is that most of the times you have to set up the sound and the X configuration, thats about it.. On this forum you will find a lot of slacker that will be more then happy to answer any of your questions, just go to "Distributions/Slackware" and you will find lots of help there.

ok, thnx for d encouragement guys...

I use KDE. I have tried switching to other wms, but for some reason I keep switching back. Maybe I'm too much of a noob?

you'll get the hang of it....