10 year Debian veteran, switched to Slackware a few months ago.
Your question should be: "Is anything BUT Slackware worth learning"

I don't think that Debian is a "hold your hand distribution", but anyways, I just set up a Slackware-Installation, and whoa, this is really different. I will for sure take deeper look into it. First thing I have to learn is how package management works without automated dependency-checking. Will cost a good amount of time, but I think it is worth it.

Read this.

I should also mention slackpkg,Slackbuilds.org, and sbopkg.

Honestly...Slackware transitioned me to a much more comfortable place with linux in general.

Thanks for all the posts guys.
Heres a problem, don't know if I should make a new thread or not..

I was working at the shell and was trying some different commands with their help function. ex cat --help
typed in command "cat"
got stuck in a weird loop. blank screen I could type on, but no (watchamacallit) (blah@blah:~$)
Had to hard reset it. Now when I boot up I get this error:

I login as root or my regular user, and I cannot startx.

I'll post that error message as soon as I can get it. It keeps rebooting on me.

EDIT:

Startx>>>

Ctrl+c would have gotten you back to the prompt.

You could have also hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete to issue a reboot (which shouldn't have caused filesystem problems).

By hard-rebooting it looks like you've messed up your filesystem one way or another. You'll need to run fsck like the error message says to fix it.

I haven't used Slackware in years, but using the word worthless is a telling statement on their part. Ubuntu(which I currently use), and a few others have stood on the shoulders of Slackware to achieve what they are today.

If you learn Slackware you will learn Linux.

I give little value in those kinds of statements. A well thought out argument is worlds apart from the mindless sounds bites of "worthless", "useless", etc.

You need to run fsck to fix a broken filesystem it sounds like. From the prompt you get brought to, try typing to see if the partition containing / is mounted. If not try If the partition is mounted it's likely you won't be able to unmount it so try booting with your installation disk and running fsck making sure that the disk is unmounted first.

Someone else may have another idea. As was stated above, try not to just pull power, use ctrl +alt +bakspc and ctrl +alt +del. On my headless/keyboardless system it's set so that pressing reset(rather than holding it for 5 seconds) actually triggers a normal shutdown. I've also had this happen when using ext4. I've since gone to ext3 just because I heard it might be a little more resilient. Thus far it has been, but I may have just been unlucky when I was on ext4.

Ok, after reviewing the play, it has been determined that the previous question asked was no good and will not be receiving the extra point.

--Dumb question. Completely over sighted that. Hope that doesn't count as my get out of jail free card.

Edit: Damgar. got it fixed, but good stuff.

Btw, all the helpful hints you guys are giving me.. I am making notes..

Yes,

Once you learn slackware you will probably never go back, but even if you do it will make it much easier to learn a new distribution than the other way around, IMO :).

Which IRC channel was it? yea... tell us and we send round JR Dobbs with a brick... LOL

If anyone tells you slackware is "completely worthless", they obviously have never tried it. You shouldn't let others tell you what to think, I never do. I wouldn't consider any Linux distro completely worthless (even tho Ubuntu gets pretty close).

I cut my teeth on IRIX - and I use Slack 13 at home on my old thinkpad and at work on my dell desktop. I also have several Slackware64 production servers running ASE15 which have replaced the Owicle/Slowaris 890s we had before. Slackware Linux runs ASE like lightening on 380G5s - btw...

All I can say in response is that if you learn Slackware, then you are ready for all other distributions, because you wont need other distros special GUIs to do anything, you will bypass it all from the command line and impress any numpty mouse pushers in view. IMHO dont listen to people who make sweeping generalisations like that. Try it, I dont think you will be disappointed.

network - idlemonkeys

channel- #idlemonkeys

users- yakbak and joker

"<Bull3t> What is the default pkg manager on a slackware install.
<Yakbak> none?
<Yakbak> lol

<Yakbak> who uses slackware these days
<Bull3t> we have had this discussion before
<Joker> slackware doesn't have a package manager
<Joker> thats it's major flaw
<Bull3t> fk..
<Joker> it's package manager is... you

<Yakbak> get away from slackware
<Joker> and all sorts of other places
<Yakbak> and use a better distro
<Joker> I recommend you try fedora or ubuntu or something
<Bull3t> thanks for help yakbak.
<Yakbak> that was my advice from the start
<Bull3t> I use Ubuntu as well..
<Yakbak> slackware will just mess you up
<Joker> slackware just sucks"

lol, their names are so ... appropriate.