I have in the recent past been curious about Slackware .. I'm basically an arch user .. So my question is Is it any benefit to move from the arch to the slack?

Welcome to LQ

Start with dual boot and decide for yourself.

Kind regards

There will be many different answers to you question. Personally I think it's best to become really well settled on a good distro which is technically sound and well supported, with keen and knowledgeable forum (like this). Both Arch and Slackware fall into this category. If you have a good reason for leaving Arch, then Slackware is a great alternative. Otherwise stick with what you know. Of course, if you've been an Ubuntu user for 5 years now and you've decided to really finally start learning Linux, then Slackware is a great choice.

(note that I didn't mention dependency checking - it doesn't worry real Slackers)

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Satisfy your curiosity? That is why I tried Arch in the past. I liked it too, but I am a Slacker so...

If you want an extremely stable distro that puts you in the driver's seat then slackware is the one for you.

Of course you will have to do a bit more work including homework to get the most out of it. Fortunately, there is a lot of reading material out there. http://genek.net/LinuxAdventures/sys...allation1.html will help you set up a full installation running standard kde.

@linman321: My comments about Slackware are restricted to the stable Slackware versions, since I have not used Slackware -current.

I run and like both Arch and Slackware, due to the similarities of their philosophies.

The reason I run Arch is so that I have a system that always has the very latest packages and libs. I work as a tester at Opera Software and it is handy to know if Opera breaks because of changes to the latest libs before the bigger distros upgrade their libs (i.e. it is handy for me to remain on the bleeding edge). Hence my main work machine (the one I am typing on now) runs Arch. It also helps that they have not only fairly large repositories but also the AUR has a massive wealth of packages, since I use a wide range of tools for testing.

The reason I run Slackware (at home) is that I do not need the very latest packages and libs there. I just want something that works with minimal amount of maintenance. With Slackware you setup up once and then you are done. There is very little ongoing maintenance, it just works and carries on working. You don't have to keep downloading a constant stream of updates nor worry about the potential for breakage these updates might cause. Also, whilst smaller than the AUR, Slackbuilds are generally of higher quality due to the review process.

I also run Ubuntu. It is quick to setup and attracts a lot of users (hence keeps Companies, Governments, etc. focussed on Linux) but other than that I don't really like it that much. It tries too hard to be clever and in my eyes this seems to cause more problems then it fixes. I run it only because the majority of our users seem to be running it, so I want to make sure I understand the (often Ubuntu-specific) issues they hit. For example, at the moment I am aware of several minor annoyances related to Opera running under Unity. If I didn't run Ubuntu I wouldn't have realised these myself and could only rely on user reports.

Finally, if you are looking for a distro that strikes a nice balance between simplicity and quick setup the SalixOS team seems to have done a pretty decent job (Salix is derived from and largely compatible with Slackware). I have only tested it a little but I like what I have seen so far. Of course you'll learn a lot more about how Slackware (and Slackware derivatives) work if you start with Slackware itself and such knowledge is always useful, so I would recommend starting with Slackware and use Salix if you feeling lazy one day when installing a new machine.

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or run one in a Virtual Machine.

Welcome to our forum, linman321! It is nice to meet you.
I was an Arch user, but, have settled on Slackware as my distro of choice. Arch is an excellent distro in my opinion. For me though, Slackware is a much more comfortable fit, it completely meets my needs.
I can understand your curiosity as that is the reason I tried out Arch. Will there be a benefit for you to try out Slackware? Only you can answer that question. For me I can say that Slackware is the best choice for me.
Rather than wiping Arch off your HD maybe you could try running Slackware in a VM for a bit and see if you like it?

You don't have to worry about upgrades breaking your system.

Thanks for many answers! I've decided to try out Slack in virtualbox to see if that is where I want to go. But from experience I know that I always end up at the Arch again .. hehe

In the office pool, I'm picking you to stay with slack.

cheers,

Run both. My primary OS is Slackware, but I have a fully-sync'd secondary installation of Arch on my system also. I can use either whenever I want. I'm in Arch right now, actually.

For simplicity and stability, Slackware is hard to beat.

I was testing Arch on my second partition. His speed was a little bit of faster than on Slack on my maschine. But I dont have good experiences with pacman and his dependency checking. Everyday upgrades - everyday tons of packages and his dependencies. Off course, pacman have a lot of settings but I feel this is not for me. I download slackbuild, or sources and see ./configure --help - that tell me how many dependencies I need nad how many I DONT NEED if I want only install basic software and I dont want a new estensions of "some packages".

Thats main thing for I love Slackware a lot, it is perfect clean and stable, and do-it-yourself way can help you better understand what do you have installed on your system and what do you really need. Arch is very nice and fast distro but I think it is on your choice what way do you like more.

Installed Slack on a ssd I had. It was booted extremely slow? and when I tried to start kde crashed? I installed the full dvd by the way..

Did you installed latest current or Stable 13.1 ?