After using Mandrake 9.0, 9.1 & 9.2, Fedora Core 1, and Slackware 10, I can honestly say that I am more comfortable with Slackware than the others. I have a better feel for what has been installed and Slackware seems much faster than the others.

I am using the standard 2.4.26 kernel and did a full install, with the exception of emacs and latex. I installed the ATI video driver, linmodem driver and compiled gnucash. That's pretty much it other than later installing firefox.

I cannot foresee moving to another distro for a long time.

jmeads; I have standard Slackware install. Can print gimp on cups, and no problems with the desktop. I don't use gphoto, but if I depended on it I would use gnome.

Why? Because Debian just doesn't feel right

With Debian am Ok, up to now it is the best distro.

-X-; Don't get me wrong - slack is a great distro - I just don't think its the best as a desktop unless your prepared to do a bit of work or rely on dropline - IMHO

However as a server - slack is great

I assume you use dropline - that installs a recompilied version of gimp that supports cups + has support for gphoto etc

slack + dropline != slack

hmmm i'l express this in my normal irc form

/me makes sweet clean love to slackware

Slackware is just better then the rest and I love the BSD style boot system.

No... stock Slackware, KDE, gimp, cups. Nothing extra or fancy. Right off the CD. Installed, setup cups, network. That's all. Graphics, network, SMB, Gaim, http... all works. Does pretty good as a desktop as I use it, and for servers as I run them. I'm not saying Slackware is the best desktop, but it fits my needs. Also have a Slackware/cups print server. No problem printing from anything on the LAN, even mozilla.

I'm wondering why gimp doesn't work with cups for you. Should be calling lp, which cups replaces with its own. On the gimp print screen, there is a place under "Printer Name:" where you need to set the "Printer Model:". Does't print if this is incorrect.

Never looked at Suse. Since you use both, do you see any major difference between them?

thanks.

I like Slackware, I learned a ton. If anything "breaks" I feel comfortable that I can fix it.

By contrast, installing Fedora Core was like installing Windows.

That's how I feel too. In fact, I've become spoiled on Slack. Everything just works once you get it installed--and in reality only minor tweaking is "needed" to have a fully working setup.

With other distros lots of configuring is needed; rather, more configuring is needed with other distros. Perhaps it just "feels" like a lot of configuring with other distributions.

I really like Debian though, mostly because of apt and Gnome 2.8.

Slack is good for all, server or desktop.

-X- I'll have another look at printing from gimp with cups - It failed first time round - I assumed... dangerous thing to do..

I'm using suse on the my desktop pc, it comes with lots of stuff ready to go, no compiling required, where as with slack, if you want to add anything extra - ie mplayer / xine / rdesktop / gphoto / etc you either grab a package off linuxpackages.net and hope you have all the required dependencies, or compile it yourself, which I'm happy to do on my server, but my on my desktop it just gets boring... esp when I could be doing other things... IMHO

I don't mean this to be a flame - I use Slackware as a server, apache postfix, dbmail, cups, ssh, nfs, samba - up for months at a time without problem...

Exactly, what I wanted to say it's just feels like lot, because you are used to slack way of doing it, and need to relearn some things.
I also go with other slackers