FWIW I've used Manjaro (derivative of Arch) and Slackware-current. While Slackware-current does have frequent updates, I've experienced much less breakage or even minor annoyances with Slackware-current. Hopefully 15.0 will be out soon and it will become a moot point, though.

This is the current documentation resource:

https://docs.slackware.com/

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Yes, I understand that. But I don't understand how its not bothering people to use packages that are years old.

Because they work. Alright kde4 is old now but it still receives security updates. Latest is not always greatest. Slackbuilds from slackbuilds.org are generally more up to date than the base slackware in terms of latest versions. I install slackware for a stable base system that I can add to as I see fit. If a particular software package is not new enough for your needs, it's generally possible to build the latest version localy if it's really needed. All of the above is in relation to slackware 14.2.

I run current on a laptop for testing, it is generally stable, tho it pays to read the changelog before updating. Third party packages break a bit more often because of base library version bumps but it's not too bad. Alien bob does a great job of keeping up with his packages.

Well, a newer version can bring enhancements or new features, but not every user will draw benefit of it. Not all novelties are life changers. But sometimes they are, hence my question.

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They are not developing software.

Developers need the latest tools and libraries. Slackware -current has these and is remarkably stable.
Ed

I understand the statement and appreciate the sentiment. All of us are waiting for Slackware 15.0.

Nominal food for thought though, at work I support Debian 10 workstations and laptops. Debian has a reputation of having "old" software. While Debian 10 has been released more recently than Slackware 14.2 and has more recent package versions, nobody at work notices whether any software is old. All of the users use only about 10% of the features of any software. New features are mostly meaningless to most people. Most if not all could not tell me the version number of any installed software.

While having the latest package of software is appealing to some people, most people never notice and don't care. For myself I'm still running Slackware 14.2 on my home systems. I don't have any new hardware and everything "just works."

With respect to Firefox, I much dislike rapid release and only use ESR versions. Likewise at work and thankfully Debian only supports ESR. Life is hectic enough without needing to update a web browser every four weeks with new broken "features."

My opinion only. YMMV. If you stick with Slackware do have fun, but like any distro be sure to understand and accept the design philosophy and user culture. Slackware is not for everybody, but I'm an old cranky fart who started using computers before Linux or free/libre software existed.

You don't need to understand, the same way you don't need to understand why people drive old cars, wear old clothes, live in old houses, happily use ten-year-old PC hardware, keep old photographs, talk to each other on old phones and watch black and white movies from the 1920s.

Do you stop to worry about all those things too? Thought not. Move on please. I could say more but it would just add more petrol to this useless thread.

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The idea that slackware is outdated is a silly meme. Sure you got some stuff like KDE4 which you can easily use slackware without it. But majority of the packages are either up to date or relatively close to the modern version. Just need a bit of elbow grease if you have certain packages you need a more up to date version for it.

I bag to differ please. Since 14.2 was released 4 years ago -> ergo all the packages are 4 ears old (except a small minority in the `/patches` folder
that gets updates due to security reasons to be 2 years old instead of 4 years old).

Slackware stable releases are designed for long term support and stability. For example the version of Firefox included is the long term support version. The same goes for the Linux kernel itself. Slackware's stable releases aren't rolling release or keep up to date with the latest non long term support releases of applications. If you're looking for more of a leading edge variant of Slackware, you'll want to try out the -current branch. That's the development branch and has significantly more recent applications and libraries. You can also look into ktwon if you'd like to install Plasma 5. Although things like Firefox and the Linux kernel are still LTS releases by default.

Below, SBo means "available @https://slackbuilds.org"

• Firefox https://gist.github.com/aniamembui/d...est-firefox-sh
• i3 SBo
• Alacritty SBo
• Dropbox SBo
• i3status-rust SBo
• Atom SBo
• VS Code SBo
• notepadqq SBo
• IntelliJ Community Edition SBo (under the name idea)
• PyCharm Community Edition SBo
• Latest Python http://slackware.uk/slackware/slackw...rce/d/python3/
• Latest GCC http://slackware.uk/slackware/slackw.../source/gcc10/
• Latest Vim http://slackware.uk/slackware/slackw...source/ap/vim/
• keepass SBo
  
  Sometime, just for fun, I like to see how the latest DEs look like:
• KDE https://slackware.nl/alien-kde/current/ Beware: only for Slackware-current
• Gnome http://www.droplinegnome.org/ Beware: only for Slackware-current
• XFCE 4.14: http://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/slint/, packages list: http://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/sli...1/source/xfce/
• And many more others Sorry, no clue for these

For SBo on Slackware 14.2 use sbopkg and run sqg first to use a queue file with the deps in the right order. If the last version is not the default you can change VERSION before building and if that works email the maintainer to suggest an upgrade.

To use the sources from Slackware-current to build packages for Slackware 14.2, "lftp -c "mirror <source dir> " then run the SlackBuild script, but first if you see these lines:comment out the second one, as dependent software in 14.2 still need the libtool stuff.

You can use the XFCE 4.14 packages from the Slint repositories as-is, not on Slackware-current. On Slackware-current use the packages provided by Robby Workman: https://rlworkman.net/pkgs/current/

If you opt for Slackware-current, using SBo is a hit or miss, cf. https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ls-4175561999/

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Lets talk please only about packages not on SBo.
Lets talk for example about Firefox script you suggested. It will install latest Firefox and I will be happy.
But I also want it to be always up-to-date. I cant go and manually rerun some script for every package every time its updated.
If Firefox was in SBo, that would solve my problem.