The Myth of "Once you go Slack, you never go back"
 

Hi Guys,

Many of us heard this:
"Once you go Slack, you never go back"

Is Slack a myth?

Various times I must say, that I had troubles with installing Slack on a recent hardware.
My first Linux was Slack and I learned Debian at school.
Maybe pitty that I used more of Debian rather than Slack.

I turned to Ubuntu, Debian,... Gentoo, and too little of Slack.

Why Slack is still being a Myth compared to Ubuntu and Debian?

Regards

Well, it happened with me. I've distrohoped a while and always came back to Slackware.

Slackware certainly does not fit everyone's needs nor pretends to do so.

But it provides consistently what it tells it does, and that its users expect.

So unless their needs change, its users have no reason to move to another distribution, as year after year it doesn't disappoint them.

Nonetheless there are probably cases where people try it without realizing that's not exactly what they are after, and then move.

All in all, I would not place too much importance in what is just a slogan.

I haven't left, so I can't say whether I'll be back.

cheers,

This will give you an idea:

http://www.microlinux.fr/why_slackware.php

Cheers,

Niki

Greetings
I started using Slackware in late 1999 but not only am I interested in seeing what other distros are up to, I want to be able to comment on them from first hand experience so my boxes have seen many many distros and I try to give all but the ones that put me off right from the start a solid month of usage. At first I ran into some problems because I found myself trying to modify distros to be more like Slackware. I'm afraid this tack is doomed at least from my experience. So I began taking them at their own ways.

However one rather big problem for me, and this is largely just a quirky preference, very few will allow boot defaulting to multi-user command line (No-X) like Slackware does and I prefer this rather adamantly. OpenSuse does and all can be configured so but it can be a royal pita on some. One of the reasons I prefer this is that it facilitates such low level installations like nVidia driver modules and I despise all the other distros that all but demand we use KMS and have to wait around until somebody writes one for the latest. Just a few months ago this became a big issue since nVidia made some deep and useful changes in it's proprietary drivers. So far exactly none of my alternate distros (Studio Kubuntu, OpenSuse, and SolyDK) have this version available.

Arch is a pretty close second but if I'm going to work that hard to get it "just right", I might as well capitalize on the Vanilla nature of Slackware and a decade and a half of experience/preference. (Also I rather dislike systemd and afaik only Gentoo and Slackware remain in SysVInit)

For me there will never be anything that fits quite like Slackware does. I may have flings, but I'm essentially "married". I don't need to "come back" as it would take some huge event for me to ever leave.

I'm happily using Slackware on my main computer.

I have some old IBM Thinkpads around on which I installed Slitaz. It's easier for me, because I don't have to build i486 packages myself and Slitaz is highly optimized for the Pentium II/III's in those old machines.

On the computer I use the most I also want to have the most freedom (=Slackware). So it's more of a coexistence.

I first started out with slackware just becouse the guy that thougt me about linux said this was the dist to start with if you want to learn, and so i did.

Then i started distro jumping and i think i have tried most of the more populair distros out there and i even spent a year or two in windows 7 becouse of the gaming.

I now run slackware 14.1 on my main PC and thanks to AlienBob i have a working steam client. And i can enjoy the simplicity that slackware is offering me.

Still have a windows machine in the house just becouse i need it for my bankID stuff, gets used 10 times a year or so :P

In the os.slackware USENET group, there would be waves of debian users that would come by and trash-talk Slackware.

I have no idea what possessed them to do that.

If the OP doesn't care for Slackware, that's fine with me. (Which almost rhymes if you're hard of hearing.)

I think you should really restate the OP, because I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to say. Maybe you're trying to say that Ubuntu and Debian are better than Slackware. No way, but that's your opinion.

I've tried lots of distros and none even come close to Slackware. The most recent distro I have tried is Mint, and it's actually pretty good ignoring the fact that the Cinnamon disk didn't even boot properly. I was actually using Salix for the respective system before Mint, but I wanted something easier for a non-tech user to maintain, and yes Mint fits the bill here, but Salix is close.

Personally, I would only use Slackware on my own systems and probably never anything else (*crosses fingers and tries not to think of you know what issue*).

This is my first post here in a while.

Welcome, {O_o}. [Log Out]
You last visited: 04-04-08 at 04:24 PM

I was using slack then.

I've been using slackware since I first got it on a bunch of floppy disks for an old IBM 386sx and I'm still using it on a sony vaio laptop with a core i7. It doesn't seem like a myth from where I'm sitting.

Because it's simple!

Vroom Vroom, car analogy time...

Other distro's are the BMW Mini's of this world, flashy but fat, Slackware is the Lotus pickup truck of this world, fast and flexible,

Other distros are may decide, not at a time of your choosing and of course apparently randomly, to flash the service light and go into limp home mode. Slackware, that's what your hands and ears are for, the engine, transmission and suspension have an excellent feedback system already, it provides you with ample sounds and vibrations.

So you pop the hood/bonnet on any other distro and you'll find a crammed engine bay with a higglety piggle rats nest of wires and interdependencies or as looks increasing likely a sealed cover with only a flap for topping up the windscreen washer. Slackware on the other hand is the spacious engine bay with everything laid out for easy access and everything labeled.

The engine itself, pry your way through the mess and you'll find and one giant ECUd to rule all the parts, the fuel pump, injector rails, spark plugs are all tied into this and no part can be changed without a trip to the garage. Slackware, why, it's a distributor, condensor, points, carburetter.

You reach for the manual, it's a Ford Debian 2014, late year registration, you hunt for same, the late 2014's were different from the early 2013's and different again from the early 2015's. You cry and hunt some more. Slackware, well it's a 4 stroke engine so any old book on 4 stroke engines will do, the principle hasn't changed.

You feel brave, you decide to dive in, you look at the tools needed, binary log decoder ring aka fault code reader, ecu flasher. you cry and trade the car in. Slackware, you make a cup of tea and settle down to an afternoon in the shed, fettling and fiddling and have at the end of the day the satisfaction of having learned and achieved it yourself.

Graham Chapman of Lotus said "Simplify, then add lightness" and that philosophy pretty much sums up for me the design of Slackware.

At the end of the day, it's just a catchy phrase.

I have left Linux for BSD, but if I did go back to Linux, I would choose only Slackware again, in a heartbeat (although I might be tempted to try CRUX or Funtoo).

To the best of my understanding, this is a perfectly fine double entendre.

No. Slack is a central tenet of the Church of the Subgenius: the quality of "Slack" is of utmost importance—it is never clearly defined, but attaining it involves the avoidance of hard work and the embrace of leisure. ~ wiki As the only distribution approved by "Bob" (that I know of), Slackware is probably the most reliable source of Slack in the GNU/Linux land. It is a distro of choice for many people who got sick tired of arguing and fighting with their computers and wanted something simple and stable.

Praise "Bob". :jawa:

The Myth of "Once you go Slack, you never go back"
 

I don't think it's a myth, regardless of whether people 'never go back' or not once they try Slackware; it's simply a humorous slogan, not to be understood literally or taken too seriously.