What is so great about Slackware?
 

I know that slackware is regarded as being the greatest OS ever-but how is it any different that Fedora or Kubuntu?

Simple. It works.

And in addition it doesn't have so much those don't-need-this-thingies.
EDIT: actually you're wrong, Slackware is only regarded as being the greatest OS ever by the people who love it the most; many Fedora users regard Fedora as being the greatest OS ever, so do Kubuntu users, so do Ubuntu, Mepis, Gentoo, Arch, ..., [name-your-distribution-here] users.

Yah, well with Kubuntu I have just taken out everything I don't like/need. I don't say any OS is the greatest, I have tried over 15 distros, in different languages, and I like little bit of all of them.

Kubuntu is a good distro; I've run it.
However, for me Slack is the best version of Linux. Slack has battle-tested, rock-solid applications and is stable as hell. I like the fact that it doesn't load a lot of services by default, just the ones you want. It is very fast!
Try Slack and you'll be hooked:-)

The Slackware init system is great, Slackware package management is great...

Those are the two things that stand out in my head. Other people may like/dislike different things.

The best way to explain why it is so good is for you to try it out.

Of course, it depends on what you want. I tried Ubuntu and Kubuntu and FC and Suse and pretty much every other distro out there :D

I'd have to say that the only one I would recommend is Slackware. The others simply disappoint me. They are one or more of the following: unstable, slow, bloated, lack support, lack maintenance, made by amateurs who don't know what they're doing, are not simple to install, are not easy to use, look and/or act too much like Window$ or try to be a clone of Window$ (such a great OS), have faulty security schemes, etc.

What's the purpose of this thread? It's completely opinionated and only good for causing flame wars.

The purpose is to help people like me understand why Slackware is so popular.

Anyway, how is the installation process?

that's what you call hyperbole.
Untrue. See its position in the www.distrowatch.com charts and think again.
Surely, a digression? There is a separate forum for Slackware installation issues.

I think the point of this thread is to exceed in pointlessness. <he falls into trap and gives it a point>

I'd say Slackware is popular, given the fact that it has been going completely against the trend yet it ranks 10th in Distrowatch (in fact Slack doesn't go anywhere, it's always the good old stable thing you've known for years :)).

Funny this should crop up again ...

Have a read of these:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=349700
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=288054

When you're done, feel free to come back and ask more poignant questions.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

- Piete.

Something that no one seems to get is that the position is not the popularity of the distro. It's the number of hits that the distrowatch page has received. It counts how many times the Distrowatch page on that distro is accessed. Which is why the table is called "Page Hit Ranking".

You're right, but still, there's a correlation between the the ranking there and real popularity. The top entries are all well-known, widely used distros. I just wanted to say that, with its text-based installer, (default) 2.4 kernel and package management system, one would expect to see Slack way down that list, but it's not.

Of course, there is another possible way to gauge user base:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...isplay.php?f=5

Of course, this is likely biased because some distros like Ubuntu have their own separate forums which might explain this:
But then, does everyone who uses or downloads a particular distro go to distrowatch first ? I didn't, and I don't visit the Slackware page on distrowatch regularly. And now that they have the huge Novell banner on their site, I don't visit distrowatch much at all.

Maybe if we were to average all the numbers we can get on these it'll come out to something more realistic.

Maybe, but popularity != quality. (If it did, you'd be trying to impress your date by taking her to McDonald's....... :)

I use Slack because several key reasons:

1. It works flawlessly and during installation gives the user the best control over what gets installed vs. what doesn't get installed. In other words, if you have a bloated Slack installation, it's because of your own choices.
2. It doesn't install the kitchen sink by default, just on the possibility that maybe someday you might happen to use it, or run a lot of unnecessary services.
3. Security-wise, it's pretty good out of the box
4. It was the first Linux distro I used where I could get all the functionality I needed to work properly, and at least for me, allowed me to become a Linux user.

Perhaps OT but it you use Slack, please consider supporting Pat by sending a donation or buying the boxed set