Previously having trouble with Debian 4.0 installation, someone recommended Slackware, why so?

I like Debian for packages, science, databases, business, documents, and also arts... commercial and public support... I am about to try it, on an old PC. It got a good report in reviews.

Why do you guys like Slackware?

Troll: because we know the word "Search"

Seriously, this comes up twice/week, do us a favor and look for it.
And if you need a reason to use something, you don't need that something. Stick with Debian.

It's just a matter of personal taste for me. I like Debian, but prefer Slackware - I find it more interesting. Each to his own.

Urrr...

I don't know.

Sometimes Slackware really give me a hard time, but ohhhh I still love her so much. ;-)

Perhaps the main reason is, I feel comfortable when working on Slackware.

Actually if you ask around, I think most of the user here have to use (or face with) different OS in a day. For example, I use Slackware personally on my laptop and at home (even for work), but my working company use RHEL and OpenBSD for their server application.

So is really doesn't matter which Linux distro you stick with, just try a few and use the one you like! :-)

I agree one should know how to search LQ, especially for this kind of FAQ. But I rather would not see you calling the troll card since it may be a honest questions. Next time please don't, or at least phrase it less rude, as it's not exactly the way we want people to perceive the LQ community. TIA

Concur....I did not see this as a troll.

It is a legitimate question, if only because most people cannot really give a comprehensive answer as to why they chose a particular product. There's a lot of fodder for the psychologists in these discussions.

I jumped on the Ubuntu bandwagon in the early days, but quickly jumped off again. Why? The default configuration (no root user) annoys me---it's just not how things are supposed to be on Unix / Linux. Others find it to be a positive feature.

Dependency-checking package management:
Debian: one of the best
Slackware: not there by default

Puritanical attitude--eg renaming Firefox to Iceweasel because the former is trademarked:
Debian: the most extreme
Slackware: no such silliness

The list goes on forever....In many cases, the "best" distro is the last one you try.

If you like DIY then you will like Slackware.

I believe pdw_hu was referring to his own comment as a (slight) troll. Note the ":". That's how I took it anyways.

For the Thread starter, I recommend Slackware because I like it and think other people will too.

Do some distro-hopping: try as many as you can for a few days each, then settle for the one that you like best. And don't be influenced by other peoples' opinions too much - either for or against your choice.

As a user of Debian/Ubuntu for years, and recently Slackware, I can tell you why I like it better on my work machine. I use almost exclusively open source apps in my work.

Slackware seems to have fewer bugs. It's a little more work to get it set up, but I seldom encounter problems. Etch has out of date packages, and not all of them can be updated to the latest versions that I need for my work. There are not as many binary packages with Slackware, but everything I need does have a SlackBuild, so I can compile those few packages myself. It's trivial to have a completely updated system. And if there are any problems I can easily roll back to a previous version of that package.

With Debian I found myself running testing or unstable which occasionally led to problems. If I didn't need cutting-edge apps, I would use Etch. I like the quality of Slackware and the fact that I can have the latest version of basically any open source app I need. I have not managed to do that so easily with any other distro I have tried.

For me, the main reason not to go to Debian or Ubuntu is because of the package management. While some like its dependency-checking, I'd prefer not to have to deal with it at all. With Slackware, you need to know what you are doing more, but the packaging system won't get in your way if you do. Also Debian seems to be the official distro of GPL zealots of which I am not one. I think the GPL serves a fine purpose but I find myself falling more in the Eric Raymond open source camp than the Richard Stallman free software camp. Another minor point is that Ubuntu uses Gnome but I use KDE. Yes, I know I could just install the Kubuntu stuff. Basically, I know how Slackware works and it doesn't try to do anything behind my back.

I will put my own factor into the pot: I was seriously considering jumping ship two weeks ago, and instead I installed Slackware 12.1. The critical factor that kept me was this: Slackware packages are as close to the developers' original intentions as possible. This is something that makes Slackware Unix-like. If I read the documentation for my new favorite program rsync, for example, I don't have to find out any Slackware-specific modifications of it, unlike RedHat and Debian. I frequent Emacs help forums, and pretty often people have problems that are caused by Debian-specific configurations that are totally unnecessary.

Another big factor is Freedom of Choice, no branding, no BS. If I don't like a package the way it's delivered with Slackware, I can compile it myself, creating my own SlackBuild. Being an Emacs fiend I like to run Emacs from CVS. I've created a SlackBuild that does the job, and every week I have a new Emacs to upgrade to. With Debian, I had to search all over the place just to find Emacs 22. Then I find out that the Debian developers don't include the Emacs documentation. That's bullsh*t, dude.

I rarely have trouble compiling stuff on Slackware, and when I do, I always have a helpful community of the packages developers and other Slackware users to turn to. And nothing I do is going to "hose my system" the way I was warned on other distros. Slackware is solid as a rock.

Oh, and if you want apt-ish package management, I've been using Slapt-get with Gslapt since upgrading to 12.1, and it's worked really well. I even got Compiz working!

Joel

Thanks, I am a newbie. What is a binary package, and why are the latest versions the best? Give an example please.

Yes, I think I will try a few distros, thanks.

You could try a lot of different versions of Linux/Unix and see what best fits your needs. Slackware works for me as it has: speed, stability, security, transparency, and flexibilty.
Slackware all the way, man:-)

Something else that hasn't been mentioned. I've found slackware to be the fastest, most responsive distro out there, even faster than source based distros like gentoo. For this reason, slack is very good on older, more modest hardware. This has been consistent over every version of slack I've tried from 10.0 to the present.