Having fled rpm hell as they say.
Rpms are a package management used by suse, redhat, mandrake & others.
Its ok, but once it messes up your in trouble.
Most distros, your mainly learning that distro & its complex package program.
Suse has yast, which is a very powerfull tool, but sometimes it messes up.
When it does, it's a fight to get things right.
I don't like fighting my system. I want it to do exactly what I say.

With Slack, your learning linux. It has a few scripts they have written to make things easier on new users.
For the most part, its really easy to just congfigure things by hand.
It takes time to learn how to do it, so you need patience.
However your patience is rewarded.
I can setup a slack system locked down very fast, and its easy.
I use slack for desktops, firewalls & webservers.
It just works.

Hi all,
just checked this thread and decided to contribute. Why i like Slackware is because of its simplicity. Its very simple or you can say the only simplest and complete distribution of linux. i have nothing to say about package management. and one more thing about slackware is that it teaches you real linux. i have heard from some slackers, "if you learn slackware, you learn linux. But if you learn any other distro, you will learn only that distro".

I've recently converted to Slackware and I love it. Like many people on here say, I feel more at home in Slackware than any of the other distributions. You feel that you have more control of what goes in and out of the operating system. If you need anything, you can just compile it and be on your merry way. Prior to Slackware I was looking for something with more control. I've only stuck w/Red Hat in the past because it was what I started with and was most comfortable at that point in time. But soon I realized that Red Hat / Fedora was overbearing with alot of processes that ran in the background and I was too afraid to stop or remove them so I left them there. But ever since Slackware I've been able to run my box more efficiently than ever before.

I used Suse for 18 months without learning a damn thing about Linux. It was just point and click. I have had Slackware installed for two months and have learned vastly more about Linux in that time.
It's been said many times and it's true, if you want to learn use Slackware. It also happens to run like a dream!

Oh god yes, it runs like a champ. In my opinion the development tree of slackware is generally more stable than most releases of other distros (fedora and mandrake come to mind). Slackware's goal is to be as unix like as possible. So, if you want to learn your system and be able to do things other than work in a gui that does the work for you like windows does then go with slack. If you want to have your hand held, and not learn much then go with another distro, like Suse, Fedora, or Mandrake. Personally, I like to know what is going on under the hood. It keeps the power with the user and not with the developer.

As far as slackware being only for the experienced user I can tell you that, at least from my point of view, that's a false statement. I went from windows to linux and dove right into slackware and it is by far the best thing I ever did. Just do it in steps, setup a test computer, buy yourself Running Linux from Oreilly, read the online slackwarebook on slackware.com and learn before you start relying on it. Then gradually bring over your apps to OSS alternatives.

Brian

Slackware is great if you want to learn Linux. Also, I've found it more stable than other distros, probably because it follows the K.I.S.S. principle.

Simple is good, simple things tend to not break spontaniously. Also of note, and probably mentioned in this thread somewhere already that I just missed, is that slackware uses the stock source for everything. Not custom thing like other distro's make use. So, you can expect the documentation on a projects site to apply fully to slackware's package.

Brian

why Slackware? Keep It Simple Stupid. And it is truly not as tough as the rumors suggest, you just need to learn the "language". Plus excellent documentation, and if something screws up.....you can't blame it on some auto-magical tool that didn't work. I went through plenty of distros(starting with Mandrake 7.2) till I got enough nerve for Slackware because it was soooo.."tough". And yes I have found my distro.....perfect fit. K.I.S.S.

Ok, try to install gnucash or monodevelop, then you know Slackware is not SIMPLE anymore. Every distro has its own good and bad. Slackware does too. Slackware is good but not that good. With gentoo or debian, you can install gnucash or monodevelop by one command. You choose Slackware if you don't mind to go hunting dependencies by hand. It takes a long time to install software like videolan, gnucash, or monodevelop. Sometimes when you try make for gtk-sharp ( one of dependencies in monodevelop ), you got error. You subscribe to mailing list, googling, asking, then you know the source is broken. You get the source from cvs. Then try to make it. But gentoo or debian make it simple. I rarely got the package broken when using tool like apt-get Debian or emerge Gentoo. The developers has done the job for you.

There is a tool like checkinstall that is helpful. But you must careful to uninstall softaware because there is no dependencies in Slackware. Ok, you think you don't want gtk-sharp anymore:
# remopkg gtk-sharp
Then sometimes you found some applications broken like monodevelop because it depends on gtk-sharp. Slackware has tool like swaret. But it is not integrate too well with the system. It is not official or solid as apt-get Debian or portage Gentoo.

However Slackware is stable and nice.

I would rather get my own dependencies, maybe I am jaded after using rpm's. But when the auto-magical tool tells me I have to uninstall half my system or claims I don't have a dependency that I know is installed, I get rather irritated. Agreed if you want the system to do it for you Slack is not an option. But I am old fashioned "Want it done right? Do it yourself." Plus it's a great way to learn.

Swaret is integrated very nicely into slackware. Yes, gnucash is a hassle on slackware, but I think swaret is actually easier and more efficient regarding dependencies than debian's apt get. For example, if you type apt-get install kde on debian, you get everything EXCEPT the x-window-system. What's up with that? So I try and use apt-get to search for the missing package--oops no search function. Swaret can search, and take care of dependencies apropriately. Plus, theres linuxpackages.net which has gnucash and instructions on how to get it to work.

Gentoo = not as stable as slackware. Sorry, I tried it for two years! OpenOffice.org and even gnucash won't compile correctly all of the time on gentoo. Every distro has its ghosts!