I used to use Slackware and just reformated my hard drive. I was wondering if I should re-install Slackware or use something different (Ubuntu caught my eye).

Why not make logical partition with several 4 or 5 GB partition then you can install several distros side by side. Try 'em all and see which on you like. Ubuntu's OK, Fedora and Mandrake have their good points. You'll probably end up staying with Slack, but it's good to have a choice.

Try several distros, then decide for yourself which one is better. That's the only way. -- J.W.

I wholeheartedly agree with this approach. Right now I have a quadruple-boot going on. I have a Ubuntu partition, a Mepis partition, a Windows XP partition, and a general Linux partition that I use for experimenting with new distros on.

I agree with choosing your own.. but one I would surely suggest that you give a try is Arch.. everything is manual like in Arch or gentoo.. but it's i686 compiled binaries make it very fast.. Honestly, it seemed faster for me on my Pentium4 notebook than Gentoo did when compiled for Pentium4...

It also has an excellent package mnagement/updating solution called 'pacman'. And it's a rolling distro, so at any point a 'pacman -Syu' will give you the very latest ArchLinux available... no need to ever reinstall... like Debian.

I went through Debian (for a while, and it was stable version), Knoppix, Ubuntu (for a little while, didn't really like it) and then Slack. And with Slack is that I want to stay. Debian is also excellent, however stable release was too old even for my AMD 650Mhz. Now, this isn't a problem if you have broadband since apt-get can do many great things regarding upgrading/patching/... but I have only dialup
I like Slackware's configurability, and, well in my opinion, the only distro that has a personal touch of a master craftsman. It is the most humane OS I've seen. (Ok, ok, maybe I have gone too far...)

Maybe I should say that I am not a guru master-blaster, I am using Slack for common things, as well as, some programming, and I find it capable of fulfilling my needs.

If you're a slack user, try Arch, Crux, Gentoo, or Sourcemage for some real fun.

Slackware...