Shall I think of myself as an unusually lucky Slacker as I've never had any problems with Slackware installations since I started using it which was around 10.1? I usually fear installing Mint/Ubuntu types of distros more because they either work out of the box or they are hell to troubleshoot due to redundant and/or unnecessarily complicated layers of GUI tools.

Perhaps it's the question of familiarity but I seriously find installing Ubuntu more challenging than Slackware.

An inexperienced kernel hacker would normally recover the system in the same way as an experienced one would do: Reset the system and boot using your still installed kernel, or use the Slackware DVD to boot the system.

That is already advanced knowledge to give the boot prompt special parameters like kernel name etc and well backup like item for the working kernel in lilo.conf is for wimps anyway :D

It is not advanced knowledge. If you compile your own kernel you have already to configure your bootloader to use the new one, so what is the problem in keeping the old one also in there?
Also, the advanced knowledge of using the DVD to start an installed system is taught to you by the first bootscreen of the DVD. If you have made several re-installs you could have read that at least once, which would have saved you a lot of time. The information given to you before even installing Slackware can hardly count as advanced knowledge.

Many problems solve themselves if you are just reading what is on the screen.

Reinstalling the whole system every time you compile a dodgy kernel is a lot of headache for no good reason. When I roll my own kernels, I always keep the distro "stock" kernel as an option in my bootloader (in my case always lilo irrespective of distro). It's a lot easier to just boot the old kernel than it is to reinstall the OS.

Even recently when I reinstalled on a new HDD, I made sure the huge kernel was setup in lilo.conf and bootable before switching to the generic one - as I am forgetful and prone to typos. (I am the sort of person who would get side tracked and forget to build the initrd and just reboot...).

If you're methodical and careful, you can build kernels to your heart's content and always retain a "failsafe" option.

I was just telling yopu how I got the experience to optimize my experimentations. Of course after couple of trial and errors I started to keep the working kernel around and kept the lilo entry so I could get into working system. But initially I just ermoved all previous kernels and put my new fancy kernel from the conf/i386/boot/bzImage into /boot directory, ran lilo and rebooted.

Also mention that those days were back in 1996 I guess - well before I know anything about LQ and I was truly hacking and experimenting and the fact that computer was broken, wasn't a problem, it was the true purpose of life.

Your original question is one of the best-phrased I've ever read. That is the kind of question we all like to hear and answer :).
I've seen that you have received answers to most of your questions. I just wanted to add my two cents here, and share what I think are 2 great books a an awesome site for starting newbies, as I was over a year ago - and they were VERY helpful.

• Linux command line: http://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php (Make sure to check the main page at linuxcommand.org as well!)
• Debian administrator handbook (with practical cases solved step by step): http://debian-handbook.info/
• AboutDebian.com

I hope you have a great experience!

You're not the first or the last person to who have done this - many went back to windows for good, but some are probably here with impressive levels of knowledge using GNU/Linux.

I started with Mandrake before I even had an internet connection. I struggled on it with it for months - dual booting - and learned nothing useful. It was a real struggle, books didn't help much either.

I pretty much gave up until I decided to try again in 2006 and downloaded 'buntu. I stuck with 'buntu - again dual booting - for about 2 years before moving to Debian Etch - that was the biggest shock to the system - realising that using 'buntu had taught me next to nothing about GNU/Linux. It was only by getting into Debian and starting off using command line package management tools that I began to learn how the whole thing went together, started building from source, building kernels, etc.

I don't want to say that the time I spent on 'buntu was a waste, but I definitely lingered too long on it and did not move to Debian soon enough. After running unstable for nearly too years I decided to give Slackware a go and ran a dual boot with Debian - earlier last year I moved entirely to Slackware as it pretty much suits all my needs and is a very solid distribution.

Being online and connected to forums such as the Debian Forums and this one is what made all the difference in the end. Using a non "spoon-feeding" distribution also helped tremendously. It forced me to do things and try things for myself and in doing so to understand the underlying tools which form the back ends for the fancy GUI tools you see in 'buntu and other "user friendly" distros. IMO there is no substitute for the command line and I tend to choose the command line over file managers or GUI configuration tools. IMO again, it's important to embrace the command line from the start and try to forget any preconceptions you might have about it from the windows world.

Start by using it for every day tasks. Unless you absolutely depend on windows at home - ditch it and install a distro - it doesn't matter which at this stage and try to use it to do everything you normally do in windows. If you cannot do something, search the web and read and ask until you can. This is just an opinion but: avoid resorting to wine until there is no other option - you will not learn much about GNU/Linux if you simply run windows programs under wine (might as well just stick with windows).
Please bear in mind that the community is established, consists of volunteers and reads the same questions over and over again - pretty much ad infinitum- coming from people who don't bother to research their problem. Unfortunately there are lazy people out there who do not want to learn - they simply want someone else on a forum to act as their tech support and provide them with a copy and paste, fire and forget, magic bullet solution. You may not be one of these people, but if some members make that assumption - don't be offended.

Reading the manual is important because once you learn how to read one manual, you'll be able to read all of the others. Terminology that made no sense, will begin to make sense and you will know how to skip the bits that don't apply to you. You see this a lot - a long wiki page, which someone has take the time and effort to put together and maintain for our benefit, which only contains one small relevant section to a particular kernel, distro, hardware, etc. The user takes one look at this wall of text and heads for the forum to just ask the question. Because they would not even take the time to read it, they missed the part where it says "skip to section 5 of this wall of text and enter these three commands - done". If the person in question cannot be bothered to read, then why should volunteers bother to help them? (though in all likelihood they will).

:hattip: