This is not flame bait!

I've been spending some time using both Slackware and FreeBSD. In my experience, both have similar advantages. I find it hard to decide between the two because I feel I do not fully understand the benefits of each philosophy and implementation.

In most comparisons I've read, the author is a BSD user who highlights the features of BSD such as its separation of base system from ports, the ports tree (wrt FreeBSD), and the "cleanliness," "design," and "organization" of the system. Most comparisons between Linux distributions do not address the advantages of Linux itself.

Why did Pat choose Linux and GNU? Why do you choose Linux? Again, I'm not trying to start an argument, I just want to read the opinions of Slackware users as to why it is their top choice.

Both are good systems. I suppose you can ask yourself what will _you_ use the system for?

I use both. They're different operating systems entirely, though BSD and GNU/Linux share a linked history as to why both exist. Slackware, being one of the most UNIX-Like distributions imports some aspects of BSD style init and service daemon management. This really makes it easy to transition between the two easily in terms of basic administration, but there are still different tools to learn.

Driver support wise BSD has a more generalized database of drivers limited to stable only drivers for the most commonly used hardware while Linux has broader support for experimental drivers, staging drivers, etc. for almost all possible hardware if a driver exists. Linux also has better video driver support through LibMesa while BSD only has OEMs and some limited kernel level support but no LibMesa.

Server wise, BSD is a solid choice.
Workstationwise, Linux is better.

However, the ultimate choice is yours to make.

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AFAIK the two biggest differences in BSD and Linux are The Kernel and the size/activity of the development community. I don't think there can be much argument about the value of having a larger community and as for the kernel, while I'm sure Linux developers and Users miss out on some benefits, there must be some major problem since it seems the Debian/BSD project has never really gotten off the ground. So it would seem Linus and the Boys are doing a proper job.

Very true. Both are UNIX-like systems with similar goals, but BSD has pulled away from the GNU project as much as possible relying on less and less GNU code across the board for software being used. The goal is to completely segregate BSD from GNU leaving it completely optional due to licensing concerns and restrictions of GNU licenses.

As it stands LLVM/Clang can build just about any and all software for UNIX-like and UNIX-branded systems with a success rate of about 95% which most of that which fails relies solely on GNU's GCC specifics.

I love Slackware. I dual boot Slackware with OpenBSD(my favourite BSD). I run FreeBSD in a VM on my slackware-current box. Slackware is my primary OS.
The BSDs are elegant, wonderful OSs. There is no way to logically answer your question. You need to evaluate both OSs and see what meets your needs.

Don't judge FreeBSD by Debian kFreeBSD, which is retarded and smacks of Debian arrogance. If those folks had...

1. started with the FreeBSD base,
2. kept the good parts, especially GEOM (not just geli), maybe init as well,
3. ripped out the ancient parts of the base (especially contrib/) and replace them with fresh versions and alternatives,

...then it might have been cool. But noooooo, their software selection suggests that I prefer disjointed tools coupled with incoherent documentation just because it's Linux. I've used FreeBSD since version 6.1 (2006), and I get on kFreeBSD and can't even figure out if I'm using UFS2 or UFS1, let alone get to all of the needed drivers because the same Debian driver tomfoolery from regular Debian also applies to kFreeBSD.

To answer the original post, I choose Linux because it's better system for my purposes. I use the superior Linux software support, driver support, and local I/O support to a much greater percentage than I use the superior FreeBSD networking.

If I need a FreeBSD system, I do the above things that Debian did not do, then compile Slackware's source code since I have that on hand. It makes for an awesome and very fast FreeBSD system, even though it makes upgrades via FreeBSD methods impossible as a practical matter. I have GNU advantages when I need it, sane documentation and an easy-to-administer system when I don't need it. ZFS simply runs better on FreeBSD when using this hardware, and both IPv6 and NFSv4 are done well. I'm looking forward to FreeBSD 10 and hope those folks have upgraded their base system a little bit. If nothing else, I wish they'd just deadpan and offer a barely-bootable base system because they can't upgrade parts of it for philosophical reasons, and instead lean much more on ports and packages than what they do already.

Okay. I am guessing that you that have an axe to grind with your mentioned OS. The OP makes no mention of the OS, so why mention it? That is an unnecessary red herring introduced into this thread. He/she wants to decide between Slackware and FreeBSD.

hitest, I was responding to enorbet's post and the OP at the same time. My only axe to grind with kFreeBSD is that I wish they hadn't rejected so much FreeBSD in order to fit the Debian philosophy: It makes kFreeBSD a pale comparison to real FreeBSD. Otherwise, I tried kFreeBSD 6 and 7, didn't see any advantages over either pure FreeBSD or pure Linux, and moved on. Otherwise, I respect the project, its overall intentions, and wish them good luck. It's a tremendous undertaking, no matter how you choose to do it.

As for Slackware vs. FreeBSD, it really comes down to what runs best and fits your needs best on the hardware that you plan to use. The differences in those categories alone have made more of a difference on my PCs than the philosophy behind the distribution. Philosophy doesn't matter much when the FreeBSD disc won't boot on one PC for incompatibility with the PC's SMP table, or that Slackware doesn't run so hot somewhere else due to the ever-changing Linux software landscape.

I understand. But the OP made no mention of the Debian OS, so why bring it up? The OP is trying to decide between Slackware and FreeBSD. A difficult decision indeed. I wish the OP well in his/her choice.

hitest, I was just trying to make a case to enorbet that just because Debian kFreeBSD doesn't have much traction as a project, the fault for that is not necessarily (just) the inclusion of the FreeBSD kernel into a Linux system.

Short of hardware and driver issues, linoceros should keep using both FreeBSD and Slackware. There is room for both operating systems in this universe. I use both. I like both. I have uses for both. However, I've read the same kind of pro-FreeBSD arguments that the OP has read, and they all seem like crap to me. They read to me like "we've found a new/better system to build software from source code that is used most often on Linux, and we have a convenient database of all the kludges we had to employ to get it to run best on FreeBSD. Run it with the same rigidity with which you would build Debian packages from source--IOW, do it our way--and everything will run great!" It didn't seem like much of an advantage. FreeBSD does have advantages, but the classic arguments are just that: classic. Might as well call them "legacy" just like anything else more than four years old these days.

FreeBSD became highly popular now that Sony admits the PS3 and lately the PS4 both use the FreeBSD kernel and most likely the FreeBSD operating system.
You'll find limited driver support for hardware in FreeBSD where with Slackware many devices operate after installation.
Proprietary graphics drivers from AMD are to my knowledge, non-existent in FreeBSD. This leaves the question as to how Sony was able to get a great driver from AMD for the PS4. Maybe it's Mantle, their new technology? The PS3 had Nvidia, there is support for the Nvidia hardware under FreeBSD.

At one time the task scheduling and memory management were considered superior in FreeBSD compared to Linux. Prior to the Linux patches of a few years ago, you had situations where your desktop stalled out while copying files. You would never see this in FreeBSD under the most extreme loads. Copy a couple of 4 GB ISO's between partitions and see if it still holds true.

The one area FreeBSD absolutely excels over Slackware and all other Linux Distributions with maybe the exception of Gentoo is a "Build World" ability. What this entails is that you can literally upgrade and rebuild the entire operating system with two commands. The process is usually retrieving the source tree and issuing the build world command: make world. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/makeworld.html You'll still be in the same major number. ie. 9.x, 10.x So no quick surprises that they changed hardware support on you.

Slackware has SlackBuilds, which aren't as automated but you can in essence do about the same thing, just not upgrading as easily. You can also reuse them with newer packages; you'll have to modify them. Myself, I like the SlackBuilds. ie. WGet sources, patching, and packaging.

FreeBSD has ports which is a source tree of software. Gentoo and MacPorts got their ideas from either FreeBSD or NetBSD. But there has been traffic about bringing ports to Slackware. Although, Slackware has the SlackBuilds website and there is a Slackget/Slapget tool which integrates with the website. It retrieves the source and builds it. Another reason I like Slackware.

There are more filesystems available in Slackware than there are in FreeBSD. FreeBSD has ZFS where Slackware has BTRFS (butter) for more advanced filesystem concepts (snap-shotting and backups). There is great tool built with FreeBSD called FreeNAS that uses ZFS. This is a great off the shelf product for building file servers, quorums, and network storage.

Managing filesystems is more complicated in FreeBSD than in Slackware. The device nomenclature is totally different in FreeBSD.

Probably the greatest thing about Slackware is that all development packages are installed along with the software.
FreeBSD I believe installs the development packages when you build from the ports tree.

The greatest thing about FreeBSD is the cohesive nature of the system: Build world, ports, and clean source. They're highly arrogant about how they keep their code base.

GNU licensed software is rampant in each. You can't actually use a Unix operating system without having something from GNU installed. BASH, GCC, ..............

They're both different life styles.

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Greetz
@hitest - I brought it up while discussing the fairly minor differences between Linux and BSD, in that particular case, the kernel since Debian tried to basically build a Gnu/Linux system on a BSD kernel. IIRC, they were hoping to make a dual kernel OpSys. The point was that even though the differences are slight (one could not, for example boot Windows with a Linux kernel) and considering the resources that Debian at least could have brought to bear to make this happen, it appears a fail. I think this sheds light on the greater support for hardware drivers, etc, to which Linux users are accustomed and thus, a plus on the Linux side.

@mslkl31 I wasn't judging BSD based on Debian's fail attempt at all. I know BSD is solid. My bringing it up was just to point out that they spent a lot of money and man/hours so they must have expected some gain that never materialized. So the differences, while few in number, are still heavy obstacles. I also realize that mere money and man/hours is not enough to adapt what might be seen as a competitor's product. Witness GM selling a very successful electric car battery company to a subsidiary of an oil company. :P

I hope it was useful to OP because I find this whole thread interesting and informative... and a little moderate ranting every so often just adds color and fun to me, often revealing about what our members really are passionate about.

I never understood the point of that? FreeBSD has all that software in the ports. You could say that after you install most of the GNU user land utilities, it becomes GNU/FreeBSD. They used to use RedHat libs to create the emulation layer for Linux in FreeBSD so you could run apps compiled for Linux in BSD.
Should have called it GNU/Hat/BSD....
Debian has always been a weird organization for what it's worth.

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Actually ZFS is the more featured and advanced file system for any UNIX based system out there. It's light years ahead of any file system Linux has at the moment. BtrFS is trying to play catch up because it's Oracle's would-be replacement for ZFS. The only reason we don't have ZFS is a licensing problem.

ZFS isn't easy to manage but it's tools are very well documented and developed. I managed to get it working on a custom LFS test bed with ZFSOnLinux. Setting up a proper zpool and getting everything adjusted in the boot utilities wasn't hard as I followed the documentation. I even have it bootable through Grub2's ZFS module. It's not my main system, but next LFS build I do on my main will be rebuilt with it.

Even JFS which is at best the most featureful and stable file system Slackware has, as BtrFS is still experimental and unstable, can not match ZFS even against the ZFSOnLinux implementation.

Even UFS2 is one of the most stable file systems out there next to JFS, Ext4, and ReiserFS.