The last time I upgraded was when Slackware 10.2 came out and I've maintained it this entire time on my system - and its been great (feels the same now as the day I installed; unlike some other OSs). I'm a huge fan of Slackware and I've stuck with it for a while for my main systems.

Well it seems I'm going to be upgrading in a few days, and I'm considering switching to Gentoo - the only other distro I would consider using. Portage's robustness is attractive.

I think I've gotten my Slackware systems' very well secured and I want to, above most other priorities, be able to do the same without problems in the future.

I hope some of you elder Slackware fiends, like myself, can help persuade me. Thanks.

Slackware-12.1 is great, i also recommend Crux-2.4 (unless Crux-2.5 was released) which i think Crux's ports system is better than Gentoo's portage, but it is up to you and you alone to make the final decision, i do think you should give Crux a try before deciding on switching from Slackware to Gentoo...

Another system to consider is FreeBSD, it has ports which is similar to portage in Gentoo. I'm marking my sixth year using Linux this month and Slackware is my preferred OS. In my home I run two Slackware 12.1 boxes, my wife has a Debian 4.0r1 box, and my teenager has a Macbook.
I've used quite a few operating systems over the last several years, but, I always come home to Slackware. It is an easy decision for me. Why mess with success?
Slackware all the way, man!

By all means try Gentoo out. We'll see you in about a week when you come back.
Atleast that's what's always happened to me whenever I've felt the urge to scratch the distro-hopping itch.

I've been using Slackware since V2.1. 13 years give or take. 12.1 is as good a Slackware as I've ever seen.

Try Gentoo out. If you like it more than Slackware, then great. If you don't, then we'll all still be here when you come back and having had exposure to another distribution will make you appreciate Slackware all the more.

That is the kind of reasoning I've been using. I use FreeBSD and OpenBSD on all of my servers - but for desktops I really need the flexibility and features that Linux Kernel offers.

Maybe Crux's system is more streamlined than Gentoo's - but is it possibly more robust or flexible? Gentoo's been around for a while and has so many ports that I use.

I think that you want to run Gentoo:-) Linux is all about freedom and choice. Enjoy yourself! We will be here when you get back:-)
One of the things that I enjoyed about FreeBSD was being able to choose between installing programs using pkg_add and the ports tree. Very nice:-)
I've been mildly interested in Arch and have the net install iso burned, but, I can't get myself motivated. I'm a Slacker:-)

Yeah, this might be a psychological question. I hate to say Bye to the intimacy I've had with Slackware for so long, but I may have to try catalyzing my activities with emerge.

I ran Gentoo for a while several years ago, and I liked it. The portage system seemed to work quite well and it was a pretty usable distribution.

Having said that, for some reason I came back to Slackware and it just feels "right." I've tried various other distros (RH, Gentoo, Ubuntu, and Lycoris), but Slackware's always home and 12.1 is terrific. I just installed it on my new ThinkPad T61 and it's been great!

you can (once you have the slackware tree on your hard drive or some place) up grade slackware in less than an hour most of that time will be wating for packages to install (you can be off doing something else)
you will spend at least 15 hours installing gentoo (you will have to be at the computer the whole time)and you will be with out your computer the whole time
to top it off getting the source tree for gentoo will tack alot longer
the down side to gentoo is that the thing that stoped me from going with gentoo was the start up scripts
tracking down a problem and configuring things is an intense pain in the head when you have more one set
of start up scripts to maintain I started with red hat

I highly recommend that you try Slackware 12.1 on at least one of your machines before leaving Slackware. A lot has changed since 10.2. You may find out that you would rather stick with Slackware.

Have you made extensive use of SlackBuilds for building your packages? If you haven't you should look into slackBuilds.org. Also, Chess Griffin made a nice tool called sbopkg that can make working with Sbo.org's slackBuilds even more convenient. You may find that this is enough for you and that a full blown Portage is not necessary.

Also, there are many third party package managers for Slackware that may suit you better if pkgtools aren't enough for you (even the Portage port emerde). You say "Portage's robustness is attractive", but what exactly are you looking for that you don't see in Slackware? Do you want dependency resolution, for instance?

Stability..
Security..
Speed..
Simplicity..
Power..
Tons of packages..
Great Community..

What else do you want?

Thanks for your replies.

I can't argue with you guys - and yes, I will try to test slack 12.1 before I switch completely. Also, in terms of dependency resolution, typing, for instance, "emerge ardour" and having all of its crazy dependencies installed correctly is pretty sexy.

I (hopefully) won't be using anything KDE or Gnome, but I do use a spread of applications that will require adding some of my own slackbuilds - and I don't mind that.

My original plan for upgrading was getting Slackware 12.1 and just using slackbuilds to I can cleanly manage stuff in the future, but then I remembered my experience with Gentoo on another system. That is why the decision is still up in the air.

There's no need for persuasion, if you want to try Gentoo, go right ahead, I recommend you do so you know all your options. My recommendation is that you should not go for bleeding-edge, it's you who will be doing the bleeding, try to use older more stable software no matter what distro you use.

I can thoroughly recommend Slackware 12.1, but don't let that put you off.

Just downloaded this. It is nice and easy, and should only get better as it develops.

Thanks for the link shadowsnipes.

samac