I'm still new to the Linux world (started using slack at release 10) and in between bounced here and there trying out Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Suse, to name a few. Many had a couple of things I enjoyed but, in the end, I always get back to Slackware. Why? There isn't a straight answer, but I get pissed off and broken packages, screwed up updates and so on. That's what I love about slack, there is still must to learn about it but heck! I do a clean install and I'm free of headaches, and have to time to explore and learn. Sometimes I get over confident in my not so great skills and mess something up, but it's my fault. In the end of the day Slackware is the definite OS for me.

I use ARCH, and I have felt that pain... though I can circumvent this issue with using "IgnoreGroups" or "IgnorePkg" arrays in pacman.conf, this way I prevent my core from an upgrade, and pick and choose. And if necessary I use pacman -Sd, to prevent any uneeded dependency, or better yet use the ABS. Just my thoughts...

It's a significant factor; when looking at which distro to migrate to after ubuntu, one of the things that made me choose Slackware was the quality of Slackware community postings.

No doubt about it. The Slackware community is great, and always helpful (haven't found a problem I couldn't fix by just reading the brilliant and knowledge minds that post).

This is the only sentence above I don't agree with. Of course after passing over the first post. As I wrote above I change a lot in the newly installed system. I like the system working exactly according to my expectations. If you prefer to change your system less choose Linux Mint. With it it's enough to configure Internet connection and enable firewall.

Well I don't know if I want to use a distro like Mint. I've pretty much decided DIY distros are the way to go for me (although not TOO DIY — I don't want to use Gentoo or LFS), and I was stuck on deciding between Arch, Slackware, or waiting until FreeBSD 8 comes out.

Ah, Grasshopper... To reach slack-nirvana you must walk the path yourself. No one can tell you what awaits you there. Nor do all whom start upon the path achieve their destination, for those that have strayed from the path, in their bitterness, will fall to mocking those that have not.

My experience with FreeBSD 7.2 is negative. In my opinion it's too raw to serve as a desktop distribution though it's good for server purposes.

I've read that a lot, too. The FreeBSD crowd also loves slackware!

Allamgir,

Welcome.

This is a very good community. I've asked a ton of questions here -- many of them asked out of sheer, total, and complete ignorance. The answers I got not only helped me fix the problem, but the people answering them very patiently taught me a lot too.

Regards,

Agreed. This is the main reason I finally stopped using FreeBSD altogether as a desktop, it is too much of a PITA to get basic functions to work properly.
Slackware works for me.

I think if I were going to describe Slackware I'd have to go with two words,,,, Dependable and freedom.
Slack doesn't break when getting an update.
At least it hasn't for me as of yet.
I can't say that about any other distro I've ran,,, period.
As for freedom,,, it's my box and no one here chastises me for doing whatever I want to it.
Go to any other forum on any distro and post you're installing something from outside of their repo.
You can even comment that the download came from someone reputable and verifiable.
Rest assured they'll act as if you're considering doing something unseemly with their minor daughter and leave you on your own.
I haven't seen that reaction here in the slack forum.
Most if not all of us find ourselves installing from outside sources.
There are only so many people rolling packages and no repo has all of them or what they have might be out of date.
At least here one can get a little help when you find you've stuck your finger in a wall socket and can't get it out.
Here when they say it's your box, do what you want with it,,, they actually mean it.

To the OP...yeah, I come from a similar background myself with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, and Suse. I've never tried Arch but the bleeding-edge idea definitely turned me away from it. I noticed that the kernel was always the absolute latest, which wouldn't work easily with the propietary ATI drivers I rely on. Plus every package seems to depend on the latest kernel so downgrading doesn't seem like a good idea.

Anyway, what brought me to Slackware was wanting a stable distro that was built for the power user. Of course if you want to be hardcore you can try LFS, but I'd rather actually use Linux software than spend time creating my own distro.

I'm sure the doc in the above post goes into more detail about Slackware pros and cons, but here's my individual opinion:

Package Management:
PROS:
-The package manager doesn't do dependency checking, but I never have stupid dependencies that make it hard for me to intermingle custom-built packages and distro packages.
-Tweaking a package specifically for your needs is easy, as the slackbuilds are well written and easy to configure. If I want to enable vdpau for example, it's a 1 line change to the slackbuild file.
-Creating your own packages is easy.
CONS:
-Trying out new software is more difficult as it's never a 1-click affair. You have to meet all of the dependencies just to install software you may or may not want. You might consider a vm or multi-boot environment so you can just try out software with a different distro before installing it on Slack.
-It takes more time to install packages as you have to meet the dependencies manually. On the positive side, there are usually a lot less dependencies as there are no separate lib and lib-dev packages to install. You can kill a lot of time if you're installing a package with tons of dependencies like transcode.

Updating your system:
PROS:
-It's fairly easy to do. Just download the updates into a directory with wget and do upgradepkg. You can write a script to automate this, or there are tools like slackpkg to do this for you. Your config files shouldn't be overwritten either.
-There aren't a million updates waiting for you everytime you turn on the computer.

Kernel Compilation:
PROS:
-Easy to do, as you already have a sane build environment by default. Plus you have good .config files to work from if you don't want to go through all of the options manually. I've had an easier time building kernels on Slackware than anywhere else.

Installer:
PROS:
-Installer is NCurses based and fairly bullet-proof. I ended up using the NCurses installer in Debian anyway as the GUI installer crashed on me.
-A default install takes you to run level 3, so if you have any graphics problems, you don't boot up to an unusable system first time around.
CONS:
-Can't play Tetris while watching the installer.

General:
PROS:
-System is highly customizable and tries to stay out of your way. Not that you can't customize other distros, but you're not going against the grain when you do it in Slackware.
-Nice highlighting on the terminal by default. Not a big deal, but nice.
-Very UNIX-like environment, so compiling is usually pretty easy. Most makefiles find libs without needing to be told. Plus config files are in standard locations.
-All information you need on Slackware is in a few places so you're not hunting all over the web for it.
-KDE 4.2 in Slackware is more stable than in other distros from what I've read.
-They try to keep packages unmodified, so you experience them as the original creators meant you to see them. You get more of a "stock" linux.
-This forum is very helpful.
CONS:
-64 bit support was added just recently, so you had to use the PAE kernel hack until then.
-Not as lightweight as Arch. Doesn't boot as fast as Arch without a lot of tweaking (from what I've read).
-Default install is much more "bloated" than say Arch. I don't find this a problem as you can customize this in the installer (I don't bother).
-Getting 32-bit support on a 64-bit install is a little work. It'd be nice if this was an option in the installer.
-No KDE 4.3 by default. You can get a package for it if you want.