Mercury305...

For one to learn, one must also unlearn what they have learned. That is the path to greater wisdom and deeper understanding.

It's not really your fault Mercury305. People in the Slackware forum are very sensitive to negative criticism of Slackware, and rightfully so. I don't see any problem in comparing distros as long as it is done in a civilized manner.

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My girlfriend recently stated: "If I understand this, your various Linux distributions are a bit like women. You have to try them all out before deciding on the right one, huh?" (She's French, BTW)

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Sig worthy.

Linux is like ice cream and distributions are like flavors. You can try them all, but in the end, you always come back to the basic of basics to your tastes, like for me vanilla bean which I compare to Slackware Linux. It's simple, tastes good, and you can add to it however you like.

Here you go.

Try them all ? Sequential or concurrent ?

Dual-boot

Both, if you're lucky (I never am).

My girlfriend uses Slackware (and Mercury for IM), and she would certainly punish me if I tried other women . My mother uses Slackware and thinks Slackware is easier to use than Wind0ws.

Slackware does have a religion, which is the Church of the SubGenius, with about 10,000 members. I personally am not a member, but I do share most of their ideas about the slack.

My first experience with Slack was 1998 or so with 7.04 or something. Back then it was my favorite and Red hat was my close 2nd. I have been on a long Linux break since then. Now 2012 and again I am stuck between the 2 distros. Both are excellent in their own ways. However, I personally am seeming to shift towards the automation... as I have gotten quite lazy. But for a Power User there are few if any distros to compare to Slack giving the User FULL CONTROL with lack of stuff in the way. I personally seemed to enjoy the yum repos its not as complicated as deb and more straightfwd from my experience. It has definitely speeded up the way I do things. Sure, there are people that will object to this with "dependency hell" which I can agree with. But I guess I personally have not been hit with this dependency hell as of yet. I hit it bad with Ubuntu, which is definitely not for me but not with CentOS. I feel as though I have not really found the Perfect Distro for myself. I love certain things the Slack way and I love certain things the Redhat way. I guess through experience and time I will move more towards one or the other. As for the flavors of icecream I think Reaper is correct in a sort of way. If I view linux like Icecream I would add more then just flavors to compare them. For one, some distros seem to feel a little outdated and old (stale icecream) that can't keep up with technological innovation, others just have way too many preservatives/fillers and I can't even taste the icecream itself! (cough cough Ubuntu). Yea, I love icecream and enjoy a nice clean vanilla at times (Slackware). But I also love the icecream sandwich (not talking about android lol)... Some stuff added to the icecream can make the icecream taste better (to me personally). Sure this can deviate from the KISS Philosophy, however the Kiss Principle can be viewed from many angles. If KISS stands to just have the bare minimum and configure your own system exactly like you want it, it can work. Or Kiss can stand for Automation so you don't have to deal with somethings, making the users life easier. However, I can't agree with some things such as KISS as in a GUI interface where everything just crashes and burns because it has deviated from its Command Line roots so far that it no longer has that connection to it with links everywhere and a messy filesystem etc. This does not make a users life easier or the power users life easier.

So at this point, yea I love my Vanilla, but I also enjoy an IceCream Sandwich too.

I have to disagree: KISS principle is about the simplicity of design, not usage. It means that the simpler the system is, the less parts there are to break. Hence unnecessary complexity in the system should be avoided.

I agree Merc. Sometimes you need a distribution to use for a practical purpose designed around ease of use rather than just simplification and administration. This is what makes Linux an operating system that not only is well rounded, but well founded.

Each distribution can cater to whatever is needed.

For my personal PC and daily usage I do boot between Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and Slackware64 Current, but on my laptop I use PC-BSD 9.0 and Gentoo 12.1 because each system has strengths and weaknesses each system can capitalize upon for the usages. I also even keep a up-to-date copy of BitDefender Rescue Disk to use as a Live Disk and Rescue Disk for emergency purposes.

I will say that I've made calculations against how well Linux systems have evolved over the last few years and I can say that with as many companies now contributing to Linux as they are and being more open with architectures, Linux based systems may very well develop into something that OEMs will take notice of and be willing to push as alternative systems to Windows by the next decade.

I dare say that we could see Ubuntu (or a derivative) being marketed on OEM branded PCs due to the radical design changes Windows has subjected itself to that has abruptly decreased productivity, and not just for the Corporate/Office sector, but for Home users as well.

Next Decade? I think you are pessimistic on that. I am expecting that change to happen a lot sooner.
Main reason is because Linux is GNU + Open Source, hence, the more people that contribute accelerate its progress significantly which gives a very comparative advantage over the outdated Microsoft. We might start seeing some real good games and 3d effects, multimedia etc. soon targeting Linux. I think Linux will soon kill the rest of the market because of the GNU licencing alone. (BSD's downfall imo). The reason people choose Mac and Win now is because its easy to use. Ubuntu is filling up that GAP rapidly. If Ubuntu gets easy enough to use for the Masses, why won't they switch to a free OS?