from what i have heard, slackware was the one of the leading 'distro' in the past... (or was it the only distro???)
why did it not gather the same popularity that redhat enjoys today?

In my oppinion, slackware never became as popular as Mandy or RH because Slack is not user friendly like those distros and i never saw any ads (marketing) for slackware, while theres plenty of that for mandy, RH, and suse.
Just my oppinions...

-NSKL

Slack is one of the oldest distro's and is the oldest distro sill being maintained.

Maybe cause they have more money too.. advertisements, marketing.. etc. Slack is pretty much ran by one person.

hm... so now the reverse side of the coin... what about slack that you all like so much?

Me personally, its not bloated, its the most Unix like and usually very solid compared to some others.

I would have to agree, Slackware is not bloated, and it IS the most UNIX-like Linux OS out there. It is also the very first version on Linux I have ever used. I personally think Slackware is more user-friendly than some distros, because of the fact that it's easier to customize Slackware for your own personal needs, whereas RH and Mandrake aren't so easy to customize as far as security and so on. So in conclusion Slackware in my opinion is the best distro out there.

Why is Slackware the BEST ?

1) It teaches YOU Linux. There's no Linuxconf stuff around, only "vi" and your fingertips;

2) It's faster. What's behind the RH (and friends) init scripts showing "OK", "PASSED" and so? It's great for newbies, not for experienced users (I used RH for a long while in the past...);

3) It keeps your freedom. You can do whatever you want with your system. Other distros seen to be quite "tied";

4) It's pkg system forces you to understand what you really need to run. There's no unnecessary stuff installed to "satisfy dependencies"

5) It's made with LOVE. Patrick Volkerding and the Slackware staff aren't, surely, making lots of money with the distro. However, they have a life, and have to pay for food and stuff. Slack is also the only commercial (in the sense of a company behind) that offers free support even if you donwloaded an ISO image somewhere.

Do I need to say more?

i used to like slack... the way you put it, you're making me FALL IN LOVE with it...

i might just pay money for my slack cds...

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it may sound crazy but 4 me slackware is easier than redhat..

I tried to REconfigure an already installed version of redhat and I couldn't make any sense where the config files where..

In slackware I just now where everything is..

I had redhat a few years ago, and I learned nothing. you just put the cd in the CDROM press NEXT-> NEXT -> OK
and the installation is done.

Then you open linuxconfig and you do some configuration from there. BUT what does linuxconfig does ??

well I managed to learn in through slackware...which is more flexible, easy to configure, and according a latest review Salckware came out to be the most secure , buggy less , distro among many OSs..

"I told you, didn't I?" - Limp BizKit, "Living it up"

See you... Slacking everywhere!!!

I just can't stand all the windows like bull in most of the other distro`s.
Gui setup and config tools... I know what hardware I have, you don't have to tell me what i bought