Well, I am dropping Slackware for exactly the reason pointed out in that Techie Moe review (or rant, whatever): Slackware is an INCOMPLETE Linux system. I'll explain that idea towards the end of this post. First let me introduce my experience with Slackware and other distros.

I discovered Slackware in 2001 and always had it in a dual boot system. Then I used nothing but Slackware on my desktop from January 2006 to December 2008. Three full years. But I often felt that something was occasionally missing, and problems began to get worse since version 12.0. Unstable network. Very unstable USB, with external drives disconnecting at random. Lack of decent wifi management. Lack of advanced package and repository management. Lack of support from the few initiatives that support Linux since they only care about Ubuntu, Fedora and Suse (sometimes, Mandriva). Bluetooth non-existent except a few odd/dismantled packages that never worked for me.

So after years despising the other distros, I thought that maybe I should try them again. I used the slack I get (no puns intended) around the holiday season to test several of them: Suse, Fedora, Mandriva, PC-BSD and Kubuntu (old version: 8.04). Here is a small report:

- Plug-and-play wifi setup, including user-friendly GUI: they all have it, Slackware has none. Techie Moe's review is absolutely right about that.

- Plug-and-play Bluetooth setup, including user-friendly GUI: they all have it, Slackware has none. Techie Moe's review should have mentioned that too. In some distros, it was not installed by default, I had to fetch additional packages. But no configuration whatsoever other than pairing was ever needed, unlike Slackware.

- Removable media support, including user-friendly GUI: they all have it, and just a little bit better than Slackware.

- Installation with partitioning assistant, including ability to create encrypted partitions and/or reuse existing encrypted partitions: Suse, Fedora and Mandriva have it. Kubuntu (old version) and PC-BSD don't handle encryption, but they are still better than Slackware.

- Package management, including dependency resolution: they all have it. Slackware has none. The pkgtools do not qualify as "management" in my book. That is surely the most notorious flaw in Slackware: the world-infamous Linux's "dependency hell" is still going strong in Slackware while the other distro users have seen almost zero of it since several years ago. These other distros I tested run circles around Slackware in that department.

The only thing that ruins all these other distros is the infamous KDE 4, gently being forced down our throats despite not being ready and kindly making us all feel like Windows users having to put up with Vista. Have friends unhappy about Vista? Don't just feel sorry. Get KDE 4 now and actually feel their pain. Another score in Techie Moe review's tab.

Now let's discuss the INCOMPLETE part. That's what it is. Slackware is incomplete. But rather than just admit that Slackware is incomplete, Slackware fans will often justify all the problems with a remarkably smug geekier-than-thou attitude.

One of the things you will hear most from Slackware fans is: "Slackware is not meant to be ready out of the box." Oh, really? Then would someone explain why it comes with the whole KDE desktop environment, probably the most bloated of them all (or is Gnome the most bloated? I never know). Why not just let users download and install it? Why not let them freaking BUILD IT, like they do in Gentoo? Why does Slackware come with most of the network setup ready out of the box? What about HAL? Why doesn't it come with HAL broken apart so that slackheads will put removable media mounting together with their own scripts (like I did myself once). What about pkgtool? You already have installpkg and removepkg, and you can always knock out a 'for' loop in the command line, what on Earth would you still need pkgtool for?

Have you ever tried NetBSD? A command line (csh - with not even tab completion to help you find the commands), twm and ftp, that is what you get. Everything else you have to download, install and configure yourself. Even getting the Internet connection up and running so you can use the ftp may require some struggling. THAT is a not-out-of-the-box distro. Ubuntu is an out-of-the-box distro. Slackware is neither, Slackware just can't decide between the all or the nothing.

Another thing you will hear from Slackware fans: "Slackware is suitable for learning." And some of them actually believe that kind of bullshit. "Suitable for learning" is a book on the subject and just about any distro in the world, preferably one that works to the fullest, not an incomplete distro. Being incomplete has nothing to do with learning unless it provides "stages" and top-notch manuals like Gentoo does. THAT is a good distro for learning. Slackware should be a good distro for using. Which it is, but not as much as some other distros are, not as much as it could be.

"There is a cool geek vibe about using Slackware." Holy cow, how old are you and what decade are you still living in? That's tantamount to wearing a mohawk hoping that the hairdo alone will make you a punk. Reading and actually learning will make you a good geek, not using this or that particular distro. Grow up and forget such foolish fairy tales.

Face the truth: Slackware is understaffed. And considering that, then Slackware does do wonders. It's just Patrick and a dozen (occasional?) helpers. He doesn't have Novell, Red Hat or Canonical behind him to push things much further. And Patrick still does a better job in a few aspects because lone riders can often do a better job than committees, but there is only so much he can do. Lone riders are more intelligent, but committees have more muscle. Given credit where credit is due, he does a lot of things right, but can only go so far. I understand the Slackware love, I've had it myself for quite some time, but I suggest that everyone who still hasn't now let go of foolish notions of superiority, geek cred or intended suppression of features. Slackware is great but incomplete, that's just what is. No wonder it won't pass muster in a few reviews.

Until recently, there wasn't a decent network manager application without gnome dependencies, and if you look at lots of user feedback on NetworkManager, you might reach the conclusion that it doesn't qualify as "decent" either. Wicd came up on my radar late in the 12.1 development cycle, and I've done a lot of work with upstream on that to help it reach a point where it would be a candidate for inclusion in Slackware. As of 12.2, it's in /extra, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to shove it in the main repository with the next release.

Of course, with the new NetworkManager not needing a bunch of gnome any more, it's perhaps going to be an option too, but that depends on what we do with HAL and friends. The jury's still out on that one.

Long story short, though, there is a decent gui network management application available now - you just have to install it.

I can't speak for the other guys, but I personally don't have any bluetooth hardware, so I'm unable to do any work in this area. Since you do, and it obviously annoyed you that it didn't "just work," why didn't you try to make it better?

What do they do different?

Encrypted installations are relatively new to Slackware, so work is still ongoing in this area. Again though, the point above still holds true - patches are accepted if they're worth a damn.

If you feel the package management is a weakness, then you're better off with another distribution - that's not changing, as it's part of what makes Slackware Slackware.

Deleted the remainder of the illogical rant.

Exactly what is incomplete about it? Your definition of "incomplete" might not match another person's. In the context of its intended goals, it *is* complete.

People with compatible mindsets and adequate skills and desire to help can make it go much farther. Unfortunately, it seems that those people are far outnumbered by those who choose to only complain about what's lacking.

As someone stated in a previous post, reviewing a sports car in an off-road contest is always going to result in bad marks for the sports car.

IMHO Slackware isn't incomplete, it has got everything I need for my work (Office, Compilers, STABLE networking (it's easier to use my usb wireless lan stick with Slackware than using it with openSUSE), simple administration and many things I don't need).

To start my WLAN device, I only need to configure wpa_supplicant (2 lines in a config file) and type to keep it working, when I configure this device with YAST2 at openSUSE, it doesn't work. It crashes, then I have to kill the wpa_supplicant, restart it and use dhclient for an ip adress.

I like a system without a package management with dependencies, because many programs have dependencies I don't need and Slackware is one of the distributions which doesn't split between base and development libraries, for example ncurses: Debian has got many ncurses packages, Slackware has got only one. That's great, because I don't have to install many additional packages when I'll compile a program.

Thanks you, Pat and the Slackware-Team for this great distribution

Best Regards
Christian

I first thought ´incomplete´ means something like - missing dependency: gift or gift-add-collection.pl and GNU Image Finding Tool - when trying to browse "System Administration/Image(or picture?) index" in Kde Control Center in Slack 12.1 or inability to run Kde4 Package Manager due to Smart being omitted in Slackware current.

Thats the only incompleteness i have found, but i´m not sure i´d ever use these missing Kde features. Then again, i do not use bluetooth or wifi either.

I never leave any OS in "out of box" condition for too long but customize it rather extensively until it finally is complete ;) .

Why people can't switch distributions without writing rants? As if they feel obliged to write public excuse. Fine, go away. Don't let the door hit you.

I guess you never fought automatic dependency resolution. Oh well.

Imo, it is BS. Make full install, and it will work with desktop. Of course with different sets of hardware experience might differ.

Just use whatever you like and go away already.

You are making wrong assumptions about why people use Slackware. Motives of other people might be different from yours. If you were using OS for "notion of superiority" or "feeling of geekiness"- this is your own problem. I use Slackware because it (unlike Ubuntu) is quick to install, easy to configure, it doesn't get into my way when I want to do something, and because I'm comfortable with it (again, unlike ubuntu or other distributions).

Are you aware how how you're coming across?

I've certainly felt frustrated at times with a variety of distros. I like to try out different operating systems from time to time.
But, I always come home to Slackware. For me once a Slackware box is set-up to my tastes everything works flawlessly.
This poster seems very angry, but, I'm not sure why.

To my experience, when on the internet people are leaving forum, unsubscribing from newsgroups, switching from distribution, or doing anything similar - i.e. when they leave community they spent some time with, some of them feel the need to write angry "final post" that will piss off everyone in the group/community. I'm not sure why this happens (perhaps it is similar to "burning bridges behind you", so they wouldn't want to come back), but I saw it more than once. I think this is the case here.

"Slackware, because it works." No matter what difficulties i face with, final is always perfect and this satisfies me. On account of Slackware i understood how an operating system works, this is important for me. I tried many Linux distros and with most of them i felt like a car driver without knowledge of engine. My windows days was like that also.

That makes sense to me:-) It seems odd though why anyone would want to burn their bridges. It makes it difficult to return to a community if you royally flame everyone in the community.
Each to his own I guess. Slackware does the job for me:-)

It's really just another form of trolling. The fact that they are "leaving" just makes it easier to cross the line. I don't think that the person believes they are trolling when they do this, but that doesn't change things. The effect is exactly the same.

As the saying goes: If it quacks like a duck ...

Maybe lucmove is just bored with Slackware and is looking for a challenge with *buntu's, dependency hell and some broken pkgs after updates, that will keep you busy. He'll be back eventually...........they all do.

Why does it have to decide? The choice to fill the middle ground is just as valid as the two extremes. There are people out there for whom "Some assembly required" is exactly what they're looking for. If you've decided that this is no longer for you then fair enough, but that doesn't make slackware any less valid a choice for others.

I looked through lucmove's posting history, and most of his posts were sarcastic, abusive or unreasonable ("I changed things in my kernel config at random and now it can't read my encrypted partition. Give me the exact kernel option that fixes this"). I hope he doesn't come back.

RE: lucmove
 

OK, let's see if I get this:

Slackware is good, so good that you "use nothing but Slackware....for three full years", but since it isn't the *perfect* linux distro for you, then there is obviously something wrong with Slackware.

Is that a fair summary?