Despite the fact 12.x isn't officially supported any longer, I have been curious to ask, why do some of you still use this release version? Not to sound condescending, but to ask if there is something about 12.x and earlier releases that perhaps provide a greater service to your systems and administrative efforts, not found in 13.x or 14.x, and also help us understand your needs when help is asked for. And do give details, lots please.

i would use Slackware 12.2, because of KDE 3.5. Also its version of X.org is the last supported by fglrx for the video of my old laptop.

That is a good question that I as a 12.x user thought I could answer quickly, but on better consideration find it to have more than one good answer.

I have only transitioned my main systems to 14.1 from 12.1+ in the past year or so, and still maintain several 12.x machines - including a dual boot with 14.1 on my personal primary laptop.

I came to 10.2, 11, and then 12.0-1 specifically, while seeking refuge from the KDE 4 introduction and the disruption it introduced into my peaceful Mandrake/Mandriva based world. I was specifically looking for a long term supportable platform that would isolate me and my users from upstream disruptions, and after some careful thought and trial installs I settled on Slackware 12.

It turned out to be one of those decisions that brings no regrets! Slackware 12.1 was absolutely perfect for my uses!

At that point, I found Slackware 12 to be complete and easily managed across multiple hosts by my limited staff of 1 - myself! And although it was not my first Slackware experience, it was my first total immersion - and I liked it!

I then transitioned all my own resources and methods to be able to continue with, and rebuild if necessary, any of my present uses without reliance on any outside source. That meant that I organized and maintained local repos of Slackware, patches and updates, SBo scripts and source (for any that I built) and my own documentation. That was all centered on Slackware 12.1 - I called it my beachhead.

As a result, I locked myself and my users in to Slackware 12.1 and performed all new installs from my local repo - and life was good! With very few exceptions, there was not anything that cried out for new and shiny that I could not supply through that path.

This also coincided with the rise of SBo which was tremendously liberating for an rpm refugee! SlackBuilds and pkgtools was the perfect package manager I had been looking for, which put my own repos fully under my own control! Bliss!

I installed the 13.x releases on odd machines, but never saw any compelling reason to introduce them into my mix, so they became step-children or were eventually reinstalled from my beachhead.

That brought me painlessly from late 2005 to 2012. By then I had some needs for an updated base system - a new beachhead version, so sticking with the winner I began to build my base around 14.0, then settled in with 14.1.

There was no disruption moving from 12 to 14 for me, so I did all my new installs from my 14.1 repos and only transition an existing 12.1 machine as the need arises. So I am now down to a couple of 12.1 machines which will probably never be updated and which provide uninterrupted working platforms for older projects which will not need to move to a later distro version.

So, after that longwinded dissertation... what was the question again...?!

Oh yea, why am I still running Slackware 12.x? Because...

* It was perfect for my uses out of the box which induced my own unreserved commitment to using it
* It coincided with external disruptions, notably KDE 4, making it a longer term safe harbour
* It also coincided with the rise of SBo, which allowed me to safely extend my own versioned package repos
* It never hit any major roadblocks which necessitated a version update (at least for my uses)
* It taught me the slack path and will always have the honored position of respected mentor!

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