I use Slackware on all my systems I can. My desktop, my girlfriend's desktop, my laptop, and server all run a version of Slackware.
It appeals to me because it doesn't treat me like a moron. It doesn't assume that I want things configured a certain way. It gives me the tools to configure the system how I want it to run. Saves me a lot of stress when I can write the config scripts once and just copy em to a new install to have things up and running in minutes.

I don't see Slackware as moving slowly to adopt good features. It focuses on stability and usability than the bleeding edge.
To me, personally, I see Grub more as a problem, than a feature. Lilo offers a much simpler setup process. It's light weight and works just fine multibooting any OS I toss at it, including MacOS X and Windows 7.
Just because it's popular doesn't make it better.
The iPad is popular, but I wouldn't trade my Nook Color for all the iPad's in the world.
I like stability, simplicity, and freedom Slackware offers.

I started Slackware long time ago with a copy of version 3 from my electronics teacher, shortly before Slackware came out. I had been working with BSD and Minix on my computers at home when he downloaded a copy for me on the school's T1 line. I had tried Redhat previously and thought it was alright, but had ways to go. When I got Slackware I fell in love, spent many long nights playing with it. Been using it as my distro of choice every since.

My home pc and my office pc are running both Slackware .... and 60-70 servers - again Slackware :P You can say I'm surrounded by Slackware :P
I'm using it for the stability, reliability, flexability and freedom it gives me... Slackware does only what you tell him to. Nothing more, nothing less!

I don't agree... -current is running latest stable packages most of the time... and sometimes slack even moves faster the other distos...Slackware was the first to start using lzm compression for pagackes right ? (I may be wrong ,but I don't think at that time any major distirbution ware using lzm compression for packages)
About GRUB ...I try to like it ...i really really did try ...i didn't happen .... i can't see what grub will give me that lilo can't :/ (few small thing only, that I don't even need.)
p.s.: Slack has grub in /extra for few years now.

Huh... i guess 11+ years now ....i've started around 2000... the version then was 7.0 :)) the good old times :P

1. I'm using Slackware (current) in all of my personal desktop, workstations, and laptops that i used daily and Slackware 12.2 and 13.1 for servers that i managed. It's so stable so i won't have to worry that it will break. It's also compatible with any hardware that i have on my home or office, so everything is working as i expected.
I have tried Mandriva (Mandrake), OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, but at the end i still prefer to use Slackware because it is so stable and simple to manage. Another thing i like the community behind Slackware Project. They are all great people

2. Personally, one of the reason why i pick Slackware is having more control of my own system. Unlike other major distributions, Slackware tends to keep the packages in a limited of numbers, but it doesn't stop you from installing/compiling your own needs of packages. We have SlackBuilds project which tries to fill in the gap here. Also, by managing our own applications, we know what's wrong with it just in case it broke. We don't have to wait for vendors to release a patch of new version. We can always compile or build our own packages.

For me, -Current is fast and modern enough compared to other distributions. Besides, not everybody likes new features because sometimes it can be annoying and painful to configure (take an example of SELinux)

3. I have been using Slackware since 2005, starting from Slackware 10.1. Since then, i'm following Slackware-Current all the time

4. By the time Slackware 13.37 gets released, i'm sure this will be another (as usual) great release of Slackware

true enough...

why I use slackware
 

Here is a list of reasons why I use slackware

• It worked, when other distros did not: I tried Mepis, openSuse, and Ubuntu before slackware; in each case, installation was mostly successful but something, like sound, or good resolution in x windows, wouldn't work. Or a package I would install on Ubuntu would make something that I had already installed stop working. Slackware on the other hand got everything working on it's first try... at least everything I needed at the time.
  
• The slackware community is the best synthesis of knowledge and helpfulness. When I couldn't get something working on Ubuntu, for example, and I googled for answers, I would find lots of helpful posts form people who had no idea what they were talking about, and often, the suggestions would not work. (there's nothing worse than carefully following documentation to the tee, and then experience failure). But when I carefully follow slackware's documentation, 9 times out of 10 it works, and on the time it doesn't, the community here at LQ is extremely helpful, provided that you do your homework first. IMHO, having to format your hard disk from the command line prior to running setup, weeds out folks who are too lazy to read the docs (idiots). Thus, the community of slackers has less idiots to give you bad advice. I tried RHEL once, but it seemed too commercial for my taste, and when asking advice at their forums, the answers seemed like well guarded secrets... Apple, though not linux, still has open source bsd-like core called darwin. When I couldn't get it's firewall (pf) to deny all traffic by default without rebuilding the darwin kernel, I set out to find out how to rebuild the darwin kernel, and it seemed like I had to purchase Apple developer membership to possibly have access to the correct documentation... and that is just too many obstacles to learning for me. When I tried to rebuild my first linux kernel, I found ample slackware documentation on the subject; it was way easier than I had feared; and it worked!
  
• And, what seems to be a near unanimous response in this thread: Slackware gives me the feeling that I am in control of my system more than the other distros.

Here is a list of what I do with slackware:

• I install slackware on recycled computers, load them up with educational foss, and then give them to home schooled students.
  
• I have a small home network / lab / play pen (my wife calls it my man-cave) where I try to get slackware to provide different services. One slac.box is a transparent bridge; another is a firewall and dhcp server; another runs asterisk; another runs apache; another is a mysql server; another box provides dns and cups service to my LAN.
  
• Ultimately, I plan on turning my play pen into a resource for home schooling families.

That never fails to get my blood boiling. That happened to me within the last several months when I was trying to change my Grub background. I found several guides on it and made sure I followed them all as closely as possible, only for it to not work. Eventually I gave up. About a month later after an upgrade (and I had upgraded several times during that month, mind you) the image I had previously tried to set for the Grub background had randomly shown up.

I'm not sure if everyone saw it but jzb published his article.

I first used Slackware around 1992/3 when it came on countless floppies, I don't recall the version.

I was into running amateur radio networking and DOS used to crash regularly because of the 640k memory limit, Slackware didn't have that memory limit and didn't crash. In fact it just ran the networking software indefinitely.

I have used Slackware ever since, have tried many other versions but I always go back to it, an old friend I know well.

Currently running the latest release candidate and waiting for 13.37 to come out later this week.

It's been said many times if you want to learn Linux then Slackware's the one if you want to just use it and know nowt about it then best use something else.

Graham Hamblin
Burton upon Trent
Staffordshire
England

Thanks for the link. Overall, a good article, but I think he missed the point when in his last line the author said, " Another way to look at it is that Slackware is for users who miss the simpler days of Linux and still want to tinker with their systems."
While I like to tinker, IMHO the main appeal of Slackware to many users is, control, i.e., Slackware isn't going to do anything You don't want it to do.

Hey, I was quoted, how about that. I think the article was pretty good.

Offtopic but I've been watching these forums and Slackware's home page like a hawk for the past week. Once 13.37 is released I'll try out Slackware again. I think that if I can get used to KDE or XFCE I'll probably stick with Slackware. I know I can install Gnome if I wanted to but I'm probably going to abandon Gnome when Gnome 3 rolls out anyway.

long time user
 

Hey, I've been using since version 3.0 back in 1995.

I realize the article has seen print. :)

Me and my friends felt as if were on the verge of something. Back then it was rough but those were the glory days. Everybody ran Slackware! You couldn't go on campus and carry a conversation for less than 15 seconds what Slackware wasn't the Linux distribution being discussed.

Then we all started seeing screenshots show up for AcceleratedX / Enlightenment which drove a madness to have a cool desktop.
There were a lot of cool people and you could learn so much from just logging IRC channels. EffNET :)
Slackware always shipped with so much documentation. (/usr/share/doc) Linux-FAQ Linux-HOWTO
There was a book on the disc.

Slack makes a good SANS among other things everybody has already listed.

About grub:

Grub has a high failure rate on the majority of configurations I have.
RAID and pci based IDE controllers have a few bug reports.