Hello. I am currently a Slackware user.

Slackware's main qualities are often quoted as being: BSD style init scripts, stability, security and simplicity.

Now, leaving aside BSD style init scripts, let's take a distribution such as Debian.

#1. Stability.

Naturally, Slackware is a very stable distribution. Because Debian only uses thoroughly tested packages, Debian is a very stable distribution too.

#2. Security.

Both Slackware and Debian (talking about a "base-system" install) both have a rather secure default install. And after the install, it's up to the administrator to properly, further secure the system (so it's no longer involving the distribution itself).

#3. Simplicity.

I guess simplicity doesn't really mean "ease of use" but rather things are more in the hands of the user rather than the distribution. The tools have simple functions, not being "bloated" by many features and uses. I suppose this is a + for Slackware .. or .. is it.

Take the package manager. Slackware comes with a relatively small amount of packages. Sure you can chose to use an unofficial package manager .. but how much trust can you put in such a manager ? And what if you don't want to use unofficial package managers? Besides the small amount of packages, there's also the question of dependency resolution.

Now .. when someone sais .. Slackware is for masochists (sic) .. I can't really find a good reply. Indeed .. why would anyone not chose automatic dep. resolution, a huge package repository + the stability and security of slackware (talking about Debian) ?

I'm a fan of Slackware .. but in the past few days I've been starting to wander if some people aren't actually right.

What are reasons to use Slackware instead of Debian ? I'm not talking about "slackware is better than debian because" but more like "if you are <this kind of person>" or "if you like doing things <this way>" or "if you like <this> and <that>" then "slackware is better than debian for you <because">.

So I'm not trying to troll/start a distribution flame war. But simply asking, as I know it's a matter of taste, what tastes must one have in order to like Slackware better than Debian ? What makes You use Slackware instead of Debian ? (personal opinions, which I'm sure everybody has, that's what I'm asking for ..)

Thank you for your attention.

who cares about package managers?
I use slack because debian is too political!
debian is for Left-wing kooks and aging hippies like
R. Stallman.........

Uh .. that's exactly what I don't want :-S .. bashing Debian

I need "pro-Slackware" arguments, not "anti-Debian"

Why do you need pro-Slackware arguments? If you like it, use it. If not, use something else.

Because I need a 2nd opinion. Or in this case .. as many opinions possible. Just humour me please

I thought this was something to do with religious belief...

My thoughts on Debian and Slackware are well documented both in this forum as well as on my blog. So if you need them, you can read them... I've written reviews on both distros, their ups, their downs etc. etc. I won't provide links, since that would be deemed advertising...

The great thing about Linux is that we have choice. Really, that's the whole answer to your argument. I use Slackware because I like it. I tried Debian and prefer Slackware. It really is all down to your particular choices, likes and dislikes.

With Debian, IMO, you are tied down to apt. With Slackware you can build things from source - you don't get much more official than the source packages.

Just use what you want to use, no one will like you more or less for choosing a distro based on your personal preferences.

When I used Slack, I liked the simplicity and control that I had over the system. I also like the fact that most packages are left as the developers intended them to be e.g. KDE is not heavily patched to make it look like GNOME or given a custom menu that requires you to make manual entries each time you compile something from source when the original menu worked just fine . Such unnecessary customisations really annoy me on Mandriva and Fedora.

As for packaging systems, I think thats Slackwares biggest strength and weakness. For those that like to tinker and customise, I am sure the packaging tools and checkinstall are okay, but if you are looking for automated systems with tonnes of prebuilt packages, then its no good. Personally I got fed up of tinkering with swaret, checkinstall and many packages I needed were not always readily available from Slack related software sites.

As a matter of personal taste, I find life under a bridge to be damp, lacking in sunshine and surrounded by poisonous weeds. That said if you have one box and want a desktop then Debian or Slackware are probably not at the top. Building a network backbone you don't need scads of packages so go with what you know.

Try something else, you'll go back to Slack. I've actually never used Slackware but I figured I'd chime in on this as I'm a long time Arch user and when I upgraded to 64bit I figured I'd go looking for something to play with as Arch is only 32bit. I tried a few distros and even FreeBSD (which I loved actually) but I still came back to Arch. It has no specific advantage but I still want to use it, it's what I know and am comfortable with and I can make it do whatever I like.

Now I spend some of my little free time doing odd jobs for the Arch64 port which is very immature compared to Arch32 but I just like the way the distro works. You'd probably find the same thing if you tried something else, sure it might be good too but it's not Slackware.

For both Slackware and Debian, the emphasis is on community, and in both cases, the community is quite large and loyal. IMO, that makes these two distros the cream of the crop. The Slackware community is more tribal in its personality, and the Debian community more corporate. That fact neccessarily leads to a certain tension between the two ideals.

The 'aging hippie' label seems to be a common epiphet tossed out against Debian, but I don't find it particularly insulting, perhaps because I am one, and I like myself just fine. I made a statement in another thread that unfortunately attracted some negative reaction, and I'd like to repeat it here with some slight elaboration. 'If you want to learn Linux, use Slackware; if you want to learn to use Linux productively, use Debian.'

The point is that both models are necessary. Slackware emphasises the nuts and bolts of Linux system administration and OS maintenance. Debian's emphasis is on applications that work. I spent 20 years in the field of applications system management using first mainframes, and following the industry into a Windows based distributive model. About half of my job tended to be translating the problems encountered in end-user application interfaces into terms addressable by Database Administrators and OS managers. While I always considered the internal OS people to be some kind of magicians, my own pleasure was rooted in seeing end-user applications providing the kind of information useful and accessible to 'the suits.'

Debian specializes in providing that kind of environment. (Forget the OS, it works, and concentrate on learning to use the applications productively.) A personal area of interest to me is getting MS Access like productivity from Postgresql using the Rekall front end. I don't want to spend time compiling and testing the tools. My effort is aimed at making tested tools useable for intelligent non-technically oriented people.

Other distros like Red Hat and Suse are going to win the race to the Corporate Desktop because that is of overriding importance to their culture. And people who use those destops in their careers will, and probably should, adopt them on their home systems as well. But underneath that glitter and numeric superiority the more drab, but technically superior bases of stability and innovation will remain ... led by the Debian and Slackware communities.

My own belief is that a somewhat experienced Linux user choosing a distro for long term usage should evaluate that question. Where is my focal point in the data processing arena, in applications, or system management? ... and depending on that answer, he should choose Debian or Slackware.

I use Slackware because it provides a great system that I am in 100% in control of.
I've tried every distro out there over the last seven years and I always came back to Slack.
Hell, I'm wearing a Slackware shirt as I type this.

Debian is not Unix-like enough for me. I don't want to learn package names; I want to know program names so that I can administer any Linux system easily. I don't need / want a package manager telling me what I need to install.

I'm in the process of migrating all of my corporate production servers from Debian to Slackware. I only have two more to go.

I guess you don't get Slackware.

You need an OS that holds your hand, and you can only use specially premade programs to add to it? Sounds like you miss Windows, bub.

Slackware doesn't need anymore of a package manager than it already has.

Do you want program FOO? Get the source. Compile it.

The only time I use precompiled packages is the convenience factor. Otherwise, I download the source, compile and make my own.
That way, it works on my system. I have not had one shred of 'dependency hell', because I do the work, not some 'automagic' update/install tool.

I read the changelogs and all documentation before I update or install, and as a result : I have never had a program not work

Introuble, I know it's not the type of answer you were looking for, but 320mb's response isn't that far off. Debian's development is very political - some would say to the point of paralyzingly so - and it is that way by design. A design which falls in line with the ideals of Richard Stallman, who - if you want to sum up a complicated man simply - is an aging hippie.

Anyway, threads like these come up every few months and the best answer I can give is, if you think you might like debian, then give it a try. Free up some space on your HD, create a (some) new partition(s) and give it a spin. You can solicit the opinion of every single person on the planet who's used both and you still won't know which is better for you until you try them both.

As for me personally, I know I've recounted the tale of how I settled on Slackware at least once in this forum, so I'm not going to waste time doing it again. But, to make a long-ish story short, I ultimately chose Slack because of the website (www.slackware.com). Confused? Me too. At that time, it just looked to me like a linux distro's site should look. Pretty dumb way to chose and I wouldn't suggest any one else try it, but it worked out for me. As I dug deeper I found that I liked Pat's approach to things - specifically, he doesn't feel it necessary to patch (screw with) packages and the kernel. It's the whole 'do one thing and do it well' mentallity applied to distro making.

This approach suited me (and apparently a whole lot of other people), but whether or not it suits you is a question only you can answer.

I've been a slacker for going on two years now. It's the first distro I ever tried, as a matter of fact it's the -only- distro I've ever tried aside from playing with some livecd's. I can't say that I've ever had the urge to play with other distros because slack works for me, and from what I've read it puts me more in control of my system than most other distros (which is what I was looking for when I made the move to linux in the first place).

The first time I read something negative about slackware's package management I was actually confused just a little bit. I seem to recall it was something about how slackware lacked a true package management system all because of a lack of dependency checking. To me, this has always been a feature and not a flaw. I made the move away from win for exactly such things as installing a program only to find it installed a bunch of other things I maybe didn't want. To reiterate, I really really don't -want- some program installing things that I don't put there myself.

As far as a package repository goes, I would say that linuxpackages is far from trivial in that respect. I actually only grab packages from there to try things out most of the time, as I prefer compiling software myself, and as far as dependencies goes I've never had a problem with it as most of the time the software requirements are right up there for you to look at. So it's never really been a big deal to figure out what other software you might need to make a program run. It goes right along with knowing exactly what's being put onto my computer.

With all that said, I think you can chalk most of those things up to personal preference as other people have said. It's all about what you as an individual want from your computing experience. Opinions are all very well and good but the best way for you to know what you want is to try things out and make that decision for yourself.