Did anyone mentioned the stability overhead of the OS yet?

Or the fact that it ships as 'Vanilla' as no other binary distribution of GNU/Linux out there?

I did, probably a few times. It's one of my favourite aspects of the OS. Everyone I know has problems with their OS [even Linux], whereas Slackware just keeps chugging along with no issue.

A very well-written post - you're clearly an educated man [you come across as an academic]. And that goes for so many of the community: there are a lot of well-educated researchers and developers here.

EDIT: if anyone is interested the image came from this page:

https://www.ihaveapc.com/2011/08/lin...ons-explained/

You went too far with this. Consider my remark as friendly warning. Though I am little irritated.

Really? Well, how about this then...

I think there's another point that a lot of people are missing here about Slackware's uniqueness. The best projects are those that are the seen-through vision of one individual. One individual who has a cause, belief and a goal which are expressed and emphasized through their work. And they carry out their work and their beliefs regardless of what other people think, want or persuade them to do unless their suggestions fall in line with or improve those beliefs. Look at some of the best rock and metal projects - W.A.S.P., Death, Sepultura; some of the best classical musicians - Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart who kept on doing what they believed in and not wavering from their core beliefs no matter what happened to them. And you can hear this in their music - their music has heart, it has core. It has an essence, a life of its own because this has been transferred to the music, expressed by the music, energized through it.

Look at some of the once good or great Linux distributions and compare them to the damp, wishy-washy entrails that are left now. Look at Ubuntu and its adoption of GNOME, rejection of Unity, its re-adoption of GNOME and its sell-out to Amazon; look at Debian and its sheepish ingestion of systemd and how it was tethered down, force-fed à la gavage to accept this new user space system, how its community are now clueless, "blind leading the blind" mecha-users; look at Solus which has been now abandoned TWICE by its founder; look at Void Linux whose maintainer has disappeared; look at Arch who just gave in to systemd having confessed their old init system didn't work with the rest of the distro and that they couldn't improve the situation so they just accepted it; look at Slax which once proudly stated "Slax will always be based on Slackware" only to say, a few years later, that they were adopting a Debian base "because it made life easier" and you can see that the complete heart and soul of these projects had gone out of them and that the OS suffered as a result, being now a shadow of its former self and losing everything that it once stood for because somebody somewhere could not go the distance or because too many cooks had spoiled the broth.

So what of Slackware in all this? Slackware's philosophy has never changed, the OS has always remained the same because it is the steadfast, stalwart vision of one man. One man who not only believes that the OS has a true, just cause in the world of software but that this belief finds itself interwoven into the packages, into the management systems, everything about the OS is a reflection and representation of this belief. Can Slackware be looked on as a classic of software, is it the Arise or Symbolic of operating systems? Is it the Ninth Symphony of *nix? Are even such comparisons bloated and dramatic? I say no - in any field there are masterpieces which are not fashioned through the nebulous, fleeting ephemeral platitude of 'passion' but from sweat, tears, hard graft and commitment. Slackware is a monolith to what *nix is about, its what other devs look at with wonder, it's what Ian Murdock looked at with respect, it's what inspired a host of other spin-offs. Slackware is unique because it is made by one unique man. And we, the users, are proud beneficiaries.

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@Lysander666: I was pointing only your statement about 'well-education'. Just try to void judgments on whatever division you may think.

Agghhhhh cover blown. Many decades ago, I was indeed an academic. Now in recovery and earning an honest living. Old habits die hard.

OT for Slackware: Any references? If (and it is a big and hopefully rapidly receding if) I had to move off Slackware, Void would be a potential replacement candidate, despite the strong dependency graph and rolling nature.

PS: Music: Bach, [ Thelonious | Meredith ] Monk and Steve Lacy. Craftsmen and journeymen all.

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I think I mixed up Void and Ikey there. Ikey was the one who returned to say he was ducking out of Solus, whereas the Void project lead is still AWOL, as far as I can tell. Link:

https://voidlinux.org/news/2018/05/serious-issues.html

Also:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...re-4175645328/

Cool. Hope they all get the work-life balance sorted.

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Stating someone is well-educated does not therefore mean that person became so by going to university or other means of gaining a credential.

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You can find quite a lot of good info here:

https://michaelwashere.net/post/2018-11-28-enobdfl/
https://michaelwashere.net/post/2017...into-the-void/

3 members found this post helpful.

The Users

Interesting theory. Could you elaborate?

Sure. After using Linux for more than 10 years and Slackware for a little bit more than 5, I have asked myself that same questions. What makes Slackware unique? At the beginning I thought it was the technical part (the KISS principle, no dependency resolver, no systemd ...), but I was wrong. The users are the ones that make this distribution unique.

Most of the users who comment regularly on this forum (linuxquestions) are very knowledgeable, however they do not think of themselves as the great gurus. Also they are very friendly willing to give you a hand without putting you down, but if you attack any of them on a personal level they will "strike at you". Moreover I will say that everyone here is proud that his/her computer do want they want. An example; if I spend time on others distro forums, the feeling that I get reading their post is "I'm so proud of myself finally I'm understanding how this distro works", while here is " I'm proud of myself because finally this old junk is doing what I want..."

I don't have the statistics or any hard data for my the next theory: but I think if you can collect personal info from the users here, we all (at least the majority) we share the same age group, drives similar cars, similar jobs, education.... and how we see life in general. Let me point out that I don't think that all here drive a Tesla or have engineering degrees but more on the principles in which we based our daily decisions. I see a more practical crowd here. Everything that we have or get is because serve a purpose, not because is the new thing on the market or it is shiny.

I do not participate here much but if I meet one of this guys/gals in person I would buy them a beer in a hearth bit just like I will do it for a friend.

So in conclusion, if you take all Slackware users worldwide and make a psychological analysis WE ALL well could live in on our island (I would not say happily ever after because I don't want to sound like a Disney movie) call Slackland or Slack island.

And that and much more is what makes Slackware, on my non-scientific opinion, unique!

Prove me wrong fellas!

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We're down there in the middle, a little to the left (although I lean libertarian/anarchist, myself).

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Cool, I got a new wallpaper!

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