That is more or less me. Full install of the stable release including KDE on an old Thinkpad. I use xfce as the desktop environment because is seems less fiddly to me. I use some of the KDE applications. Add OpenOffice (via rpm2tgz) and a few slackbuilds and I'm away.

It's a well considered post, this. I'd add that for many, installing and maintaining and tweaking distros is not a goal-oriented task. I'm constantly fiddling with distros, customizing, moving on and coming back. Of course I keep operational installs so I can always get work done, but there's also nothing quite like discovering better ways to work, and better environments to work in. The barriers only exist if you have one computer = one OS = one distro mindset. Just on this laptop alone, I have three. Every distro has pros and cons. Why would anyone expect one toolkit to meet all their needs?

To circle back to the topic, I found these questions interesting.

Only the manual dependency management. BUT I also choose not to use sbopkg to keep my system minimal, and to compile from source by design. Thus it's less a fault of Slackware than a decision on my part to let Slackware be my bare-bones install for general computer tasks. I won't be installing r-studio + pandoc + haskell on Slackware anytime soon for example.

It's a daily driver. Great for all general tasks and I like to use it for writing.

Arch and lately void. Several others I keep in rotation too.

The most profound impression I've got from using Slackware is:

1. when I ran
The legendary Patrick Volkedring had sent me a mail message - to everyone of us, actually.
how cool is that?

2. Once we had the system (an actual domain mail server) up and running, and we sent an e-mail to Pat, and he actually replied to us!
Each Slackware user matters!

I was captivated to Slackware every since.

How come so many people responding to this thread are actually slackware users?

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I just asked myself the same question, thus edited the initial post of this thread in the hope to get more answers actually addressing the asked question, elaborating a bit on it in that aim.

I guess because people reading threads about Slackware are users. Former users may not be clicking on Slackware threads much anymore. The wording probably doesn't matter. It's a question of who is most drawn to the overall topic.

In my use case I use other distros too (at work). My reasons for using Slackware at home are different from the reasons I don't use Slackware at work.

Here's again a stray post, but on topic none the less:

Over the years i encountered few (about half a dozen) Linux users who used/tried out Slackware for a while, here's a TL;DR: of why they "left"

1. No package dependencies resolution in the core set
2. -current broke on them (i know - don't ask)
3. Packages missing in the core set (office suite, wine, games) compared to Debian, SuSE and RH
4. Install to desktop ready time longer and more involving than that other distros
5. No obvious advantages compared to other distros (they weren't building stuff nor running old binaries)

Come back?
1. if -current where "more stable" (please don't ask me - it was their opinion - i rofled on that)
2. deps resolution in core packages
3. 14 CD/ 3 DVD releases (yes, they expect that)
4. GUI install, GUI boot, frame buffer on init 3 with logos on the back
5. Live-to-install release media

But why they tried it in the first place then???
1. It's cool if someone uses Slackware - especially bare Slackware
2. The most knowledgeable still use it - so it's an exclusive club
3. It was easier to install than BSD and LFS

My reasons I don't use Slackware:

I hate the default install, there's a LOT of the default KDE apps I don't like them. There's also a lot of other applications I DO want that aren't included by default. Which wouldn't be a big deal but leads to: I'm too old to hunt down dependencies. No automated dependency resolution = no thanks for me.

Although for me, it's not right to say not using it yet. I've used Slackware multiple times in the last 20 years. I just keep deciding I still don't like it.

Thank you. I did the same thing. I have tried and tweaked most of the distributions, from Slackware to Mandrake, from CRUX to OpenSUSE. SalixOS, Arch, Debian, Rubix, Frugal, Vector...you name it, I probably have tried it and used it. I used every BSD available and tried Solaris too.

Slackware has still a special place in my heart.

My tweaking and testing distributions stopped when I understood that you can get your job done with any distribution.

So I picked Ubuntu because you can tweak it easily and you can get a minimal installation without too much effort.

It is well supported and some things, like good font support, are there out of the box.

All of that can be done in Slackware. The goal of my post was to show that it requires more dedication and constant effort.

I am still trying to understand if that effort is worth it or not. From time to time I try new distros, but only in VM just for the sake.

One of the last distros I tried and was impressed very much was Void.

Let me revert back to my pre-2015 self to answer this one:

why don't I use slackware yet?
- not really distro hopping at this time, maybe later
- what? no dependency resolver? How can that work?
(remembering moving to Gentoo for the much lauded emerge package manager and how much a difference that made - over old Red Hat dependency mess in 2002 )
- "slackware" - sounds kind of lame (as in, the name is weak - was my impression)
- no time to look into this one. Next.

But those reasons no longer apply. I've since found some nice
roles for slackware in my arsenal. Reasons for giving it a try, and eventually keeping it: I felt slackware was closer to the 1990s solaris systems I grew up on. And I liked the power of compiling my own stuff (like with Gentoo). But not the Gentoo requirement of compiling it all the time, again and again. Mainly just being able to compile from source is a great feature. And I started distro hopping, and had some time to look into slackware. And I found reasons why the name isn't a put off. And I found this community, and the other various cool resources.

The "lack of quality documentation" is because I think most Slackware users don't care about such "quality documentation". Everything you can find aorund about *nix'es pure and other just give needed documentation: read manuals, infos. Slackware as all distributions is built from other components: each of which requires documentation, often difficult to grasp - so it is just to user to sit down and do its homework. I just posted many times earlier - if all is about auto-magic and fool-proof and to give detailed explanations step by step - there are no reasons to use Linux at all. Because this actually is what is expected from proprietary system. So just install Windows - and all this be at hand!

No matter what Linux distributions, users finally reach the point they need someone else assistance. Another user: some guru. The same can be addressed to Windows as well. No matter how detailed is documentation. I would say: quite opposite. More detailed documentation just causes even more confusion. The problem is that to read and understand already are needed good skills.

EDIT: @montagdude I am guessing that you rather have in your mind "recipes" and howto's - as in ArchLinux eg, than documentation. If you need high quality documentation - just install OpenSolaris - documentation one can install is very precise and clean. Best quality. High above what one can find in Linux distributions.

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Hm, so your question is in one line with: why did you stop using Mandrake, CRUX and other from your list.
judging on your experience almost every distribution is easy to tweak but for you. For others? I don't know. It is enough to look at forums dedicated to Ubuntu.

No, not necessarily. Anyway, I certainly appreciate the work that goes into the Arch wiki -- it's been a great source of info for me. Maybe Slackware users have no need for that sort of thing.