Is that the kind of "interesting" answer you are all interested in?

Behind these discussions seem to be assumptions about wether Slackware is universally valuable or not, because obviously nobody is interested in just reading a hundred random use-cases: if the value of Slackware was aknowledged to be plainly relative to the use-case, all of this wouldn't be very interesting, right?

Why should people care about something they just don't have a use for, or just don't like? They are just not the kind of user for it. Why do people care about what they are already using or intend to use? Because it fits them. What can you learn from that? You already know that Slackware is objectively good / objectively bad, anyway. Right?

Things are not black or white. Some people could have heard about Slackware, considered installing it but eventually didn't for some reason. Or actually installed it but didn't keep it for some reason. These reasons can be interesting to know. Maybe it's about something that Pat can't or doesn't want to change, but may be this is an obstacle easy to overcome, possibly with some help.

So I'd be glad to know these reasons first hand, stated by the people in concern.

The reason I took a long time to try Slackware was because it had (and for many people still has) a reputation for being hard work - everything done manually, nothing ready to work, needs constant maintenance, almost everything has to be compiled from source... and I needed to use my computers to get stuff done.

Eventually I started using it because I wanted to learn Unix before moving on to a BSD. What I found was a system where everything just worked, needs no maintenance once it's been set up (apart from fixing things I break when I'm playing with it), has a wide range of precompiled packages if I want and, most important of all, ready for getting stuff done right out of the box. The only "hard" work was making sure I read the documentation (which needed some but not too much searching) before doing any fiddling.

I'm firmly convinced the biggest reason more people don't try Slackware is its public image.

Slackware documentation is fine. It needs very little added since most of the advice/tips still applies. Arch and other distros require more documentation with frequent/current edits because stuff breaks more and they are constantly changing the underlying dynamics.

Long time no hear/read Travis! :hattip:

Main Mint or LMDE? Inquiring minds want to know, I want to know. ;)

It is. It may not be in one tome like the FreeBSD handbook, but it is easily findable.

I may be 'one-of-a-kind', but I have used Slackware (admittedly on and off) for 22 years. My employer (as such) chose CentOS as our development platform - but then, there was no problem for me to develop on Slackware and porting to CentOS (which I did for years). All 5 of my 'home rigs' were running Slackware (file/print servers and network programming) - never any problems being out of the mainline.
Of lately, however, I must admit I have turned to MX-linux for my daily use (Lenovo W520) simply because it is running much, much cooler than Slackware. With the latter (and remember my usage-pattern has not changed) I was doing 80-95C often enough and had to close firefox/chromium to cool it down - with MX-linux I'm doing 50-70C. Honestly, I can't be bothered to research what the difference is, some times it is Chromium, some times it is Firefox (and closing one of them will cause the temp to drop to acceptable levels). All my desktops are still running Slackware (but one, which is running LinuxMint-xfce). And yes - everything (Slackware, Mint, MX) are using the xfce desktop.

I am still a happy camper - I have my rigs set up the way it suits _me_.

Yeah you still see that old stereotype repeated over & over out in internet land.. even after all this time.

I started with Slackware 12 but served an apprenticeship before this with Ubuntu where I still have strong connections. I was with Ubuntu as my exclusive distro from 2005 through to 2007 and it survives even now on several Virtual Machines on my Slackware installation.

Perhaps I would have been better served by actually starting with Slackware but (controversially on a Slackware forum!) I enjoyed my time on Ubuntu. Certainly it was the undeserved reputation of Slackware's difficulty that gave me pause before launching into Slackware...

I imagine the text-based installer doesn't help much in this regard. It is the first thing people see and can sway their entire experience.

I'm not saying this to suggest we should change the installer, because, quite frankly, I like it. But I can imagine this would negatively impact some users when they go to install it.

While I think you are on spot on the installer I think that the installer is the second barrier. The first barrier is the reputation of this distro.

When people talk about Slackware they say it is simple but too difficult for the new users. The first barrier keeps out most of the inexperienced users.

I think that the installer stops the users who are willing to try but are not familiar with CLI.

The installer itself is a text based interface and to complete the installation you need to know how to use the shell.

So the first and second barrier stop the inexperienced users and keep them out.

For the more experienced users who are able to complete the installation then there is the obsolescence, which is the third barrier. Many programs, although stable are also very old.

This leads us to the fourth barrier, which is dealing with dependencies and programs not included in the stock distro.

If you are lucky enough that you find everything you need in the stock repo you are good to go and the experience is not that different from other distros and barriers usually stop here.

If you need to upgrade the programs you deem too old then you need to deal with dependencies. If you need programs not included in the official repo you need to deal with dependencies.

In both cases you need to compile or rely on external repositories like slacky. I suspect that at this point many experienced users give up. The fourth barrier is a going to be there forever.

If they trust the external repositories, find the quality of the packages acceptable and don't want to compile then they are good to go, the fourth barrier is breached.

But if they don't trust the external repositories then they have to compile the packages they need and they reach the fifth barrier.

To breach the fifth barrier they have sbopkg and sbotools or SlackBuild scripts directly.

I think many give up at this point, experienced or not. The fifth barrier means they will need to keep up with updates on these packages by themselves, regardless of the tool.

Some users breach the fifth barrier because they don't mind compiling so they stay. But using a distro is a marathon and when compiling there are issues from time to time.

Some of the users who decided to stay might get fed up after a while, give up and go back to another distro. This is my case, it happened after years.

My point is that many users have tried Slackware and most of them even used it for a while.

But staying requires a certain quality that not many, included myself, have.

It requires a certain degree of passion and will to do it yourself, in the long run.

I think the Slackware userbase is not that huge because there are many barriers to overcome to get a functional system and to keep it running.

Many people just want to get things done and the tool is just an afterthought. This is not my case. I pick my tools carefully and tailor them to my needs.

But for some people Slackware is just too much effort and too little reward.

I have learned that people who stay have solid reasons, are passionate about Slackware and have enough will to overcome and deal with any of these barriers.

I really respect that.

Thank you my friend. As you know our economical conditions are getting worse and my works give me little time to follow all of hot threads that recently created in this forum.

Because I use Salix.

I think it's worth citing a couple of threads from other fora.

Wheelerof4te from the Debian forums wrote a nice, detailed post of his experiences with Slackware and why he gave up with it. The thread is here:

My experience with Slackware

If you want the TL;DR version, it is:

1] the text installer was a little tricky for him but not too bad [he's quite experienced in Linux];
2] he didn't know you have to create a user;
3] he didn't know there was no automated dependency resolution;
4] his local mirror [Serbia] wasn't working;
5] on reboot after the slackpkg updates his keyboard/mouse didn't work and he gave up.

In his words:

Another thread is on the Mint forums, quite an excellent thread by jaymot, where he goes through 20 Linux distros, tries them out, and reports his issues. The thread is here:

Distro-hopping: my results and impressions

This one is easy, his experiences with Slackware are summed up in one short paragraph:

Both posters suffer from a lack of research [not running lilo -v / not using Eric's live CD], but I understand that there is quite a bit of research to do when learning Slack.

So, ArchArael, you are correct when you say that the text installer can put people off, certainly. However, I feel the truest thing you say is this:

For myself, coming from Debian, and not coming from a *nix background, I found Slackware pretty hard to learn. But I really wanted to make it work, I cared a lot and I love a challenge. My experiences with Slackware, and my achievements [so to speak], attest to the idea that the most successful people are not the most lucky, but the most persistent.

With Debian, after a couple of weeks, I had pretty much done all the learning I needed to do and the distro just sat there with the odd update and point release taken care of by apt. Comparatively, I have been with Slackware for eight months and I am still learning.

To sum up, you really have to love this distro, its ethic, its community, and its mode of operation to stay with it. But the quality of all four, in my experience, is unrivalled.