Actually I do understand newbies difficulties with slackware. When I first used fdisk(early early redhat) I was kind of overwhelmed. It wasn't until later that I found and loved slackware. By this time I had accrued enough skills to make installing slackware no harder then anything else. And myself personally, think that it was a good way to do it. I started with the *other* distros to get a feel for how each one did things. I have easily used over 100+ different distro's. Find the pros and cons of different styles of package management systems and system configurations until I finally came to slackware for good and have never looked back. I admit I sometimes get tempted by the flashy ways of gentoo or debian, but then I remember the nightmares they were and how unstable things became. I remember redhat with what everyone experiences from "rpm hell". And if you use an RPM based distro and like it, good for you, I don't use them because it seemed like no matter what I was doing. It was always a P.I.T.A. no matter how trivial the task. Seemed I was always screwed from the start whenever I tried to do something that wasn't already in the distro.

If a new person wants to try out slackware as their first distro though, hey, more power to them. But they need to be a pretty motivated person to want that. Most new ppl to linux want things to "just work" and work now. So they go to Mandrake, Suse, or Redhat(fedora). Or they get frustrated by things they can't get working in slackware so they move on to those distro's. Hey it's their choice. But answers to most problems ppl have with slackware are often found right here in these forums or a quick google search. New ppl to linux that are starting out on slackware just need to know that there is plenty of answers. They just aren't right in front of your face. Well thats not really true. They just have to look a little more then they would have to if they were using one of those *other* distro's. Which if something goes with fedora of gentoo or debian, where would you go? google or linuxquestions! You can do the same with slackware.

If u really wanna know wat people think about Freebsd compared to slackwar, go here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=266257 .

I run slackware as my gateway. I didn't have any problem with it. I didn't use any kind of NAT scripts. Just ip forwarding script. I didn't use any rule in iptable. Flush them and use. You should know how it is done.

Why dont we run a poll?

I'll bite....

My first Linux system was RedHat 6.0. It was current at the time, and I'd switched over from Windows NT w/ proxy server, because I have never been impressed with Windows. Haven't looked back since.
I later upgraded my firewall to RedHat 6.2, and wisely decided to start running a bunch of servers on the firewall.... needless to say, I got hacked because of my own stupidity, and I started looking at alternatives.
I started running RedHat 6.2 on a second box behind my primary RH6.2 box that was only doing NAT. The second box was running Bind, Apache, MySQL. I had a Winbox at the time, running a POP3 proxy, because at the time I hadn't figured out how to get FetchMail working. (or that it existed, for that matter).
That configuration remained for a long time. I dropped cable internet like a wet rag 5 years ago, and have been on DSL since. Minor reconfiguration, download RP-PPPOE and install it, and all was peachy. And I left the system unchanged for a long time... running the Winbox basically because I had no choice: my printer is a piece of junk (Lexmark E210 laser printer) that I am still having serious issues getting working with Linux. I still run a dualboot with Win simply so I can print, but that's another story.) The only major change during that time was getting rid of the '486 DX/133 that was running the firewall, and replacing it with a P90 running FloppyFW. That's still running.

Late last year, I bought a D-Link 704P "gateway", and have been using it as a print server since. I dropped the Winbox, and installed Vector Linux 4.0 on it. I chose it simply because I was looking for a small ISO download, and didn't understand why on earth Fedora (nee RedHat) needed me to download 3 discs just to install. Major bloat problems. Vector was a 400mb ISO, and I was able to download it and install it no problem. Samba was a joke to set up, since I didn't have to worry about getting the printer working for sharing, and I had my fileshares on the Vector box. I retired the '486 that was running as my DNS/Apache box once I got Vector working, and installed those servers on the Vector box instead. Apache was much stabler, because I was no longer serving up files that were mounted on a network share. (set that up so I could do my web development without needing to upload... just save to Z:\ from the winbox that makes/made up my desktop). Figured out fetchmail, and imapd, and have that box running as my mailserver, too.

Then the warranty expired on my laptop. I blew away Windows XP Professional (a legitimate license, no less) and installed Vector, only to find out that it didn't have iwtools in the base install. Vector may have liked the 100mbit 3com card connecting it by wires to the firewall, but it didn't like the D-Link G650 connecting my laptop by wireless. Did a little research, and found out that it was built on Slackware, and then remembered that the friend who got me into Linux in the first place was a Slacker, so I downloaded the Slack 10 ISO and installed that on the laptop. Configuration was not a problem, given the experience I'd had by that time, and that the majority of my questions had already been asked and answered here.

About 2 weeks ago, one of my hard drives crashed on my desktop. To date, it has been running Windows XP, simply because I've never actually gotten Slack or any other Linux distribution to install on the RAID0. They all saw it as 4 independant IDE hard drives, which was incompatible with the Windows install that I still need. When one of the 4 drives developped a bad sector, I decided to go with one 160GB hard drive, instead of a RAID. Took the 4 old 20's to my favourite computer upgrade center, and upgraded them to a single 160GB SATA hard drive for the low price of $20. (partly because while the guy was checking the drives for bad sectors, 4 people came in, each looking to buy one of the drives for $50. He was a little more open to haggling....) Installing Slack was a no-brainer. I tried a bunch of other distros while fiddling around with drivers, but they were either disgustingly bloated (Fedora), missing pieces (Debian Sarge/unstable net-install, missing ncurses or qt, so couldn't build a kernel), or utterly broken (Debian Woody, and everything else I tried that couldn't even see my HighPoint HPT372 controller or didn't expect /dev/hda to be my CDROM drive...) I was only messing around with debian in the first place because I want/ed apt-get. Slack needs an automated system like that which will manage dependencies as well as installing packages.


So, the bottom line....
1st Linux - RedHat 6.0. Around 1996-7
2nd - RedHat 6.2. Around 1997-8
3rd - FloppyFW (Debian-based, still running it. P90/64MB diskless firewall). 2003.
4th - Vector Linux (Slackware-based, still running it. P-III-800/256MB. Services: imapd, named, apache-httpd, smbd, sshd, mysqld, qmail) 2003.
5th - Slackware 10 (laptop: Athlon 1.2GHz/256MB. desktop: Athlon XP 3000+/1024MB PC3200, ATI Radeon 9600Ultra/256MB, SB Live! 24-bit) 2004.

The desktop is still dual-booting with XP Professional, for gaming (still haven't spent the time to get the sound card working with Linux) and printing, but otherwise, there isn't a computer in my house that isn't running Linux.


As for why Slackware isn't the most popular distro? A person may be smart, but people are dumb. A whole lot of people out there see Slackware as it was back in 1996 when I decided on RedHat over Slackware. I was one of them, until fairly recently in the grand scheme. Slack has evolved a heck of a lot since the first time I looked at it, and the only reason it isn't more popular is that more people haven't noticed it. The install could use a minor overhaul to make it more friendly, and it needs a system like apt-get that will manage dependencies as well as install programs (and no, not swaret or slapt-get. when I used swaret to update the system, it broke everything, and slapt-get was too slow for me to take it seriously). Otherwise, it's the perfect distro.

Slackware is popular. Many people are switching to slackware. It is one of my favourite distros (after freebsd).

I think its because distros like RH, SUSE or Mandrake get the most attention from the most visited linux websites.
RH and SUSE because theyre popular in the corporate world and Mandrake because its easy to get by without ever opening a terminal.I think Mandrake only sees any desktops is because its marketed as the "from windows to linux" distro, and thats what it is.Its great for first time linux users who have no clue as of what to expect.I hated it, it didnt feel like a true linux OS..Dont actually know why but I just did not like Mandrake one bit.


I think Slackware is a great Distro for someone using linux with the intent to learn linux.It takes research but its not hard to use or configure.The worst part is finding software designed for slackware.

And despite what everyone says its NOT a hard distro to get installed and running.The simple installer is not difficult at all, and it works very well.I found it very easy and to the point, but can also be slowed down and tuned for end-users.

The community is great also, like debain the slackers are almost fanatical.Very important.

When I started using slackware I only had a month of linux experience with several distros and Slackware was by far my favorite.

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I think most people turning to linux dont expect it to be easy, and almost expect or even look forward to a real command prompt.
I didnt expect a windows system with a penguin, I knew Id have to learn.I think most people look at it the same way which makes slackware better than the mainstream distros.

I've always used Slackware, because when I started using Linux, it *was* Linux (I think it wasn't even called slackware then.. Just Linux v2 or something like that). I've found it to be able to run any software I've thrown at it and I haven't had any need to go anywhere else.

Not entirely true. If you're speaking of .tgz's, then check out http://www.linuxpackages.net But software doesn't really _have_ to be designed for slack. Ideally, it could be designed for any working unix system. And that's the beauty of Slack. Most any software created can be compiled and installed on a Slackware system, due to strict file placement. That's one of the finer points of Slack... software doesn't have to be "designed" for Slack, it can be compiled for it.

VERY important. Good point. I've run into Debian fanatics who told me it was worth reinstalling, and I told them I use Slack. They realized an argument wasn't worth the time. The fanatacism is definitely worth it, whether you use Debian, Slack, Gentoo, etc... Any distro that has that kind of allegiance and support is worth using, no matter what it is. Just for the simple fact that the users love it and are willing to offer support. Sure, there are users that tend to be pricks, thinking they have some sort of exclusive ownership to "their" distro, but for the most part, people don't mind helping out. Like some have pointed out before (for various reasons), look which forum has the most activity. With fewer users than most, the Slack forum has the most activity of any distro. I haven't been using slack for long, but I see that as a compliment to the community.

Yea, most of the people switching from windows to linux dont expect linux to be easy.

Yes, but switching from linux to windows is worst .

One guy is switching from linux to windows. Go here plz http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=269142