I've seen in more than one place that Slackware is billed as being a "simple" distro but for advanced users only (kind of contradiction in terms it seems to me). Likewise, I've also seen Arch and Frugalware both being billed as "simple" but instead "for intermediate to Advanced users only". What is it that makes these three distros "simple". Does one place greater emphasis on simplicity than another? What is it in particular that makes them simpler than all the other distros who don't have a KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy?

Thank you

By "simple", they don't mean like Windows simple. They mean as in like Spartan simple. Once you're done installing Arch, for example, you're not dumped into a nice GUI on start up. In fact, there is no GUI installed. There isn't much of anything installed really. Or at least nothing a desktop user would care about. IT's all mostly server stuff. Same with Slackware and Frugalware (which is a mod of Slackware?). They all come with command-line utilities, making them technologically simple as well. Big GUI programs found in Ubuntu and Fedora are very complicated and bloated. They use a lot of system resources. These programs are very complicated in their coding (GTK is a ridiculous API. A simple "Hello World" box requires a ton of code). The reason Arch and friends are for intermediate/advanced users is because they take a fair amount of knowledge of Linux systems to maintain. But Arch and friends are also good for beginners who want to learn a lot about Linux systems very fast. Since all of them are barebones systems and require a ton of configuration, one can learn a lot from just configuring the system to his/her needs. To wrap up, if you're looking for simplicity on the user end, you don't want to look at Slackware or Arch. But if you're interested in learning how to maintain a Linux system, then Slackware and Arch are for you.

Alex Brinister

Well actually Slackware provides all the graphical environments but the simplicity comes from the architecture. It is kept so simple that even dependencies are not tracked for you. Many consider it to be a broken linux but actually the system user/admin has the true power to choose what is and is not installed in the box. That is the simplicity which at the same time requires sophisticated knowledge how your setup works. Simplicty in a sense that there is no automation to babysit you. You are in charge and nothing stops you to blow up your system or configure the sytem exactly like you want - your choice. Anyway answering the question what and how I want my system being set up requires experience.

Slackware - simple distro for advanced users.