While Debian is a really really good distro, I think it's no where near as flexible as Gentoo. Though you might not think it, Gentoo is so incredibly resilient it's almost totally indestructable.

Firstly, doesn't the uptime figure in Linux reset after around 400 days? ( Which is why the servers with the longest uptime tend to be BSD, since uptime doesn't reset. ) Also, if a server has been up for years, are Kernel security patches being ignored, or do they tend to be in areas that were removed when the kernel was compiled? OK, these comments aren't specific to Slackware.

I read a magazine article that interviewed Slackware's creator. He created it when he was an MSU student. Moorhead State University is just across the river from Fargo. I thought that was neat.

479 Days to be exact, if I recall correctly.

He's a cool guy too. He hung out with us for two days at the San Francisco Linux World Expo back in '93, LQ's first LWE presence.

He meet up with a friend from NDSU and they went out to a Fargo bar. It's there that his Fargo friend came up with the name Slackware.

Sorry but slack hasn't mattered for years now. If slack is so good why does the author feel it needs defending by writing such a long winded rant? In this day and age of lots of new linux users fresh from windows xp not many will want a distro that still depends on the command line and is only now starting to use the 26 kernel. Compare the simplicity of ubuntu with slack for example, sadly I think slack is slowly dying.

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hahahaha

You're a funny guy. I'll stick with Slackware thanks.

I wish I was trying to be funny, each to his own.

Ubuntu is simple in that everything is done for you configuration wise. Slackware is simple in that you have to set it up yourself (often) and therefore it doesn't have the bloat of other distros.

Ubuntu can be just as complex as any other distro to configure. Simply because the default behaviour is to install a ton of stuff doesn't mean it's simpler than any other distro.

Ubuntu has scripts like automatix and easyubuntu these make ubuntu setup pretty much brainless and they also let the ubuntu devellopers off the hook legaly. I'm not sure other distros have scripts like these although you would think they would especially distros like slack and maybe gentoo.

Well done, a respectful and enjoyable read.
I have been meaning to email Patrick to thank and commend him personally for his work and dedication to the Slackware project. This article freshened in my mind some of the reasons I want to thank PV.
While I very much relate to your article, I should add that I switched 'cold-turkey' to Slackware 11 in early January from Win-XP, and I am indeed LOVING the way Slack connects me and my 'puter, allowing me to see and feel and use every ounce of this box's capabilities the way I like, in contrast to having the Win-XP "enigmatic black box full of brick-walls" between me and my 'puter.
Within a several week period, I installed, uninstalled, and reinstalled Knoppix, Ubuntu, Gentoo, OpenLX, Absolute-Slackware, and Slackware 11. Now all that remains is Slackware 11, and I'll be keeping it this way, though I'll surely try-out a few others down the road to see what they're about.
Thanks again for the article! I'm rambling, so... Off I go
Sasha

I'm glad you enjoyed it GrapefruiTgirl, and welcome to slack. I'm sure Patrick would appreciate the feedback of another satisfied customer. THere's a good reason that slackware is the OS on my production box, though by all means, experiment with other distros if you have the space or the emulators, heh.

Your post also proves that it aint as hard as people make it out to be, and that its possible to switch 'cold turkey' from Windows direct to Slack.....you might enjoy spending time on irc freenode ##slackware as well, lots of knowledgeable folks to help you out or just to talk with about life as a slacker....

cheers

I've had the same experience as (it seems) quite a few Slackers...switched straight from XP to Slack, spent a TON of time on these forums and with Google, and have been enjoying my new-found relationship with my computer. I love telling my computer what to do, and having it do it, and being totally aware of why something goes right/wrong. I don't like feeling like EVERYTHING I do is controlled by some unseen magic. It's unfortunate that some people have such a negative perception of Slack, and to each his own, but it's very unfair to say that "it doesn't matter"...it obviously matters quite a bit to many people.

my experiences with slackware has benefited me greatly. I can set up wireless almost anyware, compile from source, build kernels and troubleshoot alsa( sometimes). Slack on its own has no problems for ME, i have stopped using slack not because of the distro its self ,but because a lot of software writers and maintainers just forget to include documentation.

Very few will document their packages dependencies online and quite a few wont even in the source tarballs. Your screwed if anything you want to use requires gtk based libs or python, hours hunting undocumented dependencies for one package and eventually needing some program/file/libraray called sm, beat that one, doesn't google well at all.
Best ive seen is a readme with "insert readme here"

Anyway enough of the rant, slackware is a fine distro. Does what it says and leaves me wanting to live by K.I.S.S, shame i miss it so much when i try anything else

I also found that to be a good article mephisto786, I'm a disgruntled winxp user as well - and still consider myself a Linux newbie.
Slack has been the first distro I've been able to get my head around and finally start learning something.
Yeah it's some work.
But it's not wasted work.
I could ramble on about dependency hell with other distro's, re-installs, grub re-naming all my hardware when I don't yet know the naming conventions...........yada yada etc.
It's obvious that folks here have some strong opinions about thier favorite distro's and why.
I have simply been looking for a stable home desktop that works, and Slack is the closest I've come to getting that.
Well done PV, and thanx.