Since we had few similar themed threads, I figured there might be users of "prodigal son" variety?

1. Why did you leave in the 1st place?
2. Why did You come back?
3. Is this your first come back, if not what is the count?

I personally had few back and forth-s:
1. Had to use Windows for some silly compatibility reason/personal lack of knowledge
2. It can't be managed stability and security wise, had to go back to a sane Linux
3. Quite a few times now

Interesting. I've never completely switched away from Slackware. Slackware is comfortable with rock-like stability, security. I sometimes flirt with Debian, but, always come home.
I do have one older Lenovo T410 Thinkpad running OpenBSD 6.3.

I also have never left. I've played with other distros and have come to quite like Debian and Mageia, but I have always had at least one Slackware box, and it is always the one that I consider my "primary" computer.

The first time I used Slackware I was 15yo and didn't know nothing about Linux. I found Slackware 9.0 in a cdrom with a magazine, installed and used it as-is, knowing very little of English and nothing of command line or how to install packages or such thing. It was a fun experiment, but I did go back to windows XP 'cause muh gamez.
The second time I left I was in university, and I was distro-hopping: Ubuntu then Debian then Slackware then Arch. I kept Arch for a couple of years and a dozens reinstalls.
Excluding the distro-hopping period, after Arch I was frustred with the ongoing issues of such a fast rolling distro, I wanted a box that works after an upgrade, not changing anything and not forcing me to reconfigure everything. Also I hated systemd and it's binary log bullshit which prevented me from debugging my issues several times.

I explained a bit in IRC but (and I know this is taboo around here) the dependency package "issues" seem to have been solved by `sqg`... What a powerful tool! I don't understand how AlienBOB can maintain and do everything he does...
I was even able to get a new kernel installed without breaking Lilo in about 30 minutes even though I hadn't done it in years. I was a Slackware user from the '90s and had moved on to Debian around mid 2k. I'm slowly migrating back over to slack as I get reacquainted with the 'new' enhancements within the last few years.

I also realized I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes in Debian (especially SystemD) even though it just works.

I also am concerned with my lack of understanding of a certain boot process. Slackware it is for me.

Slackware has but always been my go-to Linux. Workwise we used CentOS, but I could easily keep up using Slackware :-). Slackware I have left numerous times (being a distro-hoe), but I have always come back to it. However, of lately, I have left it for MX-Linux for one reason only. MX-Linux makes my 'Lenovo W520' run 20C degrees cooler than Slackware. I do not know WHY that is and I can't be bothered to find out. The day I start having problems with MX-Linux, I will be right back to Slackware (yet again). I hate 'systemd', but as long as it works, I will accept it. Still, all my desktop computers (all 5 of them, print/file server included) are running Slackware and will never run anything else but for brief encounters with anything else (I did mention I was a distro-hoe, didn't I?). My file/print server will never ever run anything but Slackware.

I use a lot of external usb-drives, and every one of them (no exceptions) have some 20-odd GB's set aside (and installed) for a bootable Slackware on them. That way - the usb-drive can be taken away, booted on its own and file maintenance/recovery/backup can be performed through the command line (or xfce if neccessary).

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. I like to think of myself as having an occasional affair with the odd distro. Slackware forever, man.

New laptop with Win 7 around 2009 and I moved (my old gaming/file server that I was learning how to use Linux with went into the basement never to be used again).

I needed a word processor on my laptop in 2015 and didn't want to reformat Win 7 which was acting real slow. Because of how the partition was setup I was forced to in the end anyway because shrinking it broke Win 7.
Yes. I still need Windows but the GNU ecosystem has improved while Windows ecosystem has gone downhill so I'm using Slackware more now than in the past.

I used Slackware 9.1-10.2 (maybe that was 12.0 I forget), 14.1-on.

Around 2008 my laptop was getting old and my new wife owned bright new Apple machines.
I've switched using more powerful machines, playing around trying to get used to it while she gave me her old smartphones.
When we broke I bought a brand new laptop. After a week, couldn't keep this Windows 8 on it. I thought first Slackware was dead, not seeing any new release for ages and started with Debian. I messed everything up in a few weeks with a bad understanding of what this weird dependency managing is. Then saw that current was still alive.
So happy to be back with what I strongly believe is the best distro ever.

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In January of 2016 I had been using Slackware for about 13 or 14 years, but at the time I could get neither gnucash nor gramps to build in -Current (& I was the SBo maintainer of gramps!). I downloaded & installed Kubuntu. I wasn't put off by the boot process. I used it for about two and a half years & neither my nose nor my a__ fell off. I rather enjoyed having all sorts of programs available as binaries. Obtaining the programs I use with my amateur radio station was as easy as adding the repository & downloading the program. I was fairly happy, except for one thing. The sense of community is not near as strong there as it is here.
Several weeks ago I decided to add a BSD to my system. I prepared a partition on my SSD, downloaded the ISO & started the install. Well, I messed up, told it to use the entire drive & there went my Kubuntu install. Of course, I had it all backed up & could have reinstalled it pretty easily, but decided to check out what had been happening with Slackware. This was just days after the major upgrade to -Current, so I downloaded the -Current ISO from Eric's site. That was new to me, as well. Thanks, Eric. The install went flawlessly & I realized that I was at home again. Except for a minor glitch in cups or hplip or whatever, that kept me from printing for a week or so, the ride has been smooth.
Yes, this is my first come back.
Note: It was just this week that I got the BSD loaded. I put FreeBSD into VirtualBox. I really don't like the way it runs there, so will probably put it in the SSD soon.

I've used Slackware since around 2010 as my main day to day OS. I have and have had at least 3 desktops and 1 laptop running Slackware. My basement system has win7/Slackware 14.1, my secondary system has the same and my primary had win7/Slackware 14.2.
Recently I began to have issues with the sound and also with e22 in my main system and as I had a newer problem AMD video card I decided to try some alternatives. My options were limited as I won't use Systemd ever and the distros I tried all had issues. In the end I decided to go back to Slackware 14.1 using e17. It may be a little dated but in all the years I've used it I never had any issues and still consider it to be the best Slackware release so far.

Strange you should say that - I first taught myself to put a 'proper' slackware on an a 32GB stick using 14.1 - it still resides there, will boot on anything in sight, I update it once in a while - and it is my favourite (NOT favorite!!) slackware version of all times - it never fails me, my swiss-knife tool!! That being said - all my other rigs are 14.2 - but that li'l usb-stick will keep 14.1.

I suppose I came back to Slackware for the same reasons I left: I want a distro that is somewhat stable but still offers fairly up-to-date software and dependency resolution (dependecy resolution!? Yes, let me get to that.) I ran Slackware-stable for about 3 years (14.1 then 14.2), then decided to switch to Gentoo/Funtoo because I thought running -current would be more trouble than it was worth. I'm glad I tried the Gentoo family of distros, because outside of compiling (and compiling, and then re-compiling, and then re-re-compiling, and then re-re-re-compiling because you forgot those two USE flags you needed), portage is a pretty great package manager. But after too many USE-flag conflicts and weird this-package-exists-in-two-categories-and-will-break-one-package-or-the-other scenarios, I decided to try Slackware-current. Fortunately, I also discovered slackrepo and slapt-get. Those two together with their really excellent dependency resolution have made Slackware64-current the best OS I've ever used. May Slack never look back, and move always forward.

The only time I completely "left" Slackware was with my first computer in 2004, in my distrohopping days. It only had a 20 GB HDD, the major share of which was taken up by the legendary Windows ME. So triple-booting was out of the question. If I wanted to try another distro, then Slackware had to go - but only temporarily.
Now I only use Slackware, having lost interest in trying other distros. And the only windows I have are glass.

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