10.10.2023

Almost a week now. You'll be an expert Slacker in no time at all! Welcome to Slackware!

1.2.0
Distributed in a box of 3.5" floppies dated 3/28/1994.

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1994?

Hell, I didn't even have a personal computer in my home till 2000. In '94, I was piddling around with MS Windows 3.1 on my brother's office computers.

Yeah... I was a latecomer to computering. In spite of the fact that I've had a degree in Electronic Engineering since 1980, I focused more on component level operation/repair of RF communications and audio electronics devices. I was amazed when I first got on the Internet in 2000! My only previous experience with it had been in '83 or so with a Commodore 64 at a pal's house and local BBSes + hours and hours playing Zork.

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I have been using slackware for 16 years since version 12, from the beginning it seemed like a friendly, transparent, accessible distribution, given that I had previously used Mandriva, Ubuntu, which seemed more dark opaque distributions. Slackware arrived that for me was love at first sight, imagine at that time being able to be root, and do everything you want at all times, why do the rest protect themselves so much, from what, from whom?
The lack of repositories and the lack of fancy commands such as apt-get, drake, rpm, pacman to install applications were compensated by the stability, simplicity and it must be said, this magnificent linuxquestions community always willing to help.
I continue today with 15, almost pushed by the internet because with 14.5 I have plenty, but I hope to be doing it for more years.

since late fall of 1993 - that makes it a 30y marriage with Slackware.
the longer i use it the less i regret it !

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My use:

2000: my first PC P-III With Windows 98
2000: try to use Linux (BestLinux 2k distro, a Redhat clone), but cause of Winmodem I had to return to Windows...2000
2001: bought a Winmdem Linux compatible (Linmodems.org rules.) and start to use Mandrake Linux + Windows xp
2002: Start to use Slackware instead of Mandrake, Windows removed
2003-present: I use Slackware on 90% of my PC's and some other Distro in the other 10% (Raspbian)
I also use other distro like Fedora, Debian, RockyLinux but only as containers or vm.

Why Slackware as main distro and not Fedora or Debian? I prefer a totally control over pc, and I consider more easy the Slackbuilds than Spec's or Debian packaging when I need customized software.

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Since 10.2. The cds came with a magazine and I plucked up the courage to install Slackware, my first ever venture into Linux. I tried one or 2 others but couldn't get on with the package managers. I seemed to have never ending library conflicts. My kids use Mint, but I don't get on with that either. I always stuck with with the stable version because it just works, but in the lockdown period I was forced to use current, but now with 15, I don't need that anymore. I'm afraid that I don't have time any more to fiddle about too much; because of work, I need something to work, always, without fiddling. Slackware does just that :-)

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Since 2009. I remember how easy it was to customise the Postfix slackbuild and to set up a mail server generally. Before that I had used -- on and off -- SuSE, Mandrake, OpenBSD. I'm still fond of Mandrake. Eventually I settled on Slackware and NetBSD. Life is too short for trying out every Linux going, especially given the pointless churn in other distros. I won't name names.

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My Slackware journey went like this:
- Slackware (late 90's): hated how user unfriendly, how rough around the edges it was. And that fdisk thing was scary as hell. Back to Windows after a few hours!
- Redhat (late 90's): found a DVD in a magazine. It was ok, more noob friendly than Slackware, but I wasn't enamoured.
- Slackware 8.0 (~2001 for a couple of years): proselytized by my boss, I made another attempt, persisted and ended up liking Slackware quite a bit - that was the time of my "conversion" to Linux.
- NetBSD (circa 2003-2008): journeying into Unix lore with Stevens' books, I ended up with NetBSD, even deleting my Windows partition. I left when an update broke my PCI Wifi card driver Back to Windows, can't remember why.
- GoboLinux (for a year or two in the early 10's): ended up leaving, tired of waiting for the 64-bits release.
- Slackware since 14.0: I should have never left! And I hope I never will again.

For my sins, I still have a foot and a half in the Windows world: first, my work laptop is under Windows 10 and my personal laptop still runs Windows 7 in a VM for some software that won't run in Wine.

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I've been using Slackware since 9.0 back with x86_32 Intel CPUs.

However, as of late, I actually have been learning various other systems like ArchLinux and I'm kinda starting to lean away from Slackware somewhat. I'm really enjoying the flexibility of Arch as well as the nerd-in-me-loving wiki they have. However, I feel like Slackware actually taught me GNU/Linux fundamentals to understand everything about GNU/Linux, and UNIX as a whole across the UNIX and UNIX-like spectrum.

The Arch wiki is brilliant. I think it's the only distro-based wiki that is widely read by users of other distros. But my brief flirtation with Arch left me feeling that the community is too conformist and closed-in. There's all this emphasis on "doing it the Arch way", when I prefer to do things my way. And bleeding edge software isn't suitable for everyone. I don't like the feeling that every time you do an update, something could break.

Slackware, true to its name, is laid back. The software is stable (unless you use Current) and you really can do anything you like with it. That makes it the opposite of Arch in some ways even though both are considered nerdy.

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Arch has no real "way". There's a bunch of elitists who think they have a way down pat, and love to thump the RTFM response on forums like they're the boss of Arch, but honestly, Arch is really a DIY distribution akin to Gentoo and LFS, and the elitists are nothing but keyboard warriors fighting their own shadows.

Yeah the wiki is probably the best in the business if you ask anyone. Even the AUR is like a gold mine of information any distribution can use.

I'm actually planning on migrating my main streaming and production rig to Arch.

And as far as a "way" goes for any distribution. The best "way" is your own way. Make something yours, enjoy it, love it, and have fun with it. Not to quote The Mandalorian but... This is the way.

And yeah, I'll still vouch for Slackware. It's the best Linux teaching OS one can get. Gotta get your hands dirty to have a clean OS.

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@Hazel said:

> The Arch wiki is brilliant. I think it's the only distro-based wiki that is widely read by users of other distros.

Absolutely! When The Slackware Documentation Project was first initiated, we had dreams of it becoming as good as Arch's Wiki.

And as far as Arch itself... I was always impressed with Arch. I had it on my system for years, along with Debian, and some others. Slackware was always my primary OS, but I used to multi-boot all these other distros and keep them up-to-date and running on my system as a learning tool. Sadly, when SystemD came about, I wiped them all off my drives. I'm not a SystemD fan at all, as you may notice.

I've certainly been a Slackware user since version 8.1. I also know I was aware of slackware before then, using SuSE, seeing that it was derived from Slackware, and LFS, which had notes about Slackware as a good example to follow to take your LFS system beyond before there was BFLS. So I know I was monitoring Slackware before 2002 when I was using LFS as my system, and went fully onboard when 8.1 came out, because why not? So my genesis was pretty close to when I started using linux approximately around Slackware 7.1 in 2000. I remember the old mirrors and walnut creek before it went all bsd. So I am pretty comfortable with Slackware 7.1 onward as it was 23 years ago.

For you old timers, I have been researching old slackware, and if any of you have any slackware from 1.0.2 to 1.1.0 during Sept 93 to Dec 93, which are missing from the net as far as I can see, please let me know. Although I would also be happy to see the other missing versions of 1.2.0.1, 1.2.0.2, and 2.0.2 where they might show up, but these are pretty minor patch versions with only fitting in days between releases that they are unusual just ever existed. Oh there is also the original Slackware 1.00, but I don't think anyone has that today, since the FTP went down, and 1.01 came out shortly after with a good server to handle the interest. But anyhow, I am most interested in the version range I first listed.

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Does any know if they ever managed to recovered anything from the corrupted disk of Gentoo wiki?

That one had been far more professional IMHO.