I started with Slackware 10.0. Since then, I've used Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, and Magiea, and tried out many others in VMs. I currently am running Mint and Mageia on bare metal, in addition to Slackware on two boxes. Mint, Mageia, and Debian are fine distros.

The elegant simplicity of Slackware, though, is sui generis.

It's no myth. Nothing beats Slackware in comparison.

Well I have tried a lot of other distros but I always seem to like Slackware.

I just tried AVLinux but it messed with me. In other words it would not do exactly what I wanted. At least with Slackware I can almost always make it do what I want to do.

So I built a new box and installed Slackware then added the software that I was interested in from AVLinux. It seems to work.

Also I think Slack was one of the first actual distros I used, so I am sort of used to it. Although I sometimes forget how I did something if it's been a while .

Been all around the block, several times. Always came back to Slackware and each time I came back to Slackware it was longer before I wandered off again. Once I discovered freeslack (a fully libre-slackware) that was that really. I keep an installation of SalixOS on a spare partition for gaming.
And that's when you realise how far things have come on - I have a second Linux installation for gaming and it's a Slackware based distro and I'm talking exclusively about Windows games running on WINE.

Other major distributions say "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection" (David Wheeler).
Slackware just avoids the corollary "...except for the problem of too many layers of indirection." (Kevlin Henney).

I went back to Slackware when doing simple tasks became fighting against the distribution admin tools and meta-tools and "one true way of doing things". (And I guess because 13.37 was fun...)

Sometimes you just have to say "NO!" to drugs I mean non-Slackware distros. Slackware is about possibilities. Those other distros can only simulate that feeling. Its a false high!

Not a myth, at least with me, I have always returned. Started using Slackware many years ago. I've tried a lot of "others" off and on, always came back. The others just don't work for me. Several years ago I just decided to stop trying others, Slackware is my cup of tea and that is that.

Yes, once you've tried it - you're hooked. Doomed forever to return to it whenever you stray. If this troubles you, contact Slackaholics Anonymous.

Slackware, as any other OS, is merely a tool to get from the computer what you want to get from it. Slackware is indeed a nice tool for that due to its extreme stability and a package management system that allows the user to be flexible in regards to how the system works, but there always will be other tools (distros/OSes) that will beat Slackware in a specific niche (so that you could say that these distros/OSes are better than Slackware, if you really want to) or in a general point (example: while Slackware is very flexible in how you compile your software there are other distros that are absolute giants when it comes to this, like CRUX or Gentoo).

In conclusion, for those people that get from Slackware what they want to get from an OS the statement "Once you go Slack, you never go back" may be true (as long as they don't find a distribution/OS that fits their needs better, if such a distribution/OS exists), it certainly is not true for those people that actually have found a distribution that fits their needs better.

I personally decided to abstain from using just one distro, I will use whatever distro fits the task at hand best. This can be Slackware (I still use it for some systems), but I see no point in using only Slackware when I have a wide variety of distros at hand aimed at specific tasks (all hail open source and its flexibility).

Came from System III, System V, Solaris to Slackware (and I really don't remember when that was, think it was Slackware 3 or so). Hated Windows, pure junk compared to Unix (well compared to anything, actually), dual booted for a week or so, blew away Microsoft completely, reinstalled full-disk Slackware, never looked back, never really messed with any other distributions (well, tried a couple just to see, they went away right quick).

Working, I had to have Windows to please the folks that paid me and am still grateful to Scott McNealy and crew for VirtualBox (and OpenOffice, too) that made it possible to hold my nose and boot Microcrap without having to worry about catching a cold (or getting pregnant) from some malicious trash infecting my systems.

Retired, still getting paid by folks that need stuff done, still have to have Win7. Sigh.

Grateful to Patrick Volkerding (and Slackware developers too!) for the best toolbox I can think of.

I do love the BSDs and I have OpenBSD dual booting with Slackware, but, Slackware is my favourite operating system. I've flirted with a lot of distros. Slackware will always be my main squeeze. I currently maintain four Slackware work stations and have no plans to move to anything else.

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Slackware hooks you because there's no extra layers of arbitrary complexity stuffed in for the sake of "user friendliness". You judge a distribution not only by how good it works, but by how easy you can fix/modify it when things go wrong. The later is where other distributions fall on their face. Try to repair a Debian or Ubuntu distribution when it breaks - you're dealing with several extra (and un-necessary) layers of complexity. And the more complex a system is, the more things there are to break. So you may be dealing with issues that don't even exist in Slackware because that "layer" doesn't exist.

The other related issue is that Slackware is developed incrementally. Other distros are developed like Windows. They change in huge ways, and the result for their users is no different than what Windows users experience in going to a new version. The phrase "Slackware just works." is really "Slackware just works and works like it did before." You really can't say that about the other major distributions.

That's my opinion.

Not a myth. It has held true for many people.

I hear ya, George. I'm already giving sidelong glances at the slack again. It seems there's just nothing quite like it.

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Like others have already said, someone who likes the distro simply made it up because it's 'catchy'. That person probably is also relatively good at adminning a linux box and can write his own scripts and such.

My experience started in 2000 when after having used Microslop since 3.1 I got plain sick and tired and fed up with the garbage that it was (and, IMO still is as I have a old, cheap-o laptop I use that has W7 premium on it *strict* for old (and possibly a new one or two) games I like to play).

I'd only heard of one other 'OS' before and that was Apple and I got to see a machine in a mall once and tried to use the demo box and hated it after only a few minutes.

So, mad, frustrated and determined to never have M$ on anything I want to actually *USE* daily for everything but games, I started searching the internet for other OS's.

Naturally I came upon Linux, never even heard of it but after reading up on it I didn't care - it *wasn't* M$!

First distro I tried was Mandrake IIRR (this is back in 2000 remember, so I can't remember names or versions exactly correct). Having only dial-up and absolutely poor and broke from recently being disabled at work and no disability yet (thus no income whatsoever) and having exhausted the $2000 I had in the bank in the first year I was disabled, I had to download it. Took 3 days, IIRR, lol.

It was 'okay', but it had its troubles and the package management wasn't very easy (for me at least) to use or intuitive. So off I went to look for other Linux's.

Found Redhat, and it was even worse. Then came upon SuSE. Started with 6.3, I think, and I had a little trouble with it here and there, but it was far and above better than the other two I'd tried, so I stuck with it all the way through to 10.3, but got tired of the bickering and the collaborating with M$ garbage and went off in search again.

5 years ago (maybe six?) I found Slackware and as far as I'm concerned this is the last distro I'll be looking for (unless it goes systemd!). It 'just works'. No BS to wade through, no jumping through hoops just to get an app to work, everything is plain and simple - nothing is hidden no gold-plated kitchen sink to muck up the works, no huge company trying to outdo every other distro monetarily and deceptively and the workers backstabbing each other to 'get ahead'.

So, yeah, for me the catch phrase does apply, but your mileage may vary.