Why do people still use Slackware?

[metalf8801]

It kind of sounds like people use Slackware for 2 reasons
1 its hard to use so you really have to understand how the OS works
but why not use Gentoo which is even harder to use and you need to know even more to use it

and 2 its the oldest distribution thats still being developed if you want something that old use Debian it came out the same year

I'm manly just wondering why you use Slackware

Thank you
Dan

[Lakshmipathi]

1 its hard to use so you really have to understand how the OS works

Can you explain more about point 1. Using Fedora/Ubuntu differs from Slackware?
I never came across such thing about slackware !!! If this is true, I start using slackware

[oz]

Why do people still use Slackware?

I think lots of people (including myself) consider Slackware far easier to use than those distros that are loaded with GUI tools that have their own way of complicating things. When you blend in the fact that Slack is generally considered well tested and very stable, I can understand why some people like it and they would want to continue using it.

In the end, it's certainly not a distribution for everyone, but then that's the case with every distribution and/or operating system.

[hazel]

Generally speaking, the reason experienced Linux users use any distro is that they like its basic philosophy. I've never used Slackware myself but I know it has a big fan base. It aims for simplicity and stability (no bleeding edge stuff, no crashes). Like a number of distros, it aims itself at users who are at home with the command line; this is not because it seeks to be "difficult" but because it makes the system internals easier to understand. The superficial user-friendliness of distros like Ubuntu makes them excellent for novices but at the cost of extra complexity and bloat and more things that can go wrong.

Slackware also uses original ("vanilla") versions of software packages rather than customising them with patches. Many people like that idea.

Linux is about choice. We're all different. What doesn't suit one person is often just what another person was looking for.

[jayd512]

Actually, there's alot to be said for Slack. It's not my cup of tea, but it's still brining a bunch of good stuff to the table!
For one, it's fast! With a P3 processor it was extremely responsive. One of the fastest systems I've had going.
Second, stability. Like hazel said, the lack of anything 'bleeding-edge' makes for a system that, simply put, doesn't want to crash and burn.
Third, since there really are no GUI tools for Slack, you do get more familiar with the CLI. And when something actually does break, that just makes it that much easier to drop to a terminal and look at some logs and fix it from the bottom up.

[elija]

And because there are no gui tools getting in the way the files tend to be simpler to read

[techieMoe]

Short answer: beats me.

[coopstah13]

you can take this with a grain of salt

i used slackware in late 2003, but gave up on it due to how horribly slow it was, this at the time was on a 1.4ghz athlon thunderbird with 1gb memory (pretty beefy for the time)

Things surely have changed since then though

[reed9]

If I needed a higher degree of stability than Arch provides (though personally I've found Arch to be more stable for me than Debian), I would probably use Slackware.

It's similar in philosophy to Arch, but without the constantly moving target of rolling release packages.

As for why, it's very much as Hazel said, I find the extra complexity and abstraction that Ubuntu or OpenSuse or whatever gives makes it harder for me to maintain my system or troubleshoot.

The one thing about Slackware I really don't like is the lack of dependency resolution in the default package management tools. Well, in general, I find its setup to be unnecessary complicated after Arch. But that probably has more to do with being used to Arch at this point.

But many people do like the lack of auto dependency handling. For them, it's one more thing that can go wrong. Without that, there is no chance of the dreaded dependency hell that can occasionally afflict other distros. And again, greater control and knowledge of what goes into your system means easier troubleshooting later on.

I think some people are drawn to Slackware, especially when new, because of this myth that if you learn Slackware you learn linux, or for the perceived status of using a geek's distro, but I doubt the majority use it for those reasons.

It's sort of like using Vim or Emacs. High learning curve, but once you breakthrough that barrier, the rewards are great, you find you can do so much more, and do it easier than ever you could before.

All that said, I don't understand why someone would use Slackware and then destroy all that beautiful simplicity by installing KDE4.

[jayd512]

All that said, I don't understand why someone would use Slackware and then destroy all that beautiful simplicity by installing KDE4.

Thanks... I just about blew my beverage all over my screen!

Still... You said it better than I did. Slack has a simplicity and grace that I don't enjoy using, but yet a grace that I do find appealing.