TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

Slackware. It's one of the oldest distributions of Linux still alive today, and for the most part it's been maintained by one guy, Patrick Volkerding. These two facts are what makes this one of the most popular and damned frustrating distros out there, depending on what side of the fence you're on. I've never been one for popularity. 

Install:

Slackware has since the beginning of time (at least the first version I tried) always used the same ncurses-based installer. It's functional, relatively straight-forward, and not at all pretty. The "full" install is a little over 3GB and includes KDE (Gnome was removed some time ago for space, among other things).

X Windows is set up to run in VESA mode, and for the most part works after the initial boot with no extra tweaking. This is good because neither xorgcfg nor xf86config are installed, so the only way to fix your X configuration is by manually editing the xorg.conf file.

The option is given during the install to use the "experimental" 2.6 kernel. Allow me to temper your curiosity, IT DOES NOT WORK. I tried it and upon first boot my standard PS/2 mouse was not detected.

My standard PCI sound card didn't show up either. It seems as if  Patrick included the 2.6 kernel to appease the angry masses but crippled it so much that they'd be forced to use his choice of the 2.4 kernel instead.

One of the many complaints I have with Slackware is Patrick's steadfast adherence to using the 2.4 kernel for each new release, even though 2.6 has been around for quite some time now and is considered plenty "stable" for most all other mainstream distributions, including some enterprise-level OSes. But what would hundreds of maintainers for commercially-supported distributions know? In Patrick you trust, slackers.

Software Selection:

MP3, WMV, MPG support are included. The usual KDE apps are present as well. Nothing particularly unique to point out, other than the fact that Slackware is perhaps the closest distribution to "plain vanilla Linux" you can get these days (short of rolling your own).

No package managers, no branding of anything whatsoever, very very little configuration utilities. Pretty much all the comforts of a padded white cell.

Most Annoying Feature:

Perhaps my biggest annoyance with Slackware is its maintainer, Patrick. Given, it's his distribution and he's perfectly within his rights to refuse to use the newer, more feature-rich 2.6 Linux kernel, as well as refuse to adhere to any type of package management tool, refuse to allow official porting of Slackware to the AMD64 architecture, and refuse to include Gnome.

I'm also completely within my rights to refuse to use his aging, overly complicated distro because of all of the above. In the Linux world today there are too many other far superior distributions for my purposes, so I can afford to be pretty damned picky.

Who's it best for?

Anyone who isn't so enamored with the idea of "choice" that they'll take the "vision" of Patrick Volkerding as the gospel truth won't have any problems with Slackware. Anyone else should head for greener pastures, and these days there are PLENTY more distros that do much more than Slackware with a lot less work from the end user.

They also don't rely on one person's interpretation of what should and shouldn't be in a distribution. Am I being too hard on this grandfather of distros? No. Ten years ago Patrick's tunnel vision could be tolerated because there weren't a dozen better distributions of Linux out there waiting to let you do what you wanted with your PC. To put it bluntly: Slackware is obselete.