Does anyone here REALLY use slackware as their main OS?

[Alexzee]

Slack is solid but I would not say great looking out of the box. They will not use gnome and thus it defaults to KDE. But it very stable. And has a learning curve. Give it a try see what you think.

I don't recommend Slackware for a new user to Linux.
Slackware does not do dependency resolution.

I was fortunate 10 years ago. I was trained and taught by a Linux Guru how to run Slackware. What I didn't learn from him I did all of the reading for the package management system on my own. And yes, I agree @kc1di it does have a learning curve that's pretty in depth.

 

[Alexzee]

Well, Slackware has latest Gnome (45 or whatever) available. There is plenty of distros that support only one DM/WM. At least Slackware is consistent (vide Endeavour for example). Officially there is KDE, XFC, blackbox out of the box, cummunity suported latest GNOME.
Slackware is relatively small distro, but works well. Very stable e.g. I installed Slackware-current three years ago on this laptop, on previous laptop installed Slackware died with BIOS after four years. I don't dualboot.

Nobody can tell if Slackware is for you but it is easy to test. Hardware issues are common for all Linux distros. If you know how to deal with the issues then Slackware will work for you.
If you don't, just get another distro that may be compatible with your hardware.

The Gnome DE (version 41) for Slackware 15 Stable is in the SlackBuilds repo:

SlackBuilds.org - gnome-desktop

SlackBuilds.org - SlackBuild Script Repository

slackbuilds.org

In 10 plus years I've never had any hardware issues with Slackware Stable or Slackware-Current.

At worst I had a screensaver issue.

 

[kc1di]

I Started out my Linux journey in 1995 and my first distro was slackware. there weren't many to choose from in those days.
So I have a fond spot for Slack, But alas I've become lazy and use other Distros now Kubuntu at the moment. I also did packaging for vector linux (now dead) Which was based on Slackware. It was a good all round Distro but the Dev's involved just got tired of keeping it current. It had a nice xfce and Kde desktop.

 

[Aristarchus]

The Gnome DE (version 41) for Slackware 15 Stable is in the SlackBuilds repo:

SlackBuilds.org - gnome-desktop

SlackBuilds.org - SlackBuild Script Repository

slackbuilds.org

In 10 plus years I've never had any hardware issues with Slackware Stable or Slackware-Current.

At worst I had a screensaver issue.

nope: Gnome 45: Slackware with Gnome 45 and this was 6mos ago. In fact the latest one was Gnome 46Alpha (as of Jan 07th)

 

[Alexzee]

nope: Gnome 45: Slackware with Gnome 45 and this was 6mos ago. In fact the latest one was Gnome 46Alpha (as of Jan 07th)

Is it out of the Beta stage now and have you installed it?

 

[Aristarchus]

no, I am not interested in Gnome but there is Slackware community Gnome project. I am sorry I can't help more.

 

[JohnCC]

I've been using Slackware for over 25 years... Yes, I'm old ;-)

Over the years I've 'strayed' a few times - not at home, but in order to try other distributions to ease working with packages, particularly because I work with students, and the Slackware management has some learning curve.

Last week I decided to try Salix with this semester's crowd, and was very much surprised , and delighted, with the the ease it installed and the completeness. Except for (very) few packages there was very little extra work involved. Even the package manager was a pleasure to use! Salix deserves more publicity...

 

[Egzoset]

Slax and maybe Pure OS at some point i think used to be a satisfying introduction to Live CDs, real ones... Not anymore.

Another brilliant illustration of « Fix once, Break many » mindset!

 

[Vimmer]

That picture looks quite retro, like, windows 95 much?!

 

[Egzoset]

I'm not too sure about a "picture" but witnessing 3 USB extension cards going up in smoke ended the matter for me about trying to update a W95 machine...