Slackware 14.2 released

Speaking of patching, Slackware tries to stay as close as possible to the upstream developer's version of a package, with minimal patching. Patches are usually security related, and sometimes a package is patched to fix a bug found in testing, but there are no exotic tweaks like what you get with Ubuntu and other "flashy" distros.

Package management is as simple as it gets; there is no dependency resolution so the user is responsible for making sure they have everything they need for a particular package. Personally I prefer this approach, it reduces bloat and puts me in control of my system. That said, it's not for everyone, and there are some third-party package managers that enhance the existing system with dependency resolution and a pretty interface. You can also build from source just about any package you want to, as Slackware includes a complete dev toolchain for the most popular languages, and you can easily install support for less popular ones.

There is no systemd, which to me is a blessing as it makes for much easier and more familiar management.

Obviously I'm a fan, but there are some downsides I'm willing to admit. It's not flashy; the various desktops that come with it (KDE, Xfce, Fluxbox, Blackbox, WindowMaker, fvwm, twm) are bone-stock with no customization like you get with other OSes. This means a ton of tweaking on the user's part if you don't care for the default themes.

GNOME support is nil. Pat dropped GNOME in the mid-2000s when he got frustrated with building it, and while there are third-party solutions, none of them work 100% in my testing.

Unless you run -current, the stable version tends to get left behind. It's been nearly three years since 14.1 was released, and it was clearly showing its age, though some would consider that a good thing (I certainly do, especially for servers, which is what I use Slackware for on two systems).

There is no systemd, and for many people that makes it a non-starter.

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I say, give it a whirl. You may be pleasantly surprised! Then again, you may run screaming back to your bells-and-whistles eye candy OS. But at least you can say you tried it. :-)

The packages are pretty much up to date but the distro itself feels dusty.

I also remember in 1999, while installing servers with it, that you had to be careful to lot boot it on an open internet connection without first securing it. The number of running network server daemons the distros of the day started with is sort of mind-boggling now, and since inetd made it as simple as writing a shell script, there wasn't necessarily a lot of thought put into security. This, of course, wasn't a problem limited to Slackware.