Slackware

What do you like best?

Simplicity, everything is under your control, one of the fewer systemd free distributions, real school to master Linux.

Stability, rock solid, had almost no downtime.

You can choose what to install, from a very basic (but complete) server with only ssh access, to a full fledged system with all the bells and whistles.

It's a 100% hands on distribution.

Learned a ton just being using it, and still using it, there's something new to learn every day.

Slackware motto is "Keep it Simple", and everything goes accordingly to that motto.

Performance wise, it runs in a variety of hardware, from a humble ARM based Raspberry Pi, to a top of line desktop or laptop.

What I like the most, is the fact that all my data belongs to me, there's no cloud connectivity to anyone, unless you add it.

What do you dislike?

The only downside (not for me anyway), everything is manual,there are no fancy graphical interfaces for everything, you have to use the console, package and dependency management is not perfect, but does the job.

Sometimes, you will have to build your own packages from source, track and fulfill any dependency.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

Hopefully, you have a good knowledge of Linux and bsd init style layout before switching to Slackware.

Be ready to read, a lot (strongly recommend "The Revised Slackware Book Project" and "Slackware Linux Essentials")

Man pages are your friend.

The console is your friend, learn to use it.

Forget about fancy graphical interfaces for configuration purposes.

Be ready to build your own packages from source.

Be ready to build your own custom kernel.

Get to know your hardware, you will need this to determine how to make it work (ie, what kernel module to load, or build and install if

not available out of the box).

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Solved all needs (file sharing, instant messaging, dns, email, proxy and web server)

Once installed and configured, runs smoothly, almost setup and forget (unless something critical arises).