This week the Slackware Linux project is celebrating its 30th anniversary. It is the oldest Linux distribution that is still in active maintenance and development.
When I started playing around with Linux 25 years ago Debian and APT was a small revolution in how good it worked out of the box.
I tried to get into Red hat and SUSE and I always wanted up in trouble even before I got any Windows manager up and running. Don't get me started on RPM and dependency hell
Debian just worked. I had stuff up n running BEFORE I had to go down the rabbit hole to understand how all things was connected.
I wish I had known about Debian and apt back then! I spent years distro-hopping because I was so tired of chasing down RPMs in redhat. Like seriously, you can't just tell me everything you need, and grab all those files at once when I try installing a package?
Ugh. I've been a Debian (and derivatives) user since the late '90s, and you're unlocking memories of what chased me away from Red Hat distros back then.
Debian has a lot of other things going for it - but Slackware still beat it by two months, and Linux wouldn't be the same without it. Worth celebrating! 🎉