# Slackware 43 Hacker News commenters recommended Slackware and 11 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 22 years (11 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Long-running, minimal Linux distribution that people praise for stability, simplicity and long-lived configs; critics say development has slowed and it is rough as a desktop. ## Why people recommend it - Stable, rarely breaks, long-lived configs (4 comments): "once it's done, it's done. I have configs from > 20 years ago that I still use without a hiccup." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47502970)) "I can only think of one time Slackware broke things for me since I started using it around 2005" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47021753)) "It doesn't get in your way or flippantly change things from one release to the next." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46711861)) - Simple, pragmatic, not in the way (3 comments): "it was intentionally simple, largely because it was created and maintained by a single person at the time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46798261)) "Slackware is in fact very simple in comparison to other distros." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255399)) "Nothing beats the stale, pragmatic platitude of Slackware." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46120300)) - Good learning experience for Linux (4 comments): "Slackware was an excellent learning experience and will always hold a dear place in my heart and memories" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46794065)) "I adopted Linux in the very early Slackware days: I did dive all in and learned all that I could." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49407793)) "I started Linux with Slackware and writing my own ppp up/down scripts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47413168)) - Runs well on old hardware (4 comments): "Slackware 2.0 was pretty rock solid by comparison and installed out of the box on most PC hardware I could find at the time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46712110)) "Slackware's running just fine on this system I've got with 15 year old DDR3 RAM" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48706811)) "It worked with all the hardware I had, and worked better than MS-DOS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46101536)) ## What people warn about - Development slowed; seen as dying (6 comments): "It is still a great distribution but it is not really active anymore." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49058078)) "Manjaro is in some ways a bit similar to oldschool slackware, which unfortunately kind of died" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447774)) "when a distribution is no longer able to release .iso files, then it is in my book dead" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48517530)) - Lost ground to modern distributions (3 comments): "Slackware unfortunately lost out to the modern world. But heroic effort by Patrick." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46711643)) "I used to love Slack, but they lost their way trying to compete with Ubuntu" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47023699)) "I got rid of them at the first available opportunity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46577327)) - Rough desktop, expects manual setup (3 comments): "It was super rough around the edges as a desktop, but absolutely an upgrade for a server." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49448592)) "it was very bloated (for the time) and the users were expected to recompile the kernel" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45837922)) "the community was hostile to anyone who didn't do the recommended full install" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47113662)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Ubuntu](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ubuntu.md): 560 recommend - [Debian](https://hackerapproved.com/p/debian.md): 552 recommend - [Fedora Linux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fedora.md): 437 recommend - [Arch Linux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/arch-linux.md): 362 recommend - [Linux Mint](https://hackerapproved.com/p/linux-mint.md): 277 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Slackware", https://hackerapproved.com/p/slackware/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).