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Comment by dragonquest | Hacker News Reader

I've heard this argument multiple times that Arch Linux is what you make of it and it really teaches you Linux, but I'm getting older and trying out lesser distro's now. :) However while I admire its passionate community, I'm genuinely curious, how does it differ from Slackware? In the sense, how exactly does Arch differ from Slackware in terms of teaching you the guts of your own system?

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As a former Slackware user myself, I was mostly impressed by ArchLinux's package management and the user-maintained wiki. As far as learning the guts of the system goes, I'd say that ArchWiki has become one of the best searchable references out there and is the main thing that separates Arch from Slackware.

I used Slackware for something like 13 years, and have been using Arch for maybe 2. If you'll allow me to post a link to my own stuff, I put together a blog entry about exactly this question:

http://beej.us/blog/2009/12/arch-vs-slackware/

Both Slack and Arch are excellent, but not quite the same in their objectives. I run Arch on my netbook and desktop (with FVWM) and love it.

That is quite helpful, thank you. It helped me stick with Slackware for now since my criteria fits your Slackware objectives and strengths list.

Coming from someone who's specifically used both Slackware and Arch for a similar amount of time, I can say that Arch is more forgiving than Slackware, especially because of Pacman and their wiki. That said, though, if you /really/ know what you're doing in both Arch and Slackware, the experience should not be too different...aside from maybe the non-support of GNOME on Slackware.

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