The biggest one for me is that the mental model for maintaining your system is tiny. As a system it is easy to inspect how it works - you can trace the entire b

The biggest one for me is that the mental model for maintaining your system is tiny. As a system it is easy to inspect how it works - you can trace the entire boot process along with a finger, the init system is excruciatingly simple, the package database is a directory with files each containing a brief description the output of a un-tar command, SlackBuild packages are easy to make and modify. The community is also very nice and has a lot of highly experienced users in it. Most software I want is also already installed and ready to go. Some people like to craft their OS from a minimal base, and I absolutely respect that and understand that it gives them a system which is perfectly catered to their needs - but I’m very lazy, and am perfectly happy letting someone with over 30 years experience do all that for me :-) That being said, I use Fedora at work and wouldn’t consider using Slackware. This is because I don’t want to know anything about my underlying system as long as it works and gives me the tools I need to do my work, and because GNOME is a boon to my workflow.