This is exactly correct. I was a Slackware zealot for a long time but frequently tried Red Hat because my boss back then was a big fan. I didn't actually conver

This is exactly correct. I was a Slackware zealot for a long time but frequently tried Red Hat because my boss back then was a big fan. I didn't actually convert to appreciating Red Hat until I worked there and learned the advantages of using RPM and other tools included in Red Hat that were absent in Slackware. In either scenario, and this is still true today, if you plan to connect your system to the Internet, you need to know your configuration and care for the system after it is live. Modern distros help with this a lot by offering rapid package updates, automatic updating and smarter firewall and security measures. A lot of this stuff was controlled by very esoteric text configuration files in the past, which made it hard even for a savvy person to get right every time.