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Add to SafariWhen comparing NixOS vs Slackware, the Slant community recommends Slackware for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for desktops?” Slackware is ranked 5th while NixOS is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Slackware is:
Uses stable, plain-vanilla packages from upstream.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro State of the art package manager
Atomic non-destructive upgrades / rollback of a system upgrade / declarative reproducible system configuration / unprivileged installation of packages / transparent source or binary deployment.
Pro Minimal
You can start with a minimal environment and add packages and software to suit your needs as you go along.
Pro Reproducible system
NixOS is configured using the Nix package manager, allowing your system to be replicated and kept in sync across multiple machines. Great for keeping a laptop and desktop in sync.
Pro Robust
Packages don't break after a NixOS upgrade as they are prone to with other distros (especially Arch).
Pro Stable
Uses stable, plain-vanilla packages from upstream.
Pro Strong adherence to UNIX Principals
Pro Ideal to learn more of Linux
Follows the original Linux roots. It still sees Linux as a free clone of UNIX so the distribution tries to be UNIX-like.
Pro Package management
Uses standard tar archives with shell scripting as packages.
Pro One more distro which is init based
Some users don't like to install systemd based distros because they increase booting and processing speed.
Pro Oldest surviving Linux distro
Besides Debian (which was first released in August 1993), it is the oldest still maintained Linux Distribution and was first released in July 1993.
Pro Super fast
Pro No systemd
Cons
Con Documentation is not good
A lot of the documentation of various functions is buried on the source code, their respective manuals, or non-existent. The documentation, the conventions, and the scattered toolchain really made searching for stuff easily missable.
Con A configuration change might end up bricking your system
Con Not user-friendly
It is made to be KISS (keep it simple, stupid), so you have to do everything by hand.
Con Large size live ISO
One needs to vain 3GB+ data for downloading one slackware ISO.
Con Narrow repos
Doesn't offer the same amount of options as other distros do.
Con Niche/small community
Slackware is its own niche and has a small community.
Con Very slow release cycle
Hasn't updated in 3+ years.
Con Dependency issues
When it comes to dependencies, Slackware shows more issues than many other distros.
