When comparing Slackware vs Netrunner, the Slant community recommends Slackware for most people. In the question“What is the best laptop OS?” Slackware is ranked 13th while Netrunner is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose Slackware is:
Uses stable, plain-vanilla packages from upstream.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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
Pro Everything works well out of the box
Works well. Very similar to my experiance with Manjaro.
Pro Beautiful and faithful KDE implementation
Modified but not overly tweaked (like BlueStar Linux or Ka OS).
Pro nice feel
Pro Always up-to-date
The "rolling" edition of Netrunner is based on Manjaro (an Arch derivative) which offers a semi-rolling release.
Pro Quick & lightweight
Surprisingly snappy for a fairly fully-featured distro.
Pro Netrunner Core is ideal for workstation
Netrunner Core is a vanilla version based on Debian Stable that only uses 400 MB RAM.
Cons
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.
Con Very heavy on resources
The heaviest Linux distro I've ever used. It often gets my laptop fan to fly.