It seems that the strength of OSS and GNU/Linux in the past was the number of projects that existed. Now that very strength gets in the way of a person searching for the distribution that works for them. Many distributions of GNU/Linux and other operating systems do much of what most people need, but very few do everything that the average user wants their computer to do.

I have used GNU/Linux in one form or another since ’98, but only as a hobbyist. With each release, I relied on proprietary operating systems less and less, finally retaining GNU/Linux as my only operating system in 2005.

With each new operating system I used, there was something that I could not comfortably accomplish. This was very much the case in Windows, and continued to be so with every version of GNU/Linux that I tried. Though with each distribution, the situation would get better and better, it was a matter of deciding what I was able to do without.

I had always avoided Slackware because of its reputation for being very difficult to install and configure. I am not a computer professional, so possess the knowledge of a typical user. I just want things to work.

I decided after a little bit of research to take the plunge.