I've had my Dell Inspiron since 2004, and it's worked very, very well for me (it's still going strong), but I can't deny that it's too slow and old for many modern operating systems. I've been running Kubuntu Hardy on it for a while as that was the last version which shipped with KDE3.x but I was feeling the pain of running an older release, so I started hunting around for a replacement. KDE4 is just too heavy for this computer, so that wasn't an option.

I've tried a number of Ubuntu derivatives, including CrunchBang Linux and Xubuntu, but Xubuntu was too slow and I didn't really get on too well with CrunchBang (too basic for my liking). What I really wanted was a fairly default XFCE desktop (I really like the base XFCE desktop and it's not as bloated as Gnome or KDE).

Unable to find an Ubuntu derivative that really met my requirements, I decided to look elsewhere. I was considering Debian with XFCE as I have had a lot of good experiences with Debian-based distros outside Ubuntu, including sidux and SimplyMEPIS, but I felt like a little distro-hopping as I haven't done that for a while (since my trusty Philips X58 died at Christmas time I've only had one Linux machine, that being the old Dell, so I've relied on my MacBook a lot).

I've always been interested in the sound of Slackware, and I had a copy of Slackware 13 that came with Linux Magazine, so I thought I'd give that a go. I'm familiar with the installer so the only issues I was likely to have were with configuring my wireless network. Fortunately, Slackware nowadays ships with wicd included on the disc, and I'm familiar with this. Once I'd finished the install (not hard by any means, just more involved than, for example, Ubuntu's installer), I booted it up and installed wicd from the DVD, and it worked straight away.

I've heard that Slackware has a lot less bloat than most other Linux distros, and my experience certainly bears that out. Compared to Xubuntu, my new Slackware install with XFCE is lightning-fast. As of right now I'm running slackpkg to update my system and while it may not be as flexible and powerful as apt, and not have a nice graphical front-end, it's perfectly usable and I'm happy with it. I'm used to sudo from both Ubuntu and OS X so I've set that up, and all in all I'm very pleased with my new system.

I'll let you know how I get on with it over time, but for now I think Slackware is a great distro for what I want on this machine, and one that'll help me learn more about Linux. Don't get me wrong, I still love Ubuntu, but Slack has its place too, and I have my own reasons for liking both.