I just installed the latest release of Firefox on Debian Sid, although there was only an earlier binary package in the official repository because installing the latest release causes unfulfilled dependencies.
What I remember is that Slackware launched a month earlier than Debian.
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Man, this thread gave me flashbacks of installing Slackware in like 1999 or 2000 because this guy I was talking with on IRC was some sort of Slackware evangelist who talked it up. I managed to get it installed somehow but lasted about 45 minutes before the whole thing crashed and burned due to dependency hell and I slunk back to Debian.
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There were a decent number of distros that pre-date debian/slackware. They just arenât around anymore.
I think it was 1993/94-ish when I first starting using Linux. I started with slackware. At least where I was, it was much more well-known than debian in those days.
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With Slackware you simply have to get used to it and that is extreme strength.
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MCC Interim Linux
Impressive DE right there! 
Even got freakinâ top already!!
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I started much later, back on May 3rd 2007.
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Ya⌠itâs not really a significant difference.
Slackware was the distribution I never tried. I donât know why, Debian has always been before my eyes like Linux itself. Slackware has somehow never become as popular as Debian.
These are now part of the history of Linux. At the time, I was still working on MS DOS. I used Norton Commander.
I agree, but they are different personalities, P. Volkerding is very different from Ian Murdock.
Volkerding practically started Slackware on his own.
Murdock worked more as a team.
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I agree. I also saw that P. Volkerding was more individual than Ian Murdock.
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Oh, thereâs a very good reason why Slackware hasnât become as popular as Debian. Namely, Slackwareâs package system is a mess, if you can call it that. Dependency checking? Pfft. Who needs that!
Slack is a very pure Unix take on Linux, and I respect them for that. But easy to get into, it is not.
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I have a lot of respect for Debian, but at the moment, Iâd stay with Slack, even if I have to disown him with dependencies and other things, which sometimes irritate.
Debian today has forks everywhere, Slack has them too, but at least for me, theyâre much more serious and theyâre lasting over time, you canât say the same about Debian.
(I could be wrong.)
A little Linux history.
Ian Murdock. Ianâs girl friend at the time, later to be his wife, was named Debra.
Hence Debian. You notice whose name came first. 
So the proper pronunciation is Deb - Ian or phonetically deb ean
Pudge
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hahaha if I knew that, we always end up being sent by them.
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Of the four or five ancient historical distributions (Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake), Debian has the most branches. Subjectively, for me, Debian was synonymous with Linux.
I was trying to decide if Mandrake counts as root branch, considering at itâs inception, it was basically a âuser friendlyâ Red Hat derivative.
What basically happened was that Ubuntu hit it out of the ball park and thereby elevated Debian over all others.
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