Whenever somebody uses the phrase "
The best Linux distribution" It's time to get out the old
asbestos underwear, cause there's going to be a
flame war. It's almost as bad as the old and pointless
KDE vs GNOME argument, and no more likely to be settled in our lifetime.
That being said, I have to point out that
Slackware doesn't suck as much as you think. I learned
Linux on
Slackware 3.3, and I liked it. No
GTK out of the box, thread-dangerous
Xlib, an installer that's really just a
front end for
gunzip, and no useful help on setting up an
X server. (Sign me up for the "
Hardcore masochist" category, I guess). As for security, old
slackware won't get you
0wnz3r3d nearly as fast as
Red Hat of the same vintage.