I have installed Manjaro – a Slackware descendant of GNU/Linux – and am enjoying a beautiful and highly functional desktop.
Linux was first developed in the early 1990s and has expanded into several families. My entire 17 years of using Linux as a member of the RPM or .Deb family. These refer to the package management systems.
RPM stands for Redhat Package Management and begins with Redhat Linux itself, followed by great distros like Fedora and Mandriva.
Then there is the Debian family which includes Debian intself and followed by the largest branches in Linux, like Ubuntu, Mint and SolydXK (from where I just came).
There is Android, as in Android phones, and the many variants that run on cellphones. Other devices such as your router and modem also run versions of Linux under their hoods.
Then there is Slackware, which is a whole different beast and packaging system starting with Arch Linux and various descendants like OpenSUSE and Manjaro. I have never tried a Slackware distro before, but now I have and I find it secure and safe.
Externally mostly it seems the same. I’m using the same DE (Desktop Environment) which in my case is called XFCE. There are other DEs like KDE, Mate, Cinnamon, Gnome 3, Unity and so on. Lately, I’ve taken a like to XFCE and am very comfortable in that environment.
I haven’t posted much in the last 24 hours because of all this fiddling and fussing, getting my computer just right. It’s getting close now. Very pretty.