I was totally able to relate to this article. I got into Linux 6 months after buying my first computer in December of '95. My brother steered my into minix and then Linux. It kicked my ass for several years while I learned everything I could, but the ease of M$ was hard to ignore. Eventually, ease of use developed in Linux land and I grew very weary of Billy Bob's Bugware. It is so far out of my life now that I wonder why anyone would use it. With Mac for people that don't care what's under the hood and Linux for weirdos like me that like to play with the innards and write code to make it do our bidding, that other choice just seems goofy and ill advised.
I think I'll buy me a nuclear powered computer so it has enough juice to run my antivirus and antimalware software all the time on everything. Huh? Why?
But I digress.
I got into Redhat at version 4.2 and largely stayed with it. I like it, and what's more, I know it, but the scholarly distributions of Slackware and Debian have always exerted a pull on me. While I can get lots of work done at the command line, there are holes in what I know. It sounds like Slackware has evolved enough to be simple(r) to use while still providing that blood and guts experience that separates the rangers from the infantry, the men from the boys, whatever metaphor works for ye.
I am running in Fedora 14, but will be installing Slackware in VMware to try and to learn from.