Slackware was created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993 as a cleaned-up fork of SLS, the first comprehensive Linux distribution. SLS was notoriously buggy, and Volkerding's improvements became so popular that Slackware replaced SLS entirely.
Slackware was initially distributed via FTP and floppy disk images. It used a simple package management system (pkgtools) and followed a philosophy of keeping close to upstream sources with minimal patching. The distribution was organized into disk sets (A, AP, D, E, etc.) for modular installation.
Softlanding Linux System (SLS) was created by Peter MacDonald in May 1992 as the first Linux distribution to include more than just the kernel, bundling GNU utilities, X Window System, and TCP/IP networking. Its slogan was 'Gentle touchdowns for DOS bailouts.' Despite being groundbreaking, SLS was plagued by bugs and instability, and MacDonald's development model limited community contributions.
Patrick Volkerding, a student at Moorhead State University, downloaded SLS to run CLISP for a school project. Finding numerous bugs, he began fixing them and eventually accumulated so many improvements that he posted to Usenet: 'Anyone want an SLS-like 0.99pl11A system?' The response was enthusiastic, and Slackware 1.00 was released on July 17, 1993, distributed as twenty-four 3.5-inch floppy disk images.
Slackware rapidly eclipsed SLS in popularity, becoming the dominant Linux distribution of the mid-1990s. It served as the basis for SUSE Linux (1994) and influenced many other distributions. Slackware remains the oldest actively maintained Linux distribution, notable for its Unix-like philosophy and minimal automation.
SLS first released by Peter MacDonald
Slackware 1.00 released by Volkerding
SUSE Linux created based on Slackware
SLS effectively abandoned as users migrated to Slackware and Debian
Slackware was the most popular Linux distribution for several years in the mid-1990s and served as the foundation for SUSE Linux, one of the major enterprise Linux distributions. It established the pattern of a Linux distribution fork replacing its parent and demonstrated that quality and community responsiveness matter more than being first to market. As the oldest surviving Linux distribution, Slackware influenced the Unix-like philosophy in Linux.