I'm looking into advanced distros (like arch) and slackware is fascinating. Is it still supported/used? If you'd like to comment an alternative distro, please do.
I've only barely gone beyond the more "backup + Docker appliance" style front end of Unraid, so I'm not sure. They make it extremely difficult for the untrained to get where you can break stuff. I am mostly an Arch/Debian guy.
If you can manage a Linux server, you likely have no use for Unraid. If you want to put together a Synology type appliance out of PC hardware to run Docker containers and uses ZFS for backups, Unraid is a fairly user friendly option.
I don't know how widely used it is, but it definitely has its fanbase - probably mostly by people who've used it since ages ago.
From what I've read, "supported" is a difficult term for Slackware. It's development is mostly done privately and informal by Volkerding. There's no public issue tracker etc. Releases are done when Volkerding wants to/manages to do them.
It's not a distro for me and I won't recommend it as a daily driver, but Slackware is definitely interesting.
PS: I can't stop me from recommending NixOS/GUIX as another interesting advanced distro. Them being declarative, deterministic and immutable seems to me like the complete opposite to Slackware, which doesn't even do dependencie management.
Slackware is the only distro I've run since the late 90s. I'm not an IT pro or a programmer or even an advanced user.. Slackware just feels right. Give it a shot.
As much as I Iike and respect Slackware and Patrick Volkerding, I would go with Arch if I were you. According to the change logs, the last commit was June 23rd of this year. Arch is more actively worked on and developed. I learned Linux on Slackware so I will always be partial to it, just like I learned Unix on OpenBSD and will be partial to it as well. But for me, Arch is the way to go for Linux. Arch's wiki is fantastic.
Not sure which change logs you're looking at, but both stable and current were updated yesterday. Current is most days, stable is usually a couple of security patches and bug fixes a week.
im using it now for my personal laptop. I have an alienware. Slackware was the easiest distro to get my NVIDIA cards working for steam. And these steam games run just as smooth as if they were on console. I also love that its pretty involved and have learned a lot between Slackware and Gentoo. I would definitely give it a try; i think it is very underrated today.