Slackware - Name

Name

The name "Slackware" stems from the fact that the distribution started as a private side project with no intended commitment. To prevent it from being taken too seriously at first, Volkerding gave it a humorous name, which stuck even after Slackware became a serious project.

Slackware refers to the "pursuit of slack", a tenet of the Church of the Subgenius. Certain aspects of Slackware logos reflect this — the pipe which Tux is smoking, and the image of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs' head.

A humorous reference to the Church of the Subgenius can be found in many versions of the install.end text files, which indicate the end of a software series to the setup program. In recent versions, including Slackware release 14.0, the text is rot-13 obfuscated.