Did i mention that Salix is a nice Slackware distribution. Did I mention that multilib sucks to do and makes me worry about big updates.
So what I am getting at is I switched my laptop and main machine to Salix XFCE x686. Stop reading now if you think I am cheating because I am. Salix install went great. I used the step by step install instead of the fully automatic install. After the install your new desktop is clean with one panel and a few icons on the desktop. 

For packages, there is Gslapt and Sourcery. Gslapt is to access Salix repo and Sourcery is to access source builds. If a build fails in Sourcery, look at error and it usually a dependency that Gslapt can install. Most regular stuff installed perfectly.
 The only real problem I had was installing conky with lua support. The conky in Gslapt doesn't have lua support so off to SlackBuilds.org. In SlackBuilds download lua(5.1), scons, conky and tulua++. Install in order lua, scons, tulla++. When installing conky use "LUA=yes ./conky.SlackBuild". If you don't have audacious installed, install it or edit conky. SlackBuild and delete the audacious dependency line. If you installed the NVidia driver right from NVidia, you will need to re-install Mesa with Gslapt. The NVidia driver does mess up the conky install.