My first LINUX box is up and running beautifully. I just want to say thanks to everyone here for their willingness to share what they've learned while working with LINUX.

I've lurked here for about a month getting familiar with the pitfalls others encountered. I began my install of Slackware 8.0 Monday of this week. The OS itself installed quite easily. The network card configured smoothly as well. The only snag was the X configuration. I was finally able to work through that this morning. Now the fun begins!:D

I don't believe the install and configuration would have gone as smoothly if this forum wasn't present and available.

Thanks again!

j.

System specs:

ASUS P3B-F mobo
PIII 750MHz / 100FSB
256MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM
IBM 8.4GB hard drive
S3 Savage 2000 video card
Futura 17" Monitor
Pioneer 10x CD/DVD drive
Mitsumi 1.44 Floppy drive
Slackware 8.0

First install? with slackware? Good job to you. Most people say Slak is one of the harder ones to install, but really if people would do what you did, read up on it before hand, they would find that it really isnt as hard as people make it out to be.

Good luck, and if you have any probs feel free to ask away.

w00t!, good to see a new slacker

Thanks for the welcome and well wishes!

I'm looking forward to my new life of Slak!

For anyone getting ready to jump in to a LINUX world of their own, I offer this preparatory advice:

1. Research *all* distros on forums (like this) and various websites (do a search, you'll find something).

2. Once you choose a distro, go to it's website and read any documentation they have available. Also check the doc sites for LINUX in general (www.linuxdoc.org, www.linux.org, etc). Read, read, read. It will force you to go through the whole install in your head and get it somewhat straight ahead of time.

3. Check hardware compatibility! You definitely don't want this to sneak up and bite you while you're in the middle of an install. There are some good hardware HOWTO's and the XFree86 site is great for video card information (that's the part I agonized over the most for this project.)

4. See if there are any local user groups in your area where you can meet folks who have worked with LINUX already - they can help out a lot. Many LUG's have a website with info. on installation and such. Check it out.

Those are some of the steps I took which made things go smoothly. Good luck to everyone who's just getting started!

j.