[SOLVED] Success: slackware -current installed and running beaaautifuuulllll

Thanks to everyone, especially Allend, for all the timely, friendly advice and help.

I finally got -current to run and no more GUI problems at 3:30am after 2 hours and only dropping two packages:
qt-4.8.4-x86_64-5.txz
virtuoso

which presumably i can pick up now!

My god the relief and excitement and sense of achievement is awesome.

thanks again;
now to learn all about this software and be able to contribute something back.

Glad you finally succeeded.
You have had a baptism by fire. Have fun!

Originally Posted by allend Glad you finally succeeded. You have had a baptism by fire. Have fun!

When I read that script you wrote a couple of years back to allow you to connect to the internet directly using a Hwawei dongle, I tried it, as I told you. And while it didn't work for me (different device?), it did make me realize how much I want to learn how to do stuff like that! (I think I'm coming down with a "bug")

So, when you get a chance, could you lay out a bit of a learning path for me, just in broad strokes, that would take me from novice (that is, the office boy you send to fetch the papers and coffee) to smart-arse, self-piloting intermediate, by the surest but quickest route?

To give you an idea of what I'm already doing:
I'm working my way through an excellent guide which Chris ( a member here, from Brisbane) put me on to: think it's called the Rute Tutorial (for those who have already got their toes wet at the command line) and finding that interesting and helpful; and I"m trying to teach myself some python with some online tutorials.

Just wondered if you could put me onto other sorts of things I could dip into in order to:
1. learn how to learn; and
2. search for example scripts to answer "real life" problems; you know, like:
"Mr Penguin, how do I connect to internet using my wireless dongle when
a) I get sick of a bloated gui or
b) My bloated gui gets broke?"

Cheers

When the time comes when you feel confident enough to start thinking about "contributing back", perhaps you could consider writing one or more articles about your intial struggles in the Slackware Documentation Wiki. Not everybody is a programmer and giving back to the Open Source Community does not have to take the shape of computer code. Many pieces of documentation are being written by experienced people and basic "newbie" instructions are often skipped or not even considered useful. If decent beginner's information is present in our Wiki then others after you will be able to profit from your experiences.

Cheers, Eric

Originally Posted by textillis My god the relief and excitement and sense of achievement is awesome.

Congratulations! Well-done!
Once you Slack, you never go back.

My path to learning has always been based on wanting to find solutions to my own problems.
My initial exposure to *nix operating systems was my use of a computer controlled piece of equipment that had HP-UX as the base operating system. Wanting to tweak that, I used Minix on my then home PC ( I hammered that AT until a number of keys stopped working but I did finish Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards before that and have avoided games for fear of addiction ever since). That gave a grounding in using *nix style commands, shell scripting and very simple C programming. Later I wanted a server at work, and I chose Slackware with Samba as my solution. With that came a learning curve on networking and server administration.

I interpret your request as wanting to become more comfortable at the command line. Your three basic friends are 'man' 'info' and 'apropos'.
I consider bash scripting to be a very worthwhile skill. http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide
I recommend studying the scripts in /etc/rc.d as they are well commented. You will learn a lot about Slackware, as well as how basic *nix commands like grep, sed and awk can be used.

The worth of other scripting languages will depend on your needs. Python is interesting to me for the ability to do floating point calculations, but I have not found a personal use for it. I have solved a need to process CSV files using Perl. But then you may want PHP, Ruby, a statistical package such as R ...

On your point about giving something back, perhaps think about what could be made better so that your tortuous path could have been more straightforward. Your experience as a naive user could help in improving the SlackDocs project.
Edit: Alien Bob was quicker and better as always!

Originally Posted by Alien Bob When the time comes when you feel confident enough to start thinking about "contributing back", perhaps you could consider writing one or more articles about your intial struggles in the Slackware Documentation Wiki. Not everybody is a programmer and giving back to the Open Source Community does not have to take the shape of computer code. Many pieces of documentation are being written by experienced people and basic "newbie" instructions are often skipped or not even considered useful. If decent beginner's information is present in our Wiki then others after you will be able to profit from your experiences. Cheers, Eric

Eric, all my comments are aimed at the non-technical, the non-programmer of your post.

I love your idea.

I only wish now that I had kept a daily log of my scrambling, unfocused, piece-meal efforts. But thereby hangs a tale, in the word "unfocused": I think one of the first things I would write about is the need to set up for oneself a little hand-written! daily worksheet which includes: aims, projects, and outcomes; resources used and their locations; tips which one understood and carried out effectively, outlined in bold red, because, you see, I was in such haste that I threw out these basic principles of any effective learning strategy.

The reason I ran full-tilt at Slackware, instead of approaching it like any other "hard-but-rewarding" thing is simple: non-technical, potential slackers come to Slackware with the understandable but nonetheless erroneous idea that "it will be like the last OS I tried, just a little more complicated". Wrong!

Installing Slackware properly is totally unlike installing, say, Mint: with the latter, one points and clicks; with Slackware, one requires systematic, focused, disciplined learning.

With Slackware, the fun or pleasure thresh-hold is quite high: it takes a good deal of steady application of the discipline bit before one can enjoy the fun bit.

A simple enough recommendation, in too many words.

The challenge for me would be to come up with a much more condensed way of expressing these kinds of experiences and hard-won little insights, to make them immediately digestible and applicable.

Sincere thanks, Eric for the response and the challenge; I thank you also for your immense contribution to, among other things, the slackbuilds project, to which I am now turning my attention, considering myself fortunate indeed to find the trail you have blazed, opening at my feet, and to have the benefit of your hard work. Those who follow have much to be thankful for.

So, thanks, and kind regards,

Originally Posted by allend My path to learning has always been based on wanting to find solutions to my own problems.

Yes, I can see I'll have to come up with a project;
one thing that occurs to me off the top of my head is an interest in stealth personal computing for political activism, to avoid overt physical retribution when one expresses a view that is unpopular with a given slice of the society.
Perhaps I could turn my attention to learning about setting up and running a server for like-minded individuals that was ultra safe.

I interpret your request as wanting to become more comfortable at the command line. Your three basic friends are 'man' 'info' and 'apropos'. I consider bash scripting to be a very worthwhile skill. http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide I recommend studying the scripts in /etc/rc.d as they are well commented. You will learn a lot about Slackware, as well as how basic *nix commands like grep, sed and awk can be used.

Yes, this is precisely the sort of thing I had in mind. Thanks: your references are now written in my TO-DO exercise book!

Python is interesting to me for the ability to do floating point calculations, but I have not found a personal use for it.

I picked up an interest in Python because I thought if I was ever going to make a start programming, I had better just decide and start somewhere; simple as that.

On your point about giving something back, perhaps think about what could be made better so that your tortuous path could have been more straightforward. Your experience as a naive user could help in improving the SlackDocs project.

Noted: I have responded to Alien Bob above

Thanks Allend: big thanks for your time and thought in answering!

Cheers,