I have just made a clean installation of slackware 13.1 (Full installation from DVD)..At the time of installation , it prompted to create a bootable USB stick and I am able to boot using that

1.My BIOS is quite old and has the Cylinder 1024 problem..It just recognises 137 GB in a 160 GB drive...Most distros are able to read beyond the 137 GB ...Currently I am booting using GRUB 2 which was installed during Ububtu 10.10 install. As you are aware GRUB2 recognises all the OS in the drive automatically and adds them to the menu on "update-grub"...The slackware entry appears...However on selection I get the error - "error: out of Disk"...How to deal with this?

2. What is the default Package Manager for Slack? I read that Pkginstall is the default but doesnt update dependencies. I have salix (slack derivative) in another comp and I use "slapt-get"..Is it available in slackware?I want to install wireless driver ipw2100 (Intel pro wireless 2100 chipset) and get wireless up.. I can chroot from say Ubuntu and do the needful.

Make sure your /boot partition falls within the 1024 cylinder limit, if indeed you have that problem. Your BIOS must be very old, since I haven't heard of any reports since like 2000. Time to update your BIOS?

pkgtools indeed is the default package manager for slackware. Intentionally it does *not* do any dependency checking, updating or any of the like. Most slackers love his behaviour. There is slapt-get for Slackware, but I'm not 100% sure if it comes installed by default, I think it doesn't. Should not be too hard to get it installed however.

Thanks ...Actually I read in one of the forums to install grub 2 with module=ata option ..This way I guess point 1 is taken care of...Have to try anyway..

Regarding package management can you provide a useful link for a tutorial on package installation... I have a wireless connection and use it to connect to web...

I have done a RAW installation of slackware and currently it does not even recognize my wireless adapter...i was planning to chroot to slack partition from Ubuntu and then invoke the package manager for slack...But going through many slack articles on package management I get the impression that it has to be done offline only..(quite unlike apt-get ; emerge;pacman;yast;yum)..Is there any equivalent for slack?

So I presume I have to get into some other OS , download the desired packages and then run pkgtool..

But how would I know what are the dependencies?

Appologize for my ignorance but is Slack a distro for experts??

I am willing to learn as I have successflly tried some intermediate distros like Arch provided I get some lead..

Slack is no harder than Arch (in my holy opinion); As for experts: you do need to perform some configuration in text files, rather than gui tools that guide you through the process for most (basic) stuff.

Anyway: for your wireless card, you'll likely need the load thge module. Like so:

as root:
After that, you should see your wireless adapter with
As for the quesion regarding packages: There is slapt-get, and you can use that, or you can download packages. The driver for the Intel Wireless Pro 2100 is in the kernel, and as such you don't have dependencies to be afraid of. Most of the time, the dependencies for applications are listed, so you can find out quite easily if there are dependencies. When this fails, you'll often see a slacker do
and figure out what the missing parts are. It's manual dependency tracking, but is quite useful if you look at it in retrospect:

Now that you want to install something, dependency tracking can be practical. However, if you uninstall your package, should or should it not remove the dependency you installed or not? Slackware leaves that decision to you by not automatically resolve the dependencies.

additionally, you can try this approach:

download the files from here http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/sla.../n/ipw2100-fw/
run the SlackBuild and install the package it creates.

But tbh, I think IPW2100 is already installed in the default distribution installation, since it's part of the n-series.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

You can find loads of information from a LQ Search. Most probably you do find a solution to your problem within LQ by that search. Great knowledge base!

BTW, it's easier if you present one topic per thread, that way your question will get the attention it deserves and not cause undo confusion for other members that read it later.

Thanks a lot Ramurd and Onebuck..

I actually like slack a lot ...Hoping to learn more soon!

You marked your thread as solved; what was the key to your solution? And as a courtesy for the answers that helped you further, you can click the appropriate "Yes" or "No" (the latter in the case the answer got you further from the solution rather than closer) to show that you found it useful and helped you solve the issue.

Oh ok...Well to sum up the solution:

1. I got around "error : out of disk" by reinstalling grub 2. It is actually been described in Super Grub 2's web page..You have to reinstall grub using the command - "grub-install --disk-module=ata /dev/sdx"...This enables Grub2 to overcome the BIOS limitation and it reads beyond the 137GB ..So my Slack partition got read.

2.As mentioned above the wireless driver is packaged with slack 13.1 ..All I had to do was modprobe ipw2100 and run iwconfig..I associated wlan and got connected to the net...Also I have got comfortable using pkgtool so installation is a cinch...

Thanks to all..

This thread can be closed now

Hi,

Glad to see things are good to go.

You might want to think about using 'slackpgk'. I like 'pkgtool' but there are other useful Slackware utilities available to you.