Well, I got my disks and I now have Slackware 9 on my laptop. I was able to get it on the first try but.......

During the boot I noticed the message log stating that the linux disk is read only...is this right?

When I tried to use the man pages (which I need!!!) it says it is formatting then does nothing. I forget the exact error message but it implies I am missing something.

Since I am new to Slackware, would it have been easier to install it all? I have an old system so I was ditching the Gnome and KDE stuff. I want X but with a light WM like xfce which runs fine. I just can't figure out where the man pages are.

Also, I looked for the how to's but could not find them. What directory do they go to?

If I have to reinstall, that is OK. I want to get this right. Once I get it configured on my laptop then it can take over the SuSE desktop I am on now.

Thanks
John

Did you install the groff package? You can get it off of the CD or download it from http://www.slackware.com. Once you have it, use the installpkg tool (as root). For example,

/sbin/installpkg groff-1.17.2-i386-3.tgz

I am not sure about the groff package. I will do that. Is that for the man pages or the how-to's? I saw the how to's being loaded but I cannot remember "where" they went (the directory).

I shall check more tomorrow.

I did have a minor success... I was trying out shell scripts tonight and, I'll be darned, they worked...whoo hoo! Granted they were quite simple, but, hey gotta start somewhere.

Oh! When I add myself as a user, when it asks for what shell, is the [/bin/sh] an example or the default? In other words can I skip it or should I have entered something there?

One last question for now...I am the only user on these pc's. I am trying to learn all the right ways and stay away from logging as root. Just how do I give myself permission to mount cd's? Do I give permission in the /mnt/cdrom or somewhere else?

If I missed something in the man pages, just give a hint...(I can use the man pages on my desktop until I figure out what I did wrong on the laptop, running SuSE right now)

Thanks,
John

Sorry, I should specify which of your questions I'm answering.

groff is used to compile/format man pages stored in groff/nroff form, converting them so that they can be displayed or printed. When you look at a man page for the first time (e.g. man fsck) groff compiles the man page into a printable version, and stores the compiled version in one of the /var/man/cat directories (e.g. /var/man/cat8). If you didn't install groff, then you can't view man pages.

The HOWTOs are stored in /usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs/ and /usr/doc/Linux-mini-HOWTOs/ . These are plain-text files, so you can edit them or use the less (or more) command.

Just press the enter key to accept the default of /bin/sh when adding a user.

To give yourself permissions to mount the cdrom, edit the /etc/fstab file and add the "user" option. Here's the entry out of my /etc/fstab file for the cdrom:

Finally, to answer your original question about the log saying the disk is read-only, are you talking about the line that says something like: "VFS: Mounted root (reiserfs filesystem) readonly"? Look in /etc/lilo.conf and you'll see a line that says "read-only". Lilo initially mounts the disk read-only so that the boot process can check the filesystem (fsck). Later in the boot process the disk is remounted with read-write access. You can see where it remounts the disk in /etc/rc.d/rc.S. The /etc/rc.d/rc.S file is defined as the system initialization script in /etc/inittab, which controls init (the "mother of all processes"). init is the very first process started when your Linux system boots. That's why it always has a process ID of 1. Do "ps -A | grep init" to see that. In summary:

1. Lilo mounts your disk read-only
2. init is the first process launched
3. inittab tells init that the initialization script is /etc/rc.d/rc.S
4. /etc/rc.d/rc.S does a fsck if the disk is mounted read-only (which it is), then remounts the disk read-write.

Hope that answers your questions!

Wow! Thank you so much! You answered everything very well. I am going to be working on it today.

And yes, the line about the read only is exactly the one you cited. It made sense to me to be that way, I was just curious.

Thanks for your help. I may have more later but, once I get the darned man pages working, I will have less....

[Edit] Got it! ll is working well on the laptop. I will be putting slackware on this desktop once I read up a little more on getting my modem hooked up and running. I appreciated the help. Thanks again.

John