Double post

Thanks allend, that did it. I know I have read a fix for Intel graphics somewhere, just didn't pay attention. I will find it again. There is going to be an awful lot of configs to do. The graphics are going to be terrible with just a vesa driver. But, boot from lilo to login is about 25 seconds, shutdown is 10 seconds. So, speed is certainly not going to be an issue.

What doesnt work:

1. Can't xfce4 to start, KDE is the only window manager that will work (I installed them all)
2. Tap to click on the touch won't work. I think I read that I have to edit hal or something, will research that
3. Wireless giving me a little trouble, but I am sure I can fix that

But, really, this is the part I like the most about Slackware. There's work to do, but it will be the system I want, not what I am allowed to have.

Thanks

Bob

Bob,

Use wicd for wireless. I think it's in the /extra folder for slackware. That seems to work for most people.

To start XFCE, type startxfce4 after logging in as your regular user for runlevel 3.

Slackware 13's Xorg found my Intel graphics chip without any trouble and I still don't have an xorg.conf on that computer. Maybe I got lucky.

Search the forum, ask lots of questions, and welcome to Slackware.

to make a permanent change from KDE to XFCE, run the 'xwmconfig' command and choose from the list of what's installed

I have a Dell Inspiron 1100 with that same graphics chip (845g) and KDE 4 will not run,
(neither 4.3.5 nor 4.4.2) I get a mouse pointer on a black screen, same as you.
ALT-F2 does bring up a run dialog where you can start applications or type "logout" to quit.

With -current, I had the best results using XFCE, with KMS and without an xorg.conf.

Right now I'm using Slackware 12.2 with KDE 3.5.10, but I'm still hoping
to find some solution that will allow me to use KDE 4.

I'll try again after the next stable Slackware release.
Hate the prospect of trying the vesa driver, performance would be dismal.

A similar experience FWIW:

I have P4 desktop at home which was running XP with 512Mb RAM. XP was slowly dying and like you I tried all the usual tricks to clean it out and speed it up. Even after upgrading to 2Gb RAM it was almost unusable. Although I'm a die-hard Slacker, my wife may have left me if I installed it on our home desktop - we compromised with Ubuntu Karmic which is *noticeably* faster than XP. Since then I've replaced XP with Win7 and Ubuntu beats that as well IMHO.

I'd *love* to switch to Slackware at home - especially since 90% of my work on this machine involves SSH to a Slackware box...

You should see a *noticeable* difference with any distro...

Ah yes, I forgot about xwmconfig.

I have slackware_current with lxde, and for curiosity .. unbuntu, kde, netbook versions and the original XP on a toshiba NB100 netbook. Usual basic specs- 1.6Mhz, 1gb ram 160Hdd etc.

I originally used Xfce with slackware and found it a little slow ... with lxde it runs like a greyhound. Ubuntu9.10remix or what ever it is called also runs very well...Not impressed with the KDEnetbook .. is still a little slow and XP works if you have a cup of coffee to allow it to load all the startup crap. Your system has far better specs that a netbook.

Thanks for all your posts...I appreciate the help and comments.

As mentioned above, I do no have it installed and it IS incredibly faster! Still can't get an Intel drive to work, and I see from these posts that I am not the only on who could not get it to work. A mouse cursor and black screen is what I got as well, but I can get something of a desktop with the vesa driver (help from allend). I will work through this problem.

I have not gotten wireless to work yet, though it definitely will work as it finds my network and all. I simply copied the /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf file from another working setup as well as the wpa_supplicant.conf, but the network will not start:

It repeats this for about 10 lines and times out. Not sure what to do with this.

Bob

Hi Bob -- Bob's a good slacker name... way to wade through it

Sounds like it is not joining your wifi network before it tries dhcp... someone suggested wicd (which works well imho, especially on laptops that roam from one network to another), but sometimes I use iwconfig manually... my sequence of steps for manual config of wifi is

ifconfig wlan0 down
ifconfig wlan0 up (my own turn it off and back on voodoo)
iwlist wlan0 scan (see if it can see any hot spots)
iwconfig wlan0 essid myhotspot (may have to add options for wpa / wep)

If no errors are reported with "iwconfig wlan0 essid hotspot" then it has successfully joined that hotspot, and you can proceed to configure wlan0 like any other interface with ifconfig or with dhclient or dhcpcd, etc.

In the worse case, it cannot scan with "iwlist wlan0 scan", in which cases I have had to track down and install the firmware for the specific model of wifi card...

All and all, pentium 4s still make great desktops for casual users.

As far as the xp install being too slow, there is an extreme performance drawback when the drives fill up or are close to full, and sometimes it is simple as deleting items until there's a half a gig of free space left on device... There is also a guide at
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows for trying to salvage your xp install, since you no longer have the disks...

--just my two cents

Hi slac-in-the-box. Thanks for your post. You are correct, it is failing to obtain an IP address. I had never used wicd before because I was always successful doing in manually (using your commands), but I am missing something. The configuration I am using works just fine on another laptop for my home network, but this one has me baffled.

iwlist scan finds the network fine. Wicd also finds it. When I connect, I always get "failed to obtain an IP address. wpa_supplicant.conf is configured exactly the same as the working machine (checked it over and over again.

Back to the drawing board.

Bob

Every attempt at connecting gets the default "failed" IP address of 169.254.115.117. I know this is the default for a failed IP address request.

Would anyone know why everything about the wireless network seems to be working but will not get granted an IP address from the rouuter (even though it seems to be associating with it).?

Bob

Well, Bob, I can't help with the slackware problems you're having, but I can mention at this point that THIS is where I usually install the latest puppy version just to show off to others. Yeah, I know....not slackware, but some versions of it are based on slackware. Others are based on debian), and most maintain compatability with the source code as well, just in case you want to compile from that. I gave a usb puppy to a kid at church to try out and her mom loved it, of all things. When it comes to our women, they all seem to want something at least as easy as windoze, or they figure "what's the point?". Your laptop has much the same specs as my desktop machine, although mine is an IBM ThinkCentre. I just installed slackware 12.2 on it, as I've noticed some problems on the forums with 13.0 still, and I'm not savvy enough to hack through the details. I'm disappointed in the video so far, as I've only got 800x600 or 1280x768 (or somewhere thereabouts). At least puppy, small though it is, got the video right, and runs in ram as well, making it blazingly fast. I have to assume slackware can do just as well when properly configured to do so, but I'll keep puppy on here until I get it configured the way I want it. Just a suggestion which you may try on your wife if you're inclined.

Hi.

I like Puppy. and I have used the cd on this old computer successfully, but I don't consider Puppy a full blown distro. It is incredible what they can do with such a small amount of disk space, but if I added all of the things I like in a distro, it is no longer puppy as we know it. I also don't like using the root account for casual desktop use, which Puppy does by default.
And, updating a kernel in Puppy was a nightmare for me.

Still, I have to admit that my latest problems with using wireless in Slack didn't happen with Puppy. Worked right away with the same hardware.

Thanks for your comments.



Bob

I also use puppy.. mainly as a rescue system from a USB stick; and it boggles me how such a small dog has so much bite. I enjoy showing it to friends that use MS software. Visa requires some 25GB and arguably does little more; also in root mode. Every pc I have booted with it has worked, yet some systems have kernels half the size as the puppy distro and cannot get a screen up without extra work. How does he do it with only 150MB?