Problems with freshly installed Slackware64 14 on a newly bought laptop
 

Hello and Happy New Year to everyone!

Recently i bought one laptop - DELL Inspiron 7720. I installed Slackware64 14 on it. Unfortunately i am having a few problems with it:

1. It has frozen a couple of times and the only solution is pressing the On/Off button. 1st time was when it was loading X.

2. I have one Logitech Preformance MX wireless mouse (046d:c52b) - it is not always recognized. Sometimes it gets recognized when i unplug and plug back the receiver but that is not always the case.

3. Copy/Paste functionality is not working properly. I mean when i select a text and then try to copy and paste it, it gets not copied and pasted. As a workaround i have to use drag and drop which does not always help.


Could you please tell which logs would you need to investigate those problems and which commands do i need to type to provide the necessary information?

With many thanks!

Some more info - when i change the usb port for the mouse receiver, it starts working. This is totally crazy.

it seems that it is unable to get paired with the mouse and the returned error code is "-32". When i change the usb port, it gets paired somehow.

i think i am having a problem with my keyboard. Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V is not working properly. My keyboard is USB wired Lenovo SK-8815. Now i am using the default keyboard settings. Does anybody know which of the listed keyboard types in Slackware/KDE is the closest type to my keyboard? i hope that with another driver it would work properly.

Hi,
In which programs do you want to use copy/paste? For example in classic unix environments the copy process is done automatically when marking the text with the mouse and then while text is selected in one application (xterm for example) you middle-click another application and the selected text gets pasted to that other app. Thats the way X Window System from its core behaves. KDE however should provide with those familiar ctrl-c/ctrl-v shortcuts as well.

You have fairly standard keyboard and only way the ctrl-c/ctrl-v might not work would be if X Window cannot understand the ctrl key. What do you have in the /etx/X11/xorg.conf ? Maybe there is something that messes with the keyboard config. Another test to see if ctrl-c would work, is to open up terminal, and tail -f /var/log/messages and then hit ctrl-c and see if the tail process would end and you would be returned to the prompt? If that works then indeed the copy/paste is not assigned to ctrl-c/ctrl-v

Hello
in Terminal Copy/Paste works properly. I want it to work in KDE. I am using Google Docs and want to be able to paste text there from other web pages, that's it. I want Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V to work there. I changed the standard keyboard type in KDE to some DELL and i think it is working better now. I opened tail -f /var/log/messages and pressing Ctrl+c returned me to the prompt, so CTRL key is properly recognized.


I do not have a file named /etc/X11/xorg.conf. instead of that i have:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf-vesa - its contents is attached.

This file has been automatically generated, i have not edited it. Shouldn't i have a file named /etc/X11/xorg.conf?

In recent Slackware releases there is no need for /etc/X11/xorg.conf but in particular cases, read CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT at the root of your Slackware CD/DVD or of a Slackware mirror to know more. In fact /etc/X11/xorg.conf-vesa is there as a fallback just in case no other video driver for X than vesa works, then it can simply be renamed or copied as /etc/X11/xorg.conf (but this does not seem to be necessary with your hardware).

I suggest you try another DE, XFCE for instance. If everything works in XFCE then try to refine your KDE settings.

which kernel are you using?

check out these topics
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...it-4175437560/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...it-4175434378/

Hello,
can you please instruct me how to try the XFCE Desktop Environment? I have used onle KDE so far because it is the default one.
Thank you!

Hello,
i am currently using the default kernel that comes with Slackware 14 - 3.2.29. I have performed the full installation. Upgrading the kernel probably would help but unfortunately i have not done it so far and i fear that i won't be able to do that properly. Are there some tutorials but real detailed ones for users that are not so experienced? Worst case would be i suspect that after such upgrade i will not have working system and i will have to perform the installation once again and then buy a cheap mouse with cable, then wait until the next stable release of Slackware hoping that it would use a kernel that will recognize and properly control the mouse. If you instruct me how to do that, i could try. If you want the output of some commands, please let me know which they are and i am ready to help.
Regards!

You can switch your desktop environment / window manager by using xwmconfig command from terminal/console and then restarting X

Looking at your other issues however to me it seems that either your hardware is faulty or some component in the system produces massive disturbances. The default kernel is rock solid and there should be no need to replace it. For example the freezing and mouse detection problem might point to a direction that maybe your hardware is too new for Linux. You know we are dealing with open source here and it takes guys year or two to produce production grade drivers for all those fancy bells and whistles.

It is odd suggestion but I would recommend to try another distro like Ubuntu or Mint or Fedora or something else and to see if the freezing and mouse problems persist? Maybe it is about the Slackware Vanilla kernel that does not play well with your brand new laptop.

I had some problems with my Thinkpad x230, too. I upgraded the kernel and everything is running fine so far (after patching acpi_thinkpad.c for the mic button).

AlienBob wrote a tutorial about that, if you follow that nothing should go south. I used it for some time and it works.
Here is the tutorial:

http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...kernelbuilding

The source and configfile will be different. You'll find them both here:

http://mirrors.slackware.com/slackwa...rent/source/k/

Hello,
now i will have to postpone a bit the kernel upgrade. Unfortunately the laptop started to hang very often. Any other suggestions except for upgrading the kernel or moving to another Desktop Environment? I bought the laptop with Ubuntu but i deleted it because i wanted to have Slackware on it. I do not know where i could find the messages that are output when booting up the machine. Here is what i could provide - dmesg.txt.
Any other suggestions how to obtain some other logs or do some optimizations? Could anyone tell me what is wrong?
Thank you!

The average Slackware user thinks of the most complicated way possible to upgrade a kernel. There is, fortunately, an easier way to cope with this problem. Slackware64-current has a newer kernel update; that in itself might solve your problem. There is a program included with Slackware called slackpkg. You set it up by editing /etc/slackpkg/mirrors, page down to the Slackware64-current section, and delete the # next to the site that you want to download from. You can have *only* one # deleted, so choose carefully.

Next, type:
and it will download the Changelog.txt, which tells slackpkg what packages are available for upgrade. After slackpkg is finished downloading, type:

and a screen will appear showing the kernel updates available. Hit <ENTER> and it will proceed to upgrade your kernel. Remember to run 'lilo' when slackpkg is done. It will not boot correctly if you do not.

There is also some packages available in Slackbuilds.org for your Nvidia chipset. You only have to download the nvidia-driver and the nvidia-kernel packages. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully!

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Matt

Bad advice. You should not instruct people to switch to Slackware-current, unless you also tell them that -current is our testing ground, it may break your system from one day to the other, and you are essentially becoming a Slackware beta tester. Not everybody will want to abandon his stable Slackware in favour of that.

And then the second bad advice: never mix Slackware packages from two different Slackware releases. The difference between 14.0 and -current is large enough that it will bring you more bad than good. The -current kernel has been compiled with another version of GCC and against a newer glibc as well. That kernel will give you issues if you install it on 14.0.

Finally, your third bad advice: by running "slackpkg upgrade kernel" you will essentially remove your working kernel. What if the new kernel won't boot? You end up with an unusable computer until you find out how to re-install the old kernel. Never upgrade your kernel! Always use "installpkg" to install a new kernel alongside the working kernel, and add the new kernel to your LILO configuration so that you have a choice at boot. See http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla...out_the_kernel

Better to build that kernel from source, glupa4e. See http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla...kernelbuilding

Eric

I stand corrected. I shall henceforth refrain from giving such advice until I know for sure I am not indirectly responsible for borking someone's stable Slackware installation. I would feel terrible for turning someone away. I bit off more than I could chew.

Please accept my humble apologies.

Matt