I would like to try Slackware, and I have a few questions.
How much experience with Linux does a person need to have to install and configure; is there good documentation for this?

How much is there for binary programs?
Can I install OpenOffice?

What support is there for hardware like processors, video and sound cards?

I would like to do do a dual install (install Slackware with another Linux distro) , can someone direct me to information for this; I couldn't find anything on the web.

The slackbook is a good place to start. You can also try the other links in my sig, especially this one:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...54#post2794354

Binary programs ? Well, there are many packages available, or slackbuilds, or you can compile things yourself ... it's quite easy, especially since it actually works (unlike on many other distros)

Openoffice provides binary packages that you can certainly install in many ways from different places. Of course you can.

Support for hardware ... that depends on the kernel. It should support anything any other distro supports.

http://slackware.com/~rworkman/ <-- link to my OpenOffice.org package (and others) there.

Hello,

I installed Open Office 2.2.1 on Slackware. First i did a rpm2tgz *.rpm, this will transform the rpm into slackware tgz-files. Then as root do installpkg *.tgz. You will find a directory with desktopintegrationfiles where you can do a installpkg for the one for slackware, this will make entries into your kde-programmenu.

Yes, this works. I think it's a very loose definition of "works" - but it works.

I think you'll find that the menu entries don't work properly in Xfce (though that may have been corrected).
I know you'll find a symlink in /etc to /opt/openoffice.org2.2, and all of the start scripts for it will refer to the /etc path (very un-Slackware-like packaging).
I know you'll find that the icons and desktop entries are installed to kde directories - that's fine if you're using kde, but what why assume that the kde directory is the proper place? Why not the generic /usr/share/applications and /usr/share/pixmaps?

Ultimately, though, it's your system - use whatever you want.

i dont know what the installation was like in the past, but slackware 11 is quite straightforward to install. the only slighty difficult part is the partitioning, for which i simply create /, /home, and swap partitions, quite easy i think, and im no computer expert i think if you use slackware you have to be prepared to learn a little bit about how it all works, thats slackware. for example when you boot the system, you boot into a black console, you then log in, and stay in the black console, you dont go straight through to KDE or Gnome, if you want to go into your DE, you have to type 'startx'. although by simply editing a few files you can do this automatically after login, but this is the point i am making, you have to know which file to edit and what command to insert (startfluxbox), or whatever, to put there, theres something else i cant quite remember too (its early here). if you have some spare time every now and again and your not in a hurry, and your willing to search LQ's for answers to problems that are easily sorted, install slack. i love it

And don't forget that this forum is possibly the best documentation for Slackware available. You can have any question answered here.

You can find lots of packages at linuxpackages.net. Sometimes their stuff can be outdated or their packages have extra dependencies. You can try their stuff if you don't like it compile your own packages thats what I do mostly.

In my opinion none. Slackware was my first Linux distribution and it is much easier to install and configure than many critics suggest. Read the slackbook. Bring your problems here. As long as you are prepared to put in a little effort it is not difficult.

Thanks for the link, Robby!
Will your package integrate well into XFce? I don't run KDE or Gnome.
Thank you:-)

Slackware 11.0 was my first experience with Linux. Previously I had only used Windows and MacOS, and didn't even know DOS.

It took some struggling, but now I'm glad I did the work, since I have a better understanding of how Linux works than I would have had if I went with some other distros. Also, I was able to quickly and easily figure out and install BSD due to the similarities with slackware.

It does. Have a look at the SlackBuild script and/or my ChangeLog for details on that - I know it's documented in one or the other, but I don't recall which. Long story short, the .desktop files (which create the menu entries) had to be modified (due to a bug in Xfce rather than OOo) or they won't launch properly from the Xfce menu. The xfdesktop developer stated (and I'm paraphrasing) that the amount of time and energy required to fix the bug isn't worth it since the menu code is being completely rewritten for Xfce 4.6.

RW

Thanks for the reply, Robby:-)
I feel more comfortable using your scripts and packages than the ones offered at linuxpackages.net. I'll be using your OO package for slackware 12 when it is released.

Hey guys, I just posted a rebuild on the OOo package (a careless mistake on my part) - see my ChangeLog for details :/

I think you don't have to have a whole lot of experience with Linux before trying Slackware. I went from Red Hat to Slackware. The transition was different but not impossible. There is plenty of documentation out there so you shouldn't have much of a problem. Check here, or also use the man pages. I highly recommend learning a couple administrative things first though before you start installing...mainly stuff like adding users and the basics of how to set up X. Once ya get that down the rest will be easier for ya. On a new Slack install, it boots automatically to command line and you can only login in as root, so you'll have to configure the rest yourself.

You can install Open Office in a variety of different ways...I normally just go with premade packages and run pkgtool to install them (pkgtool being the main command line app you use to install/remove packages). You can get packages obviously from the CD/DVD or I usually go to linuxpackages.net. Or you can always compile it from source too.

Support, I am not sure what hardware you have but I put it on my system which is relatively modern (AMD 64 bit capable CPU, PCI Express video, SATA HD...) and it found everything with the default 2.4 kernel.