alright, well I'm new to slackware. After an almost week of battleing Gentoo and tbe install going horrible, screwing up beyond what I cared to deal with I went Slackware. With that in mind, I do have an install of Gentoo on another system. So basicly I'm going through the frustrations of not knowing how to do a lot of things right now. So help would be great if you guys can help me out.


Alright, so first thing first with Linux after I get it all set up I create a user account which will be the day to day account. So, I log in and I don't have sound... and I can't edit (past moving files in and out) ANY folder I create in my home directory which is really pisssing me off.


Now, I know there are a few threads on sound (and I've been reading them) so I'm pretty much sure I just don't have my user in right groups so I can use sound, my cd-drive, and a few other things. So, this is where being new to slackware kicks me in the butt. How do I do this? I've been reading the slackbook and it's helped a little but for the most part I know enough to get around the system command line and create, delete, ect. ect. (when I have the permissions of course).


Next issue, every time I switch styles or restart the computer my background changes back to the style's default. I'm using Fluxbox, while I'm at it any one know how I could install enlightenment? With Gentoo it was really straight forward but not for slackware because I can't download it in a .tgz file. Anyways, back on track here... so I was reading the Fluxbox web sites little help area and it told me to edit this file and that would make it to where every time I changed the style or restarted the computer it would default to the "last" wallpaper I told it to use, not the defaults for the style. I edited this file the way it said, and it didn't work apparently.


Also, can any one give me some leads on starting the process of getting the wireless to work? Once again with Gentoo I know how to atleast attempt this, but I'm new to slackware because Gentoo decided to be gay... well I'm sorry, I shouldn't blame Gentoo. GNOME decided to be really gay, and have issue after issue installing, then after I delt with that for a few days it didn't work after it fully installed which pissed me off ++. Which is why I installed Slackware, a lot easier install then Gentoo I must say... but so far (granted I'm learning slackware now) I must say Gentoo is A LOT easier to use. I personally didn't mind the few hour, command line, install but the Slackware install was a nice change.


Alright, one last thing. I downloaded and installed Eterm (Terminal) and it went fine. However, I want it to be transparent... to do this it uses the root picture or something. Basicly, it says if I don't use Enlightenment I need to set the root picture using Esetroot. Now, I can easily locate this program (whereis Esetroot) and it's there. However, I can't seem to figure out how to set the root picture. Any one have any experience with this program?


Questions:
1. How do I change user groups? (add users to groups)
2. Any one have a list of the groups? (by chance)
3. How can I make it to where I don't have to su in to change files that aren't exactly in my home directory but folders I created in my home directory?
4. How do I go about keeping my background through a restart/style change? (fluxbox)
5. Any way to install Enlightenment with out a .tgz file?
6. Can some one help me with getting Eterm transparent?


Thanks in advance,
-LFD

1. Use the command usermod from the command line. Type man usermod to see instructions. Mainly usermod -g group username changes "username"'s primary group and removes the user from the old primary group (by defaults 'users') but this shouldn't be the need. usermod -G group username add's additional groups to "username" (secondary groups) and also keep's the above primary group set as is. Or... if you have KDE installed there are 2 possibilities:
1.1 If you use KDE as your GUI go to the K menu then System and then KUser, you'll figure it out on your own when actually there, i'm sure.
1.2 If you don't use KDE as your GUI and use whatever window manager like fluxbox, xfce, etc... (remember you still need KDE installed for this) open a terminal like xterm, rxvt, whatever you use and like and type: "kuser &" and this will open the same program as above without actually running in KDE.

2. If you want to see a list of groups from the command line (terminal) use the command's "more" or "less" whatever you like. Just type "less /etc/group" or "more /etc/group" and remember you can do that for users too just change /etc/group to /etc/passwd. Managing groups in a GUI if you have KDE installed is exactly like we did for users, as you may have seen there are 2 tabs, first for users and second for groups.

3. I don't understand your question.

4., 5. and 6. Didn't used any of these, so I can't be of any assistance.

As for as the sound problem you mention, I have my day to day user account listed only in group "users" and I have full access to sound, cd-rw drive, and mostly everything.

1. Did you stick to the bare.i (meaning 2.4.31 default kernel) or installed test26 (meaning 2.6.13 ,as I recall, testing kernel).
2. Depending of the kernel you choosed, did you installed the correct modules for your version ? Maybe it would be a good ideea to install the kernel-headers, kernel-ide and kernel-source (all same version as your installed kernel image , you can find that by issuing 'uname -a' command and check the kernel number).
3. After checking all that is good, check if you have the alsa packages, again acordingly to your kernel's version number. (If you installed the test26 kernel you will find the kernel-modules, headers, ide, source and alsa for it on Slackware CD 2 in the testing directory).
4. Now if you didn't have those and had to install them, reboot the system, and after it boots up issue 'alsamixer' and adjust the volumes acordingly and press the Escape ( Esc ) key on your keyboard. Remember, everything is muted by default, so even if you raise volumes in alsamixer you won't have sound untill you unmute them, either using 'rexima' if you have it installed, or using kmix within KDE. Or if you don't have any of them, search the forum for how to unmute sound card from the command line.
5. If you want to give your user access to mount/umount and use the cdrom, edit the /etc/fstab file with your favorite editor (pico is the easiest one in my opinion) and at the cdrom line delete 'owner' and add 'user'. Another thing would be if you dual boot and need to have access to your fat32/ntfs partitions from you Linux system (maybe to listen to music you have on that partiton, and more more reasons), so if you do have that I'll show you my lines for C: and D: partions.
You just modify hda1 and hda2 with your exact windows partitons, modify the mount point too if you want, just make sure to "mkdir /mnt/newdesiredmountpoint" before trying to mount the partition, change ntfs to fat32 if you're using fat. As you may seen i have the noauto option, meaning my windows partition won't be mounted at boot so I have to mount them manually when I make use of them with the command 'mount /dev/hda1' for the C: partition and 'mount /dev/hda2' for the D: partition, and to give my everyday user permissions to mount/umount and use them i have the user and umask options too. If you would like both or one of them to be mounted at boot just delete the noauto option.

I hope you can make of use at least smth I've said here. Haven't had some sleep for a long time, but tought to give you some help before I go to bed, just for nice dreams . Good luck, and ask along.

About the sound issue, I just told it to install the kernel which it was currently running off of the live CD. Past that I am not exactly sure how to answer... the CD just installed it. Things like this are why I love my 2-3 hour Gentoo install.

Thanks for the response, I read through some of it but I'll have to really try it later today. About question 3, basicly it has to do with Linux and it's security measures. You know, for ever file/folder there is certain access a user can have. With your home directory (/home/username) you can add, delete, ect. ect. ect. files with no problem.


So basicly this is what I did. My home directory has three folders in it: music, packages, wallpapers. The location of these which are in the /home/username directory. However, I can't copy things in these folders because I don't have the right, I can't delete them nor save a file to these directories either for the same reasons.


Every other Linux I've ever delt with, Gentoo being my big one, the /home/username directory was pretty open. If I created a folder, I could do whatever I wanted with the contents. I guess I'll use what actually happened when I first noticed this. So, I put up a CD online for me to download as I currently don't have the CD with me but it is on my Windows laptop. So I downloaded it, and unzipped it into /home/username/music. From here, I couldn't rename the song files unless I moved the song up to /home/username.


Just like I can't rename my wallpapers, or delete them for that matter, when they're in /home/username/wallpapers. Hell, if I want to save picture from the internet I can't save it to my wallpapers directory because I don't have the access. I have to save it to /home/username and then move it to /home/username/wallpapers.


This got on my nerves very quickly...

Ok, so when you find out what kernel you're using as I stated above, using "uname -a" command, afterwards issue "ls /var/log/packages/ | grep alsa" and "ls /var/log/packaes | grep kernel". I used the bare.i kernel (meaning 2.4.31) so my output looks like this:
If "uname -a" shows you 2.4.31 kernel too, then you should have the same output. If not search the packages missing comparing to the ones I've got and install them. For kernel 2.4.31 they will be on Slackware CD 1 (can't remember which dirs exactly, just look for them or use the command "find") and for 2.6.13 kernel they will be on Slackware CD 2 in the testing directory as far as I remember.

Alright, I feel dumb now but I got the sound to work. Basicly I had to turn up the "PCM" sound, I'm clueless to what "PCM" means personally, not just the master.


I got help and fixed #3... so this is going well.

Oh, and concerning your permission problemm, that is not Slackware default. You can delete, rename, remove every file and dir created by you in your home directory. So your problem might be:
1. You messed up your user's home directory permissions or better yet you've messed up your music, wallpapers and packages directories permissions sometime when you was logged in as root and didn't noticed.
2. Or you just created those 3 dirs while logged in as root, and ofcoure you don't have access to them as a regular user.

So, login as root and set the right permissions on your home directory (eg. chmod 711 /home/nykey) and other directories inside your home user, meaning wallpapers, packages and music should be chmoded acordingly (eg. chmod 755 /home/nykey/wallpapers , chmod 755 /home/nykey/packages, etc.).
Then you should ensure your home dir with the dirs and files within belong to your username and your username's group. (eg. chown -R nykey:users /home/nykey)
Run all this commands as root, then logout of root, and do some testings.

Heh, im really a damn slow typist :P, but still I'm happy to hear you got it working... how did you do it ? Hopefully something I said helped you too in a way or another, cause my hands hurt heh.

I told you to check alsamixer and raise your volumes

Thanks for all the help, dealing with the rest I'm going to eventually download gnome and use it probably. Unless I can find a .tgz file to install Enlightenment with. Fluxbox is nice, but their is a fix on their site that shoudl work dealing with my backgrounds. However, it doesnt'... things like that are why I ditch Ubuntu every time I try it. The online "help" guide tends to be wrong 99% of the time.


I hate that...

If you want Gnome, I suggest Dropline Gnome or Freerock Gnome. We had so many debates on what and where and how much any of these packages minggle with your system... well in the end it's a matter of choice. Read about them, choose and install.