Slackware Newbie
 

Installed Slackware few days ago, like it its very quick compared too Mandrake but i have a few questions.

1st my ethernet card reports eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xe484c000, 00:c0:df:13:95:4a, IRQ 10
eth0: Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8139C'
eth0: Setting half-duplex based on auto-negotiated partner ability 0000 ive looked for answer on enabling full duplex but can find none for my card. So how do i enable Full Duplex, and leaving it in half-duplex would this make any difference? I will mainly be playing games like Unreal and TacticalOps.

2nd as i have been used too distros like Mandrake and Suse i have never really had too get my hands dirty adding users so in slackware ive added a new user but when i log in 1st i get the annoying KDE preference thing popping up every time i log in and 2nd i cant access my soundcard it works under root but get popups under a diff user saying permission denied, so how do i enable all user the ability too play sounds?

Cheers any1 who can help, also apart from o'reilly are there anymore good readme sites, not the ones u need a phd too understand.

About realtek sorry no dice from me - never had any issues with my 3Com so I have no idea full/half-duplex, as for KDE preferences, did you finish off that wizard? and now sound
as root
chmod 666 /dev/audio* /dev/mixer* /dev/sequenser* /dev/dsp*

Re: Slackware Newbie
 

First off, are you using a switch, or a hub to connect your computers?

Hubs do not support full-duplex, only switches. Your hub might be dual speed, but that is something entirly different. Dual speed means that it supports 10mbps/100mbps, or Ethernet/Fast Ethernet. Full duplex means that you can send and recieve information at the same time thus increaseing the transfer speed to 20mbps/200mbps, but AFAIK only switches support this.

And anyway, from what I have read, hubs work better for games, where as a switch with full-duplex only has advantages when it comes to file transfers between mutiple machines. So, I wouldn't worry about the playing games.

Yes, i have finished the wizard, more than once. I connect too the net via my set top box , no router no hub. Its a NTL cable connection, UK. Ive just installed my game and connected to the servers and, mayb as i dont have a firewall up yet, my ping too the servers are fantastic but in game its abit jerky, and also theres no sound in game even as root?

Your ethernet card is telling you that it cannot go into full duplex
because the device on the other end isn't capable of doing so. If you've
got a cable modem on the other end, it's almost certainly not capable of
doing full duplex, and it wouldn't even matter since ethernet at 10/100 is
so much faster than what a cable modem is capable of that the
bottleneck is over the cable to your ISP.

Moorcito:
I think you've got it backwards, a switch is better for MOST operations
because it doesn't just broadcast its packets to every machine on the
net, rather it knows who is connected to which port and only sends
packets to the receipient of said packet. A hub sends all packets to all
machines on all ports, and expects the machines to decide what to do
with that packet.

Ethernetcard: I do have the same card, when I purchased it came with a MsDOS diskette, containing software to configure it, e.g. for full duplex. There were some more for me incomprehensable options, which I did not touch of course.
If you don't have MsDos on your (modern!) computer: booting from a MsDos installation diskette and interrupting it to MsDos at the indicated moment (you will see on your screen) will do. Then replace the MsDos installation diskette with the Net-installation diskette. Don't install the supplied Linux driver, it is far too old. But useful are: the netcard configuration and the network testing software. Maybe full duplex is useful if you are playing games over the local network in a competition between several workstations. Don't expect wonders. As I am only internetting, and using a hub (Edimax 100 Mbps Network Starter kit), I did not bother to install Full Duplex. As a consequence I do not know if the Linux ethernet-driver supports Full Duplex.
My cable modem, connected to the Freesco router, is 10 Mb only and I bet half duplex.

Mandrake & Suse come with elaborate install & configuration proggies, Slackware not!! Therefore it is so small & fast. I know only two shell-files that assist you: /sbin/netconfig to install (only one!!) ethernet card and /usr/X11R6/bin/xwmconfig that is handy if you boot your Slackware in console mode. It gives you the opportunity to set up which WindowManager starts if you issue a startx to start XWindows. Default is KDE, but Gnome and several others are installed are easy to start so. You should study the source, to see which dirs have to be present in your home-dir and it is easy to add a downloaded window-manager for a tryout. (e.g. Ratpoison).
If you change as superuser in file /etc/inittab the line
id:4:initdefault:
into
id:3:initdefault:
and reboot your computer starts in consolemode (as real linuxers do :-) ). Login as root and give the command
# adduser
You come into a very comprehensable text-menu.
man adduser gives more info.
(Of course this can be done in an console under X-Windows).
Welcome to Slackware config file editing in console-mode in /etc (and other dirs) !! Read HOWTO's & mini-HOWTO's.

Sound: I use the Alsa drivers (0.9.x) from www.alsa-project.org

Final remark: a nice way to accelerate things is to edit the files in /etc/rc.d (just comment out what you don't need) and build your own kernel.
Hope this helps a bit.