hello everyone,

i have been using redhat for a little while now but i am getting a urge for something different something that will give me a better understanding of linux and how it works, what makes it tick. Some people may say slackware is for experts but in my eyes i think it is the ideal distro for someone to learn the only thing that has me a little bewildered is the installation. i have a copy of it on a CD but i am a little unclear about which boot disk should be used seeing how there is a bare.i for IDE support only and a network boot disk as well.

As for my system i have a linksys network card and i am wondering if the necessary modules are there for such a card seeing how there isn't really a good install guide to help with the install. Well i shouldn't say there isn't i just wasn't able to find it.

I would appreciate it if i could get a little assistance with this so that i can get the ball rolling a little. Because to me i eel that the gui based installs automated partitioning has spoiled me roten and i need something different something real!

First, the install CD should be bootable. Yes, it uses the bare.i kernel but that is just used during the install. If your system does not support bootable CDROM, then look in the isolinux/sbootmgr directory for a floppy disk image that uses a boot manager that might allow you to boot the CD image from the menu. I have used it and it works great. I even had installed on the hard disk on an old notebook so I could have the option of booting any CD.

Once booted and login as root. Then use "cfdisk /dev/hda" normally to create your partition(s) as desired. Then just run "setup" to start the menu install program. I think I normally start with the 3rd menu item and then just follow the prompts. During the install you will have the option of the kernel you desire to install.

Excalibur is dead on.
However, if you can't boot via cdrom, I suggest upgrading. The more you start to play with linux distros, the more you're going to rotate between and install.
Bootable cds are sooo much faster and easier to deal with.

Anywho... Slack9 is a really good distro. At least I think so. I've been running SuSE since 7.2 on several different boxes as well as LFS, Gentoo, and Solaris... but that's not linux.

My suggestion is to get the bootable cd (if you can use it) and just boot it. It's really simple, takes about 10 to 15 minutes for the full blown install (depending on hardware n stuff) then it's done.

I've found that it's much faster than the SuSEs i've been using on the other boxz. It definitly shows you how things work, although if you really really wanna learn the in depth stuff I recommend LFS. But if you're not ready for LFS, then Slack would be my recommendation.

L8rz

I am a first time slack user and I was plesantly suprised as to how straight forward the installation went. My PC is fairly new and most, if not all the hardware was properly detected and configured. Anything else I needed to manually configure has gone sucessfully with the help of this board and learning about the system in general.

Well this is the thing some people may say it is bootable and maybe it is but i tried iso from different sources slackware.com mirrors and linuxiso.org and both of them were not bottable when i restarted but every other distro i burnt is why is that? Is that because i have a old cdrom or just a old system period?

As for system specs i am running.......................................

--- Pentium II 350Mhz
--- 20GB Hard drive
--- 512MB SDRAM
--- ATAPI CD-ROM
--- MEMOREX 40x12x48


Now given the specs above don't you think the CD should be bootable once the iso is burnt to a CD? I use the cdrecord command to burn my isos. I just find it highly strange that my cd rom can't boot the CD. What would be the next course of action in all honesty? Because i would really like to start running slackware.

There could be several different problems.
1) Could be your burner
2) Could be your drivers
3) What did you dl it with? M$ explorer? Netscape? FTP?
4) When you wrote the ISO what did you use?

Alot of times, even when making a boot disk, you have to try it a couple of times. It just acts quirky for some people sometimes.
I had problems with the Gentoo1.4 ISO. Tried it like 10 times and finally figured out what was wrong.

I don't really know. I can tell you for a fact that the slack iso (9) does boot. I've used it and burned it twice. I've installed it on 7 different machines within 1 week and they all went smooth.

well as for what i used when making this slackware iso i downloaded via FTP using my Mozilla browser. And as for what i used to burn the iso it was the cdrecord command.


I am not sure if i should just buy a new burner and see if that helps but seeing how i am at work it would be nice if you could tell if i should go ahead with that idea.


This is thing though i was able to burn gentoo, redhat, mandrake, even college linux why is slackware's iso being such a pain?

Have you tried changing the boot order in the bios? I have mine set to floppy -> CDROM -> Harddrive. THat might help, I thought I heard someone mention that on a post somewhere.

well that may work but what if it doesn't do you think it is a good idea to invest in a new cd-rom? Or maybe that and a new burner seeing how my burner is so old?

i haven't tried the change of my boot sequence because i am still at work but i will give it a try once i get home. and let you know what happens

# CD burning info
Is it configured and what is the device? Command this to find out:
cdrecord -scanbus
Adding an IDE CD-Writer to Linux
CD Writing HOWTO
# Burn an ISO to disk
cdrecord -v speed=5 dev=0,0,0 /path/to/foo.iso
# Burn from disk to disk
cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 speed=5 -isosize /dev/cdrom
# Generate an ISO from a directory.
mkisofs -Jr -o foo.iso /path/to/directory
mkisofs -vrTJUV "Label" -o foo.iso /path/to/directory
# Generate an ISO from a CD
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=foo.iso
Linux MP3 CD Burning mini-HOWTO
# Convert mp3 to wav with lame
for i in *.mp3; do lame --decode $i `basename $i .mp3`.wav; done
# Burn a CD from wav files
cdrecord -v -audio -pad speed=5 dev=0,0,0 /path/to/*.wav
# Erase a CDRW
cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 speed=5 blank=fast

Well as for changing the boot sequence to floppy > CDROM > IDE 0. There was no change. I wish there was a way i could find out why i am not able to boot from this cd seeing how i burnt a iso of just about all the others and was able to boot from them no problem on the first try.

If this is CD actually bootable i would like to know what is needed to correct this problem because i beginning to wonder can the ISO file itself be bad?