hi guys, i'm soon to install slack as my primary os. I'm new to Slack and have really only done a test install on a virtual machine, but it went smoothly, and seemed all good. I heard from somewhere that Slackware doesn't come with a firewall. My question is what things do you recommend be done after installing slackware.

personally I always start by setting up slackware for multilib (only needed if using slackware64 of course), installing media codices, and installing the nvidia proprietary driver. I highly recommend using sbopkg. Its an excellent tool for setting up your initial install, since there's lots and lots of programs you'll probably want and there's a lot of dependencies you'll have to install at first. Takes a while to do it by hand.

One of our Slackware developers, alienBOB, has a good firewall script you can use for your slackware box. It works very well, I use it myself.

http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/efg/

For other applications you may wish to check out the build scripts located at http://www.slackbuilds.org/.

Another Slackware developer: rworkman's site http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/.

alienBOB's site: http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/

1 members found this post helpful.

Select a slackpkg mirror (in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors) and update/upgrade by running

One thing I always do is switch to the vmlinuz-generic(-smp) kernel in /etc/lilo.conf and build an initrd (see /boot/README.initrd for details).

The "huge" kernel used by default is only meant for installing and not recommended for everyday use. It has a lot of drivers you don't need built-in and uses more RAM than the "generic" kernels.

Another thing most desktop users probably do is change the default runlevel to "4" in /etc/inittab so that X starts automatically.

Also recommended is to create a normal non-root user (you can use the 'adduser' script)

On rare occasions Slackware does add new applications to the stable branch so I usually update my boxen with:

# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install-new
# slackpkg upgrade-all

I did not realize that... will this effect the nvidia driver?

omg, geez i can't believe how many responses i got in two hours. Thanks heaps for the support guys. love the tips. Love to see more if anyone has them :-)

Things to do after installing... That depends heavily on how the box is going to be used. Firewall, IMHO, is not needed for a desktop. If all you got for services is sshd, then what do you need a firewall for? I personally run sshd, CUPS for local network, and an (obscure) Apache with PHP, and I still don't see a reason to have a firewall. But security is truly a jungle, so take my advice with a pound of salt.

If you are looking to juice up your installation with more software, SlackBuilds is the bomb. I used to build things from official sources and had good time doing that, but I just don't anymore. 99 times out of 100, I simply cannot do any better than an existing SlackBuild, and when there isn't a build already, writing one and sharing it with the world feels great. Alien Bob's binary builds also come in handy every now and then.

Edit: You may also want to subscribe to the official Slackware mailing lists. As far as I can tell, this is the kosher way to keep up with the security advisories for the entire distribution. Of course, there are ways to automate this process, but I never explored them.

As others mentioned, you may want to replace the kernel. Pat's "generic" kernel is the safe choice, but rolling your own has never been easier. I git the stable branch from kernel.org as soon as I have time to reboot my desktop, and I never had an issue with it.

I have a script that installs my customizations to the files in /etc. I install new versions of Slackware often enough on multiple computers that it made sense to write a script that automates this.

I also install Glade-2 and a custom kernel that doesn't need an initrd.

And that's it! At one time, I used to install a lot more, but over the years the number of customizations needed has gone way down.
Ed

I reinstalled a few days ago and have so far,
1) Installed NVIDIA drivers
2) Switched to generic kernel
3) Installed Openbox
4) Set up Multi-lib
5) Reinstalled all my games including crossover and Windows games
6) Marveled at the beauty of Slackware..

I forgot to set up a firewall, that'd probably be a good idea.

Nah, it shouldn't

The first thing you should do is add a user that is able to su to root. Use the adduser script and add that user to the group wheel.

You might also need to run alsaconf.

samac

My number one task is to set auto boot from 2 minutes to 10 seconds. Don't forget to run lilo afterwards ... I usually do.

More about creating an initrd. There's a script:
Run that, as root, then run the command it gives you. Then edit /etc/lilo.conf, adding something like this:
Change the partition number to suit your own. Then run:
Reboot, and hope for the best.