Slackware 10.0 will not install packages
 

I am currently installing Linux for the very first time. I download the ISOs (off the bittorent link on the official slackware site), put the first CD in and reboot. Then I partition my Hard Drive, and run setup.

I swap on the Linux Swap Drive, set my two other Linux partitions, and tell Linux I want it to be able to read my NTFS drive under /win. So far, so good. I have it search for my Slackware CD, and proceed to do a full installation. It installs all the packages in package "a" without problems.

It then tells me it's installing package "ap". However, on the bottom of the screen, I see a few lines saying
"grep: /var/log/mount/slackware/ap/tagfile: Input/Output error"

After about five of those, the setup screen gives me the following (edited for brevity):
installpkg error #2
There was a fatal error attempting to install /var/log/mount/slackware/ap/a2ps_4.13b-i386-2.tgz. The package may be corrupted [...] installation may not work as-is.

***
Just changed
/var/log/mount/ap/a2ps_4.13b-i386-2.tgz.
to:
/var/log/mount/slackware/ap/a2ps_4.13b-i386-2.tgz.
***

I have never bothered to wait it out and see if it occurs on any other packages.

I have no idea what to do, and I already redownloaded and reburnt the CD. I am becoming extremely frustrated. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

P.S. Am I being a bit too ambitious by installing Slackware as my first Linux OS? Should I start off with something a bit easier?

slackware is a good place to start
i would scan your hard drive for errors, when you had the slack setup format did you tell it to check for bad blocks?
if not then i would boot into single user mode from the cd and run fsck
bare.i -s
that should do it if you are on ide drives

I've actually had to format a few times, since it's taken me several tries just to understand how to do the partitioning and the Linux Swap properly. I do remember though checking for bad blocks on the partition that I'm mounting / on, but have not checked it on my other partition for /home

I will try fsck bare.i -s sometime today (hopefully), and will let you know if it works.

Thank you!

once it boots up you then run

fsck -ycv /dev/hdaX
X=partition numbers, i would do them all.


when the slack CD boots up it comes to a prompt
at that point you type
bare.i -s

then once it loads up you type:
fsck -ycv /dev/hda1
fsck -ycv /dev/hda2
fsck -ycv /dev/hda...

*Nods* thank you very, very much!

I will try to get around to it although I doubt I'll be able to today.

Due to my current frustration, I am currently considering downloading something else (probably Mandrake) more n00bish and returning to Slackware as a second distribution.

If your advice doesn't work, that's what I'll probably end up doing :(

I tried it.

Actually, first time I tried it I forgot to do the bare.i -s at the prompt, and here's what I got from fsck -ycv:
/dev/hda1 (windows NTFS) and /dev/hda2 (Linux Swap) didn't work. I was told it's not a correct ext2 filesystem (no kidding).

/dev/hda3 and /dev/hda4 ended up doing a test for bad blocks and giving me a report. Here's the copy from /dev/hda3

*****FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED*****
17580 inodes used (0%)
7 non-contiguous inodes (0%)
# of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 295/0/0
102818 blocks used (4%)
0 bad blocks
0 large files
6364 regular files
792 directories
1994 character device files
7831 block device files
0 fifos (? Can't read my own writing for that word)
406 links
590 symbolic links (590 fast symbolic links)
0 sockets
-------------
17977 files.



I ended up rebooting, and remembering to do bare.i -s at the prompt.
fsck -ycv/dev/hdaX (X was 1,2,3,4)

fsck 1.32 (09-Nov-2002)
e2fsck 1.34 (25-Jul-2003)
Couldn't find ext2 superblock, trying backup blocks.
/sbin/e2fsck: Bad magic number in superblock while trying to open /dev/hdaX

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

I figured, just for the heck of it, to do try "fdisk -l"
Output: Cannot open /proc/partitions
cat: /proc/partitions: No such file or directory
cat: /proc/partitions: No such file or directory


I'm still completely lost. Tried to install it again after doing the fsck -ycv the first time (where it actually gave me the report), and I had the same problem.

Your CD is corrupted.

the last option i guess is to check at www.linuxpackages.net
they are a pure slackware site with slack gurus and developers

Thanks to both of you for your help!

My CD burner tends to be somewhat erratic in its behaviour: I can have a bit of trouble accessing files that are on CDs I burnt for myself, one of my close friends had major problems using one of my burnt CDs that forced her to reinstall her CD drivers, but usually it works fine.

I'm going to make my life simple now, go out and just buy one of the commercial distributions. There's a place that offers Suse and Red Hat distributions.

I'm really sorry for wasting your time when I'm not going to install Slackware anyways! :(

you can buy Slackware here:
http://store.slackware.com/cgi-bin/s...PCQvT&mv_pc=16

amazon.com has version 9.1, probably will have 10 soon, it was just released.

*Nods*, I saw that, but right now I'm a little bit too frustrated at Slackware to want to deal with it for now.

*Breathes*, I think it's best if I get something like Suse for now that will be super easy, maybe when they release version 11 I'll go back to Slackware.

Thanks for the link!

Suse will be anything else than super easy when you are new to linux.
Most people say it is, but i don´t think so.
I teach Linux every day, forced to use Suse, and I swear I´d love to start with Slackware when I have to teach bleeding newbies. ( would make my life a lot easyer )
Slackware is clean and makes you learn Linux real quick. You learn how things are working with using Slackware.
You really should not give up just because of a corrupted CD.
Search another mirror ( there are several FTP Mirrors listet HERE ) and get yourself a new image.
Maybe it is not a problem with your cd-writer, but with a corrupted ISO ?
Be patient and you WILL have the success you need now ;)

If your approach to learning to use and administer Linux is to try a different distribution when you have a corrupt CD or broken hardware, you are going to be disappointed, and you aren't going to be an effective administrator.

A bad CD is a bad CD and it isn't a reflection on the distribution. It is like saying, "Someone took a sledge hammer to my server and now it won't boot -- therefore Slackware isn't a robust distribution for servers."

Raphael, I checked about 20 different mirrors and I couldn't connect to most of them and the few I did didn't want to offer the ISO files (at 650 megs I can't blame them though).

Bughead, very good point. I might as well try again.

Perhaps the following questions might point out an obvious error?

1) Are the ISOs available off bittorrent (from the official Slackware site) good? Those are the ones I'm using.

2) Is Nero a good utility to burn CDs with? I've heard different opinions about it.

3) Is there a way to install Slackware without having to burn a CD? I checked a script on the Slackware Installation FAQ, but since I can't access the files on my NTFS Windows mount and can't access my Linux partitions from Windows, that method doesn't help me.

Thanks, and I am going to try again!

I downloaded Slackware 10 using bittorrent and had no problems with the ISO images. That doesn't mean yours weren't corrupted somehow, but it worked for me. I might note, however, that when using bittorent, you aren't actually downloading everything from the official Slackware site. You are getting bits and pieces from all over. Still, it seems a reliable means of obtaining the ISOs.

Can't address "Nero," because all I have used is the Linux CLI utility, "cdrecord." It is solid as a rock.