I recently downloaded the Slackware 12 Images from SW's site for install on an Dell PE 2400 that I have lying around. Now, being a relative Linux newb, I am attempting to use Dell server assistant CD to facilitate this install, but hitting a road block. First I attempted to boot right from the SW image I have, but I may have screwed that up using Roxio to create the image. I am going to try infrarecorder since I have had great success with that on my Unbuntu Installs.

Now, should I need the Dell Server Assistant to install SW, or no.

Thanks a lot for any help!!

EDIT: Install went off without a hitch. My only issue now is getting into the GUI, if there is one. I know it installed the XWindows and KDE packages. I am currently at the bash console after initial boot. I can't seem to find the command to get into it. Any help would be great!!

You need to know a bit about your hardware, specifically your graphics card and monitor.

For your monitor, find out its horizontal and vertical sync ranges, and the resolutions it supports.
All of this should be in your monitor's user guide or find it online for your specific monitor.

Then find out if your graphics card is supported by xorg, and which driver to use.
Visit http://www.x.org/wiki/ and/or search for xorg and your card.

Note that some ATI and nVidia cards have proprietary drivers available for Linux, if you want 3D acceleration for those cards you may wish to use those drivers. x.org has links to them, if you wish. The proprietary drivers may patch the kernel, review the requirements and installation instructions for more detail.

As a generic fallback, you can always use the VESA driver, it will work with virtually any card, though you may not get the best performance or resolutions that you will with other drivers.

Once all of that is done, type xorgconfig on the command line.

Follow all of the instructions in the menus that appear, entering the information as it appears.

When all of that is done, and you have told xorgconfig to write a new xorg.conf, then change directory to /etc/X11/xinit
Copy xinitrc.kde to xinitrc

(alternatively, you can also try xorgsetup, that will attempt to autodetect your hardware and set up an xorg.conf file for you)

Then type startx and you should be off and running.

If all of that is successful, you may wish to start X and some window manager when you start Slackware.
Do that by editing /etc/inittab and changing the default run level to from 3 to 4.
Then entry should look like this: id:4:initdefault:
Do that only after you have X working well and you're happy with all of the X configuration settings.

Search this forum for more details about editing your xinitrc and xorg.conf files.

OR, to make it a bit shorter, use It tries to setup xorg "automagically", and with the hardware you have, it should work fine.

(I'm a DCSE tech, in Dell printers, workstations, servers, and poweredge storage. The hardware is not exotic)

At least try it. Might be suprised

Well, that's not really 'automagically', automagically would be without your input, but in this case, it does ask you for input. But, indeed, there is some magic involved.

Evidently, y'all missed this in my post, mayhaps?

Thanks for the help guys. It was a pure newb/ignorance mistake. The install went great, and I edited the LILO so it boots right into KDE. the issue that I am running into now, is every time I try to enable the two NICs, it enables them, and them quickly disables them. Prior to going into the netconfig, it tells me to chose a version that will work (distro). I choose SW 10.2 and it lets me in to enable the NICs but it again disables them. I have tried both static and dynamic, to no avail.

Hi,
How are you running 'netconfig'? From the cli as root?

What is the output of 'ifconfig -a'?

BTW, You would get more input if you start a new thread about the 'NEW' problem.