Well, the LGM (little green man) in the kernel relented a bit. After I failed with Slackware, I decided to try installing Fedora Core 3 from the LinuxFormat Magazine DVD. Allowed it to make a new Grub in the FC3 partition, rebooted, it reported "Loading Grub stage two"............................................... :^>

So, reinstalled Ubuntu to get back my Grub. Edited Ubuntu's /boot/grub/menu.lst to include the other distros, and just for kicks included the Slackware partition like I had had it before. Slackware booted! No funky error messages this time. Blowing the FC3 install fixed the Slackware booting problem. Dunno, but thanks LGM!

Got to username/password entry, refused my password again. Toughed it out, tried several possibilities ("toor" didn't work, but the password I had given it for "dave" worked for "root" even if it didn't work for dave), and eventually got the black screen command prompt, which I hadn't seen before. Education. Learned about "startx". Got a screen to configure KDE... mouse won't work to click the needed clicks. So I still can't quite get there from here but I'm a little farther along. I'm sure there's a configuration thingie in there somewhere which I can learn about tomorrow at Slackware's website. I'm real curious what Slackware will be like.

There's the old joke about the man who liked to bang his head against the wall because it felt so good when he stopped. Never understood that joke before :^>.

Thanks for the encouragement. I had read that Slackware isn't for noobs, and I guess that's true; at least I have other distros installed to fall back on for daily stuff while I figure out Slackware.

In faith, Dave
dave@christos.cjb.net
Viva Texas

The stock kernel is compiled with support for all those filesystems. Those errors about UMSDOS and FAT are nothing to worry about at all.

It sounds more like you've hosed your slack partition through all the mucking around. Verify that you can still mount the partition from another distro. run resierfsck /dev/hdxx

Also, the slack installer asks if you want to set a root password on the install. If you did, you should remember it. If you didn't, just hit enter at the password prompt.

By the way, "toor" is the default root pass on the Slax live cd but not Slackware.

--Shade

No, after my failure to install FC3, the Slackware installation finally boots. Yes, weird! My problem now is, after entering Slackware and entering "startx", I get a screen for configuring KDE... and my mouse won't work. I could use Slackware now, I guess, in console mode but I prefer the GUI.

In faith, Dave
dave@christos.cjb.net
Viva Texas