Slackware: First impressions.

magis · 02-19-2002, 05:02 PM

Have to admit, that the guys and girls that rate slackware are right.

I an a newbie with linux but i have tried installing others, ie Mandrake, and Red Hat. By far the easiest install was Caldera, strangely. But then having read so many post here and elsewhere regarding the different distros, i got the impression that slack was the reference.

I installed slackware 8.0 yesterday, which took a bit of time and and a lot of reading but the install went well. Just had one problem at the start, i forgot to type startx at the prompt. Hence an earlier post on Install forum.

The real difference i can see so far, is that you really have to read and learn with this distro, to get it set up as full functioning OS. Unlike some other distro's that make the job easy installing and configuring the OS, Slack takes you on one heck of a learning curve. I am sure that some other distro's are very much the same but it was in forums such as this one that gave me the will to try it.

I have configured my desktop, which i was happy to see arrive on the monitor but i have still no sound, no cdrom, and no internet connection. The fun starts, but with this distro i am actually enjoying it.

For now i am happy....................

trickykid · 02-19-2002, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by magis
I have configured my desktop, which i was happy to see arrive on the monitor but i have still no sound, no cdrom, and no internet connection. The fun starts, but with this distro i am actually enjoying it.

Well for sound, you can try to load the module for your sound card to get working or recompile your kernel for sound support. You should have cdrom but it doesn't make a pretty icon for you, you can mount it manually or create a icon for that... depending on how your internet connection is made.. come back if you need help.

Happy to see your like Slack.. welcome to how Linux is suppose to be like and used.

magis · 02-19-2002, 06:08 PM

That i reckon is gonna be a problem, trickykid. My internet connection.

Sound and cdrom are both problems but ones i can read up on, its connecting that i figure will cause me most harm.

I have an Alcatel speedtouch modem, which is an external ADSL modem. Any tips on getting that one configured on slack would be a bonus...........

Thanks........

trickykid · 02-19-2002, 06:21 PM

actually i have seen many posts on the alcatel speedtouch, might want to search the site. sorry couldn't be much of help, i have no clue in getting it to work in linux.

-trickykid

katanastab · 02-20-2002, 08:28 PM

I looked on another thread and this is the way that sound works for me in Slackware, it also claims to be the most secure :

Quote:

Originally posted by SlCKB0Y
<RANT>

why does everyone tell people to chmod all the sound devices to 666? This is really bad security, and quite frankly, im sick of having to correct this rather major mistake and security flaw. This is a quick and CORRECT how-to for Slackware sound.

Use addgroup (or groupadd depening on the distro) to add a group called sound to /etc/group

(as root excecute the following)
addgroup sound

Then open up /etc/group in a text editor, and look for the line down the bottom relating to the new group you just created. Next to the colon ( enter in the name of the users you want separated by commas, but not spaces

sound:*:110:user1,user2,user3

Then save and exit the file.

Execute the following commands from the CLI

chown root:sound /dev/mixer
chown root:sound /dev/audio
chown root:sound /dev/dsp

chmod 660 /dev/audio
chmod 660 /dev/dsp
chmod 660 /dev/mixer

Then log out of the current user you just added to the /etc/group, log back in, and assuming you have loaded the module for your sound card (and i think that it ISNT es1370/1 for sb16), then the user will have access to the sound devices, and it is not a security hole.

As someone said, have a look in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules, and look for the part in there that relates to sb16 (it's well commented so it shouldnt be too hard.). Uncomment the line, and next time you reboot it will be loaded automagically. To load the module now type the following from a command line.

/sbin/modprobe modulename

If this all doesnt work then i think you can assume that you dont hve sound and/or the support for your sound card compiled into the kernel and i can only recommmend that you might need to do a recompilation which is no where as scary as it may seem, but thats a whole different story and another How-to all together.

So please dont listen to people who tell you to chmod sound devices to 666 so EVERYONE and ANYONE can have access to them.

</RANT>

That way has always worked for me and is great. Concerning the Alcatel SpeedTouch Modem, I found a HOWTO here:
http://www.linuxdude.co.uk/docs/Alca...dtouchusb.html

Lastly, with your CDROM, you have to know what part of your IDE bus is your CDROM (whether its hdb or hdc) It usually says this at start up when linux boots up, then learn to edit /etc/fstab in a text editor. There's a site that teaches you how here:
http://www.frankenlinux.com/intro/fstab.html

I hope I helped you, I went through these same steps for my Slackware machine, except I had to search for my own HOWTOs

. Wise choice with Slackware, I've learned more with Slackware than Red Hat, Mandrake or Caldera have ever taught me combined. There's also more customization.