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12-25-2009, 09:56 AM
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#31
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2008
Location: root
Distribution: Slackware & BSD
Posts: 1,669
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Quote:
You referred to me as an OP. What is an OP? That's it! Pistol duel at high no0n mano a mano
>>>>>
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Yanfaun you have a very passing good English, I am surprised you needed to ask this question. "OP" is a shortened reference to "Original Post" author: here it was you who opened up and the owner of this thread posts.
Quote:
I did not think that it was possible to select grub for a Slackware bootloader at the time of Slackware's installation. Are you suggesting that at the time of Slackware's installation, it is possible to somehow get into a terminal; list files in /etc and then install grub?
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Yes. Patric V. seems to assume the basic remedies in the mind of users that he did not document this option, but it is what I used to do in my Slack installations. There are two ways (my third is queer!?) to use Grub in Slackware.
a) Along installation choose NOT to install Lilo. finally the installer drops you back to its shell when everything is installed asking you press Ctl-Alt-Del if you wish reboot. I don't. I use the shell again to cd into the CD/extra/grub.tgz and from there install Grub;
b) Install complete with Lilo. At reboot you may use Kpackage, or installpkg or pkgtool to install Grub, this time taking over the MBR completely, at next reboot Grub rules everything.
Third way:
c) I was once dependent on Linux Mint so that most of my machines have Mint installed in the First Parition, with Grub on mbr. The usual spot I installed Slackware was anywhere at the logical partitions (I once installed it away at Partition No. 10). At the Slackware installation I did not install Lilo, and I did not install Grub. NO LILO NO GRUB. When the installer drops me back to the shell, I mounted /dev/sda1 cd into it and I only needed to edit the the /mnt/tmp/boot/grub/menu.lst on it I write a pointer to my new Slackware kernel at Partition No. 10, save it, press Ctl-Alt-Del. At reboot my newly installed Slackware is offered by grub.
However, I stand with brianL, Lilo also has a name that deserves respect, it is also flexible boot loader, although it cannot be as great as Grub in all respects. EXCEPT for its simplicity.
Hope this helps.
Good luck.
Last edited by malekmustaq; 12-25-2009 at 09:59 AM.
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12-25-2009, 10:11 AM
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#32
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Member
Registered: Apr 2006
Posts: 509
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yanfaun
Really?? Oh, clearly, you've not read my other post, which details the frustrations of simply trying to make LILO install and then boot slackware13 on sdb, which is a USB drive. This is a frustration that I never experienced with the ever so user-friendly, stalwart & venerable Grub and a multitude of other distributions. Grub would boot a boot. Death to LILO!
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I would still recommend Slackware. If you can't face the challenge of a bootloader, you probably won't fare well with more challenging distributions.
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01-13-2010, 01:47 AM
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#33
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Member
Registered: Nov 2009
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 123
Original Poster
Rep:
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To all who posted, thank you very much!
Basically, I've gotten Arch Linux to function although I have to type startx to bring up Gnome. Is that normal? I rather like it. My pet peeve is that the system will hang during boot if nor connect to the internet. The advise I received was not to background the network Daemon as this could maybe break anything depending on the network Daemon.
Is this true?
Last but not least, success with Arch inspired me to try Slackware again. LILO will be replace as soon as I have an opportunity. LILO changes my system's boot flags, and LILO is has limited functionality when compared to grub, and takes significantly more time to configure and reconfigure should a kernel and or additional Operating System be added. Although the LILO config file is shorter than the constitution, it is, unfortunately, way longer than Grub's than grub's menu.lst.
Again, to all who posted, thank you very much!
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01-13-2010, 01:57 AM
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#34
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Member
Registered: Nov 2009
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 123
Original Poster
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gregorian
I would still recommend Slackware. If you can't face the challenge of a bootloader, you probably won't fare well with more challenging distributions.
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I've have Arch Linux running now. I also, booted Slackware on the same disk. I can even add Vista later. You see my brain has trouble with stupidity. This explains my success with Grub, Ubuntu, Suse PC-BSD and now Arch; this explains my continued difficulty with LILO
I've succeeded with Tinycore too notwithstanding the fact that the tinycore concepts page is the antithesis of communication via the common learning styles. All good instructors live by he common learning styles.
I am eager to try Slackware, just as soon as I can replace LILO with Grub. I am so new to Slackware that I cannot even name the package manager.
Last edited by yanfaun; 01-13-2010 at 01:58 AM.
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01-13-2010, 02:00 AM
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#35
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LQ Guru
Registered: Dec 2006
Location: underground
Distribution: Slackware64
Posts: 7,594
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Hi yanfaun, I'll try to address a couple things from your post above:
1) If you want to have it not boot to a console, but instead to start X for you, edit the "initdefault" line near the top of the /etc/inittab file, and change the 3 in that line to a 4. Now, The login GUI will appear instead.
2) I'm not knowledgeable specifically about what Arch uses for network daemons or startup scripts, but it is somewhat common for a machine to hang for maybe 30-60 seconds during boot, if the network startup scripts are unable to get an IP using DHCP. One solution is to shorten the delay for DHCP to maybe 5 or 10 seconds. In Slackware, this can be edited in rc.inet1 or rc.inet2 (I can't recall which at this second), but it may be different on your machine.
3) LILO. Myself, I have never known nor heard of LILO itself modifying boot flags on partitions. If it can do that, it's news to me  . I've never used GRUB, but from what I've seen and read about it, I still prefer LILO, and don't find that it really takes much time at all to configure new kernels in it. or add OS's to it. And, the configuration file need not be long as ones arm, but then, maybe you have loads of options in there?  Either way, to each their own -- if you like GRUB, by all means, use it!
Anyhow, best of success with whatever you choose to try next.
Sasha
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01-13-2010, 06:49 PM
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#36
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Member
Registered: Nov 2009
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 123
Original Poster
Rep:
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Thanks for the advice. I'll apply when I have a chance
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01-13-2010, 07:28 PM
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#37
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Member
Registered: Jan 2009
Location: Gemini Capsule 25164
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 375
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yanfaun
1)Less of a challenge than what I've read of Free-BSD or Gentoo,
2) more of a challenge with less automation than Suse or Ubuntu.
3)Documentation on par with Ubuntu or at least Suse
Does anyone know of such a distro?
I loathe incomplete documentation.
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Gentoo is actually not very hard, as long as you start out simple. (I.e., create simple, non-encrypted partions, and use genkernel to create and install your kernel.) Its all must be done from the command-line, of course, but the documentation is very detailed about what you must do and in what order. I told a guy here at work to set up a Gentoo server on his own, and he did it successfully just following the online instructions, even though he had never installed Linux on anything before.
My first Gentoo install was on a laptop, with encrypted partitions and LVM. After I finished that, I successful converted a Debian system over to Gentoo, without damaging the RAID, LVM, or personal files.
So, I'm just saying you should give Gentoo some more thought.
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01-13-2010, 07:30 PM
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#38
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Member
Registered: Jul 2009
Location: Reston, VA
Distribution: Slackware, Ubuntu, RHEL
Posts: 183
Rep:
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The boss at the end of Arch is really hard, you have to hit him like 500 times with finger.
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01-13-2010, 07:50 PM
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#39
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Member
Registered: Nov 2009
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 123
Original Poster
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GooseYArd
The boss at the end of Arch is really hard, you have to hit him like 500 times with finger.
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>
How is this in anyway shape or form related to this post? Are you just joking, or possibly replying to the wrong post because you have multiple tabs open?
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01-13-2010, 07:57 PM
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#40
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Member
Registered: Nov 2009
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 123
Original Poster
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CoderMan
Gentoo is actually not very hard, as long as you start out simple... I told a guy here at work to set up a Gentoo server on his own, and he did it successfully just following the online instructions, even though he had never installed Linux on anything before.
My first Gentoo install was on a laptop, with encrypted partitions and LVM. After I finished that, I successful converted a Debian system over to Gentoo, without damaging the RAID, LVM, or personal files.
So, I'm just saying you should give Gentoo some more thought.
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>>
I have to admit that I've heard nothing but good things about Gentoo's documentation. However, I've also read that Gentoo suffers from instability. In fact, I believe the review of Gentoo at Distrowatch.com states this if memory serves me correctly. The exact verbiage was "...Occasional instability and breakdowns..." I believe. This definitely turned me off. Now my hands are full learning Arch & Slackware and reinstalling Vista at some point. However, thanks for the reply.
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01-13-2010, 08:02 PM
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#41
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LQ Guru
Registered: Jan 2009
Location: Gordonsville-AKA Mayberry-Virginia
Distribution: Slack14.2/Many
Posts: 5,573
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you wanna have fun try
SourceMage
http://www.sourcemage.org/
its pretty cool but pretty challenging
have fun 
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1 members found this post helpful.
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01-13-2010, 09:20 PM
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#43
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Member
Registered: Nov 2009
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 123
Original Poster
Rep:
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To linus72,
As I previously noted, I am way too busy to take on another distro. Currently, I barely have time to evaluate Arch & Slackware. Since I've barely scratched the surface as it pertains to learning Arch & Slackware, I do not foresee myself becoming so bored with Arch & Slackware to the extent that I'll began to crave another distro. However, perhaps someone else can benefit now, so thanks.
Last edited by yanfaun; 01-14-2010 at 06:54 PM.
Reason: Type-o
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01-14-2010, 12:29 AM
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#44
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Member
Registered: Jan 2009
Location: Gemini Capsule 25164
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 375
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yanfaun
>>
I have to admit that I've heard nothing but good things about Gentoo's documentation. However, I've also read that Gentoo suffers from instability. In fact, I believe the review of Gentoo at Distrowatch.com states this if memory serves me correctly. The exact verbiage was "...Occasional instability and breakdowns..." I believe. This definitely turned me off. Now my hands are full learning Arch & Slackware and reinstalling Vista at some point. However, thanks for the reply.
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"Instability and breakdowns?" My Gentoo systems are the most stable and reliable systems I've every had. (I've used several distros extensively in the past.) The reason for this is because Gentoo allows me access to the latest stable code releases available.
I don't buy into that popular myth that software has to be months or years old in order to be reliable. The reason for this is because I actually develop software, and I know from experience that the most important bug fixes and improvements are usually the ones that were committed last week.
Caveat: My systems are probably more stable than some Gentoo user's systems because of my upgrade strategy. Rather than running "world" updates every week, I only upgrade software when one of these three conditions are true: (1) I want the latest features of the software, (2) a security notice has been posted about a package, or (3) it is time to make some kind of major infrastructure movement (like KDE3 libs to KDE4). Gentoo gives you the freedom and flexibility to do that, unlike most binary distros.
Working with a source-based distro is going to be a little different than what most Linux users are accustomed to working with. But don't drop it just because one Distrowatch reviewer didn't get it. Your loss! Besides, getting closer to the source code is the logical end of your quest for Guru-hood.
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01-14-2010, 07:09 PM
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#45
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Member
Registered: Nov 2009
Distribution: Arch Linux
Posts: 123
Original Poster
Rep:
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[B]To CoderMan[/B]
I thank you for your obviously well thought out response. However, I did not drop Gentoo because one random reviewer posted yet another semi-accurate or inaccurate review on Distro.com; I dropped it because I've never known for distrowatch.com to be wrong about any Distro.
However, your words and logic are greatly appreciated, and you have intrigued and inspired me to give Gentoo a look when time permits. Admittedly, this may not be for quite sometime because I am still really new to Arch & Slackware, but my memory is photographic so I will eventually try Gentoo, probably in Virtualbox first. Thanks Again!
Last edited by yanfaun; 01-14-2010 at 07:11 PM.
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