Several questions
 

Hi guys :)

I'm fairly new at linux, and I have a couple of questions...

I've been trying several distro's over the past couple of weeks. Gentoo appeals best to me, but I can't spare the time presently to compile a whole new system, so I've decided to stick with Slackware.

BTW, I want linux to learn to use the CLI


So here are my questions:

1/ is it possible to use the plain Gentoo kernel from a Gentoo liveCD and boot Slackware with that one? (because it offered out-of-the-box support for my nforce2 ethernet adapter and sound - which the Slackware kernel doesn't) I don't feel up to compiling my own kernel right now, actually I tried today and I screwed up badly. I would use the nvidia drivers, but they give me no end of trouble (only in boot-time error messages, to be fair)

2/ Anyone tried booting the Gentoo 1,4,rc4 livecd? it _looks_ great. Is there any way to configure your CLI so that you get a nice color/background? That would be fun :) I'm all for good looks on my computer screen, that's what I used to dislike about CLI! (yuck, DOS - Yuck, linux ;))

3/ I know I should really post this at the slackware forum, but for my own ease I post it here: Does anyone know of a complete list of configuration files (or menu driven utilities that edit them), what they do, how they can be user-overriden and where they are? I'm so extremely confused... I realise that these conf files are the thing that makes linux so transparent and configurable, but since they're scattered all around and since all distro's use different conf files... you know...

Are these questions too stupid to be answered? or does nobody know the answer to the first two? (don't bother answering the third - I found some info at http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork...l?dwzone=linux )

About q. 2: if the makers of a distro can do it, why can't a normal user? I don't know how to look it up on the internet 'cause I have no idea of how to phrase an efficient query for this question :) not being a native speaker and all

Re: Several questions
 

Yeah in theory, it should work so long as your modules match up. They're held in /lib/modules/<kernel version/. Compiling the kernel isn't as bad as it might sound on paper - give it a go!
I've never seen a complete list. Exactly which files did you want to know about/what do you want to change??

HTH

Jamie...

Nope ;)

Imma newbie my self, so i may not know what im talkin about, but i was under the impression that all linux kernels were the same, the distro's just added fun stuff on top of the kernels. i may be wrong though.

Yeah... but I'm not so sure what part of the 'nice looks' and easy boot is kernel related and what part is script related...

And about my 2nd question (framebuffer background):

After reading around a lot (!) I found out that it is possible to make splash screens using software, but the linux penguin in the top left corner is inside the kernel... I wish I knew how I can compile a kernel with another picture... Any ideas?

Another question: I can't find the config.i for the 'bare' kernel. I wish to recompile it with no changes at all (except for athlon support and amd viper support for my nforce mainboard and maybe a different bootup picture), so that I know for sure that I will be able to boot up again...

The colours and stuff you see when you are booting up are produced via bootsplash and framebuffer usage.
I read that support for nforce2 and this framebuffer/bootsplash is not very good at the moment. I was going to try the same thing, but found a few posts that mentioned it, so I thought I would wait (this was maybe 2 months ago)
You can sure investigate it more and let us know if you find different.