Distribution-specific differences notwithstanding (I'm a Debian man myself), there's nothing particularly special about startup scripts. They're just standard shell scripts that are run at start time - like a shortcut you'd put in the Windows 'Startup' folder of the Start menu. Except with Linux scripting powers.
If you write yourself a short startup script, something along the lines of
Code:
#!/bin/sh
#
# Script to launch Ventrilo
cd /path/to/ventrilo
./ventrilo_srv
This should work, you may find there's something else you have to do before starting Ventrilo (and you may in fact find that changing the directory in unnecessary) but this will probably work. Put this file in the place where startup scripts live on Slackware (/etc/rc.d?) and make it executable.
Then, just link to the script from all the runlevels you want it to run in (usually 3 and 5). It's probably best to give the script a high number, so that it runs after other components (particularly network ones) have loaded; the following should work:
Code:
hammertime@hostname:/etc/rc3.d# ln -s /etc/rc.d/ventrilo_script_name S95ventrilo
If you actually want Ventrilo to run as a daemon, check its man page and/or docs to see if you can specify this with some kind of option. Technically, what I've described here isn't running like a service in Windows; it's essentially doing exactly the same as if you typed in the command yourself every bootup. However, I'd imagine that this is fine for your requirements. If not let me know and we'll try to work through it.
HTH,
Andrzej
