Hi all,

I've been on LinuxQuestions for a couple of months now and saw that a lot of users have Slackware installed. Those users seemed to me like addicted to their OS, ranted on about Slack being the only true stuff and I couldn't stop wondering why.

So, today I downloaded the 5 CD's of Slackware 13. At work I saved a laptop from destruction (Compaq nx7010; CPU Pentium M at 1.6Ghz, 1.25 Gb RAM, HD 40Gb). When I got home after work I started installing Slackware which I didn't encounter problematic (first point in). After little time and swapping CD's I booted into Slackware for the first time and may I say:

I'M IMPRESSED; pretty great all around. Looks great, runs great on that laptop.

But just like all first timers that encounter change, I have some problems. During the installation process I didn't bother to setup the network, thinking that probably the wireless card wouldn't work. Maybe I'll just have to restart the entire installation from scratch to find out if Slackware deserves credit for a complete installation, but hey, having experience with other systems I thought I'd be able to get it up and running in no time.

BIG MISTAKE on my behalf!

This looks so different, I cannot find my way any more, I'm lost in what looks like paradise on the frontend but appears to be the devil's backyard under the hood (just because I'm not (yet) familiar with it).

Can anyone indicate me if there is an 'easy' way to setup networking after the installation has completed? Or is it textbased? If so, what modules do I need to load, where are the files to change, ...

Thanks for any help in solving this Slack Newbie's problems

Kind regards,

Eric

You have several options:

The Slack way - edit /etc/rc/d/rc.inet1.conf
Netconfig. Run as root for a text-based configuration tool.
wicd - a GUI network management tool (This probably didn't install by default. Check the "extras" directory.)

You can see if the wireless card is working with the wireless tools - iwconfig as root will list the wireless parameters for any interface, if they exist. iwlist wlan0 (or eth0 or whatever the interface name is) scan will show you any networks seen by the wireless card.

If things aren't working, no wireless interface is showing up, run lspci -v. That will list all devices on the PCI bus, including the wireless card. Exceptions are the old 16-bit PCMCIA cards. Knowing which device you have will be a first step in getting it going.

Hello and thanks for replying.

The wireless NIC is an Intel Pro Wireless 2200. I did
and it is listed.

When I run the iwconfig command I see that there are wireless extensions associated with eth0. Then running
gave me my ESSID correctly. But now, how do I connect to the wlan which has a WEP key configured? I've been reading through the SlackBook and found those iwconfig eth0 commands to connect but I get an error when typing in the key. The error is:
Also I was looking for the "extras" directory but couldn't find it. Then I tried the kpackage manager but it gave me an error that it needs SMART to be installed first?

Kind regards,

Eric

http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-13.0/extra/ specifically http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-13.0/extra/wicd

wicd will probably Just Work (tm).

A good read, to get a better understanding of Slackware's networking concepts is this article: http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...ckware:network

You can also run to find out more about network configuration in Slackware.

Eric

Okay, I was looking for the extras directory on my system, not on the internet . I dowloaded the file, copied it to my slackware laptop, put it in / and extracted it. When I then go to the install dir and execute doinst.sh I get three cannot stat messages. Why is that? Is it correct to extract the package in the / or is it supposed to be in a specific directory. When I check for the files that the doinst.sh complained about, they do exist. But nothing further happens, and I don't have the wicd icon.

Any thoughts on this? Please forgive me if I'm asking the obvious but Slackware is new to me, so still getting to know why everyone is so excited about it.

Kind regards,

Eric

You install Slackware packages with installpkg as root from any directory (doesn't matter where the archive is). Thus:installpkg takes care of the doinst.sh script, so you don't have to worry about it.

I highly recommend you read the basics in the SlackBook, particularly section 18.2.

Since you've extracted the archive to /, there's going to be /install which you need to get rid of (as this isn't intended to be extracted in the manner you have).

Please read the section of the book I've linked to above before you continue, otherwise you're quite likely to break something on you system. Of course, it's your system, but it'll help enormously

Hi Eric,

Thanks for that link. I read through the basics and got my wireless connection up and running in no time. Now I can explore Slackware further.

Kind regards,

Eric

Hello pwc101,

Thank you for help offered yet, I'm learning the necessary things fast this way. Rest assured that I'll do the necessary reading on Slackware. I just needed to find out for myself why everyone is making such a 'fuss' (pardon my french) about it. And I must say, Slackware is calling my attention.


I don't mind if this system breaks, it's one of many, and reinstalling from scratch is a perfect way to practice what I'm learning.

Ok, I installed the wicd package following your instructions, with the installpkg command and it executed without error. It even cleaned up the install directory from the manual install.

But now isn't there supposed to be an icon in my KDE? Or does that only appear after logout / login?

I'm going to read further in order to know how to make the wireless connection connect at startup using the config files.

Thanks guys for the help so far.

Kind regards,

Eric

To launch wicd, you need to launch its daemon.

First, make the /etc/rc.d/rc.wicd file executable:Then execute it:Then, in your X-session (KDE, Xfce, whatever), launch wicd-client.

You'll get a little icon appear in the system tray. Click on it and you'll see a new window, which should list your wireless networks (hopefully).

Got it working! Thanks a lot. I seem to have a lot to learn, yet again. After working with Debian and Debian based systems this is very different.

Maybe another stupid question but from the SlackBook I've 'learned' about the Slack way using their tools for package management. Is Slackware not connected to any repository to download and install in an automated way? Is it preferred and done by 'Slackers' in such a way that they download packages, convert them if necessary and then install them locally?

Kind regards,

Eric

slackpkg allows you to connect to a mirror of the official slackware packages that you find on your installation media. You can then install additional packages from that mirror, or check for updates. man slackpkg is your friend.

When it comes to third party packages, you have a choice to make:

1. Install precompiled packages from sites such as Slacky.eu etc.
2. Compile your own packages.

I prefer the latter method, and to accomplish this, I turn most frequently to www.slackbuilds.org. These are scripts which will compile the software in question, producing a slackware package at the end. You can then install these packages using installpkg.

There is no dependency resolution, so you need to fetch scripts for each dependency (if any) yourself. A tool which makes interacting with the SlackBuilds.org repository significantly easier is sbopkg (www.sbopkg.org). This mirrors the SlackBuilds.org repository on your hard drive and allows you to browse, queue and build a number of packages in a single swipe. This significantly speeds up the process of building complicated packages such as ffmpeg, for example.

Between the packages supplied by Slackware from a full install and the SlackBuilds.org respository, all my software requirements are fulfilled. For those that aren't, I've written SlackBuilds for myself and submitted them to SlackBuilds.org

Thanks so much, this will come in handy along the road.

Kind regards,

Eric