Getting Started with Slackware (Please Help!)
 

This is my first Slackware installation and I'm having a ton of problems. My previous distro was Mandrake and it was a walk in the park, but I'm ready to step up to a *real* distro! :D

Here's my hardware specs:

Noname generic motherboard
Pentium III, 600 mhz
2 IDE Harddrives
Netgear FA311 Ethernet (it's a natsemi chipset)
Promise Technology Ultra IDE controller (there's 1 HD connected to this)
Generic Keyboard
USB Mouse (Logitech MX700)
2 IDE ATAPI CD Burners
NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX400
SoundBlaster Live! Value

I want to either build a kernel or get one that works with my hardware. I can't seem to get X up and running, either. I believe I have to build nvidia drivers and usb drivers into the kernel? Is this true? What about cd burning?

For now, X is the big issue....

I get the errors:

xf86 Open Serial: Cannot open device /dev/mouse
Mouse1: Cannot open input device

Pre Init failed for input device "mouse1"

No core pointer
Fatal Server Error: Failed to inialize core devices

I also want to get my Soundblaster and Mouse working. Any help would be great.

I believe if you do a search here on LQ, perhaps limit the search to the Slack forum, you will find most all of your answers.

If you are new to Slack, then I recommend staying with the stock kernel for awhile. When you get everything working and know what your requirements are; then try a custom kernel. At present, make sure everything works with modules it is far simpler that way. That is why all the distros are module based on everything.

nVidia I believe you need to download their drivers, build and install. Modules I think they are. But I am fairly certain that it will run in framebuffer mode as well. Sample config in /etc/X11/XF86Config-fbdev. Just copy it to the XF86Config file. There is also a XF86Config-vesa if you want to try vesa mode.

Soundblaster Live uses the module emu10k1 I believe it is. (modprobe emu10k1)

For the USB mouse, you could load the modules and make sure the device /dev/mouse points to /dev/usb/mouse0 I think it is. (modprobe usbmouse)

Good luck and welcome to the Slack world.

I got X up and running, but my soundblaster won't work.

An even bigger problem is getting on the net. netconfig refuses to find my card (a netgear fa311). It's driving me nuts! What should I do to start debugging this problem?

It occured to me to try # modprobe natsemi, but I get "Permission Denied" even when logged on as root. How do I fix that?

Puhleeeze help!

From what I have been able to locate quickly, the fa311 card should use the natsemi driver. Perhaps another module has attempted to load and locked the resources, or maybe from netconfig probes. Power off and retry without running netconfig. Use "lsmod" to view the loaded modules. After you receive the error message, use the command "dmesg" and look at the end of the listing and see if any errors are reported that might point to where the problem is. If all else fails, then shutdown X to just a console unload all modules and then attempt to load the natsemi module. If it still fails with the same message, then perhaps the kernel is attempting to do something with it. Review the dmesg output just after booting to console mode to see what the kernel reports.

Ok, I tried lsmod from root after a reboot and got the same Permission Denied message. Then I tried dmesg and this was the error:

kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k char-major-10-134, errno=13

I hope that makes more sense to someone than it does to me.

EDIT: Another Question- How do I shut down X and why does it hog all the buffers? I can only use buffer #6 (Alt-F6). I am booting into an X login (I changed the id in /etc/inittab from id:3 to id:4).

Are you running a custom kernel with modules disabled? That would explain the messages that you are receiving.

In reference to the "buffers", it is not buffers but consoles. Init level 4 only allows for a single console on tty6. If you desire more consoles, I would think you simply need to enable them the /etc/inittab for runlevel 4. Look toward the bottom of file and you will see where the consoles are enabled. I like having at least the one standard console, in the event I need to do something outside of X. But once in X, I can run as many consoles I desire, not limited to just a few. So the others are not really missed.

Buffers? you mean terminals, that's a little Slack thing but if you want it RH style do these changes...

/etc/inittab:

change this line towards the top:
to
and down towards the bottom is this:
that you hange to this:
And if your bored open up /etc/rc.d/rc.modules in your favorite text editor to get an idea for how simple Slack makes things to do by hand.

I'm running the "usb" kernel off the Slack CD. I have a USB mouse that I was trying to get going so I thought this would be the best way. Should I have just used the default kernel and enabled usb through modules? Is there any reason why modules would be disabled by using this kernel?

Thanks for the help so far Excalibur, as well as everyone else!

I just thought of something that might be important. I've been booting with my boot floppy because I didn't install LILO. Would this make a difference? Just a thought.

What kernel is on the boot floppy?

I would think that kernel would be modules enabled. But I haven't actually used it myself. Check the directory tree /lib/modules/2.4.18 and see if anything is there. That would be the location for the modules after an install. there should be a lot of them in various directories. If it is empty for some reason, then locate them on the install CD and use "installpkg" I think it is to install it. The package is in the "a" set and is called kernel-modules-2.4.18-i386-4.tgz.

I'm not sure what kernel is on the boot floppy, I think it's also the USB kernel. Should I try installing LILO? How would I go about that without reinstalling Slack from scratch?

Thanks again, Excalibur, I know my questions are tedious!

I cd to /lib/modules/2.4.81 and ls the files:

@build kernel/ modules.dep net/ pmcia/
modules.genericsetup modules.ieee1394map modules.isapnpmap
modules.parportmap modules.pcimap modules.pnpbiosmap modules.usbmap

Am I missing any modules?

Well those are just the directories. The modules are further down below. You would need to follow the tree, kernel/drivers/net, etc. You should be able to locate files that are like something.o. The "o" files are compiled object code and they are the modules that can be loaded. But since the tree is there then I would expect all the files to be there aas well. So then we are back to the kernel issue. We better find a solution fast, I am running out ideas? (hehe)

Without knowing your hard disk layout, It is difficult to recommend installing lilo. Why did you decide not to install lilo to start with?

Well I checked the files, all the modules I need are there. I still don't understand why I don't have permission to run lsmod and modprobe as root.

I didn't install LILO because I am running linux on a secondary drive and LILO wanted to install to the MBR of my windows drive. I wanted all of Linux to be on it's own drive and not have LILO on the windows drive.

Should I scratch my install? Maybe this problem is from booting from the floppy?