Going to give Slackware a try, hopefully it all works out the way I want.
I am using Fedora right now. I have no complaints at all. But for awhile now I have been wanting to give Slackware a try. The only thing that held me back was no easy way to set up luks and lvm on install, yeah I get lazy now and then. So today I decided why not give it a try. I have Fedora and Windows installed already, if it doesn't work I still have them. I had to write these instructions by hand, no working printer at the moment, from this http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/linux/slackw...ADME_CRYPT.TXT From the luks and lvm down to the end of the chroot and lilo configuration. I wanted to make sure I had it all infront of me just incase. I have been using computers for awhile now and more times than not something always pops up that wasn't expected or I forget a simple small thing and poof, have to start over.
I decided to unhook all my hard drives except the one I am using for Slackware. Less headaches and potential for me to make a mistake and erase something that would just annoy me. If all goes well I will be back here. It might take a little while. I am currently downloading the dvd iso with Ktorrent. Looked like the mirros are over worked and slow and I didn't really want to add to the stress they are under. |
I usually install Slackware like this:
1. Click enter to boot with default options 2. Login as root w/o password. 3. Run cfdisk (MBR) or cgdisk (GPT) to create partitions and assign swap it's space. 4. Run pcmcia to bring up any hardware that might need detecting. 5. Run network to make sure my network device has a driver loaded. 6. Run setup and start from Add Swap step and perform a full install with a single /(root) EXT4 partitioned file system. 7. Restart and use the disk to rescue boot. 8. Configure grub2 and install it to my hard disk MBR. |
Well everything went fast and easy. Very easy. The only problem I had was after I rebooted and it got me to the passphrase stage it would not recognize any usb keyboards. So I hooked up ps/2 keyboard and entered the passphrase. After everything loaded my USB Keyboards work. Hopefully they will work when I reboot. If not I will research it and figure out why.
All I did so far was create a user account, hoping I remembered all the correct groups since it has been awhile, and came here to make this post. I am very happy that all went so well. And KDE seems to work faster with Slackware than with other distro's I have used. Not sure why but I am liking that. I installed Slackware 14.1 x86_64 and the full DvD. |
FYI, to select the correct groups for desktop use just push the UP arrow when asked by adduser (like below)
Code:
# adduser test Code:
gpasswd -a user group |
Thanks for the tips. I had used Kuser to create the new user. All went well except... I changed the run level to 4. That way kdm would just start and I wouldn't need to take the few extra seconds to log in with startx, like I said I can be lazy. Anyways I tried to log in with the new user and I kept getting an error. Well I had forgotten to choose my default shell. So I kept getting the error that my login shell was not listed in /etc/shells. Took me a few minutes to figure that out. All works well now.
Other than that I am going to take my time and check out Slackware. It is more involved and a lot more at the command line. That is fine. I always updated Fedora or Debian from the command line anyways. I just hope I don't forget NOT to type in yum or aptitude instead of slackpkg. I know I will more than once, lol. |
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I assume you created an initrd for the LUKS support. That initrd must have the USB support modules included or else a USB keyboard will not be functional when you have to type in your passphrase. Do you remember the exact mkinitrd command you used to create the initrd.gz? Check out this topic, too: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-a-4175484332/ Cheers, Eric |
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Yes. I had it all written down. At least I think this is what your talking about. Code:
mkinitrd -c -k 3.10.17 -m ext4 -f ext4 -r /dev/cryptvg/root -C /dev/sda2 -L |
Ok. I have to reinstall Slackware. Don't ask. Live and learn.
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Ok. I installed it again. Same as before. It went smoothly and works fine except for the usb keyboard. I thought I corrected that with this install, but I didn't. With the link above I know where to start now. This install I kept all the hard drives plugged in. So lilo added Windows and I am curious to see if it boots. I am not worried if it doesn't. I have lilo installed to the mbr on sdb while Windows is installed on sda and Fedora's grub on the sdc mbr. I am going to have to take my time with all of it. I am new to Slackware and I have a lot to get use to and learn.
Edit: slackpkg. I understand it now. After I add some more repos I am going to focus on the usb keyboard issue. |
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If you use LUKS and have USB keyboard, you must provide keyboard drivers available during password prompt. If you use huge kernel it may be not issues(because huge kernel have build-in USB drivers), but if generic one - you definitely MUST load additional kernel modules-drivers, main USB stack. So modify your mkinitrd parameter -m to somethink like -m ext4:usbhid:uhci-hcd . That why Eric asked you "exact mkinitrd command". See README_CRYPT.TXT paragraph "USB keyboards and LUKS" PS: If you use /usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh command, you probably could avoid this issue, since recent version of(included in 14.1) now detects if USB keyboard attached, and generates proper -m parameter value. (But you still can and must analyse it and fix if needed). |
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Thank you for the information on the usb keyboard. Quote:
Edit: Just ran /usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh and rebooted. USB Keyboard works perfectly. |
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if you want to help testing or use what's ready, you can set that with sbopkg: consider that ATM more than half of the repository has been checked and stuff still needs to be done. |
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User must manually resolve all dependencies before build packages(well, Slackware-ish way), since .SlackBuild is ordinary shell script which responses only for building certain packages. sbopkg - relatively simple tool which allows to run .SlackBuild's a little comfortably. sbopkg does not analyse .SBs for dependencies, caveat's, special cases. However sbopkg provides mechanism to help user to build packages with dependencies. It is called Queue. queue file is list of package names(names only, no categories) within SBo repository. This list also defines order of packages to be build, so dependencies will be built first. This list also can contain reference to other queue files. sbopkg merges lists of packages of referenced queues and list of packages in current queue(order kept, duplicates removed). So, instead of build packages vlc directly, you can create queue file which contains a list of dependencies, and itself vlc package at list tail. Then you can load that queue into sbopkg and start to build it. (NOTE: each package built independently, so if one package fails to build, next will be started) There is repository of ready made queue files anybody can use. You can clone it or download packaged snapshot, put(unpack) it into your local queue storage and use it. However I advice you to check manually list of packages to build, since it can be pretty long and time consuming(one queues contain only required dependencies, other both req. and optional). PS: VLC. You also can download and install pre-built package for your Slackware version by Alien Bob |
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I will check out Alien Bob as well. Since I am new I was worried that I would get the wrong repos. I would rather go without than install something that is unkown to me and may be dangerous or destructive. I did try the sbopkg queue with the dependencies. I still got an error with one of the packages neededing another. I searched, though it was a fast search, and couldn't find it. Shortley I am going to boot back into Slackware and add Alien Bob's VLC and the repo. Than a few other things as well. Just the basics for now like flash (nonfree, Gnash is up to it yet for me,) openjdk/Icedtea, etc. Than I need to add Fedora to the Lilo boot menu. It picked up Windows nicely, well Fedora/Grub does to, but I want to get use to Lilo. Been awhile since I tried it and even than it was briefly before everyone, just about, went to Grub. Lilo will be fun to learn. Thanks for the tips and link. |
I want to thank everyone for your help, thoughts and getting me started in the right direction. I am at the point now where I will be taking my time and learning Slackware as I go. Which will require, at times, searching and researching. I think I will be do it without asking questions, unless something major happens. It is more fun that way and a better way to learn I think.
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