I finally got my hands on a new laptop. I used to have a very old sony vaio with 256mb of memory. I now own a acer aspire with 2gb of memory. This thing is a beauty. It came with win vista home premium. I would like to install Slackware on this unit. The question is, should I go ahead and install it under M$ virtual pc 2007 or should I go ahead and create a separate partition? This unit has a 160GB hd. So, I'm not to worry about space.
Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks in advanced.

If you're not worried about the space, dive in and make your own set of partitions for it! Make sure to read the Slackware-Installation forum, as well as searching for help on dual-booting. I think you're going to have a good time of it though.

Congratulations upon your buy, warpman!

But is there any special reason for you to install Slackware as a guest OS on Virtual PC? If not, I understand you might be not exactly excited about potential difficulties or you might want to just try Slackware.

I encourage you to read more on dual-boot system and basic partitioning and then install Slackware for real. Do not think too much of "right and wrong partitioning schemes", do not think too much on what to install or not to install (just do a full install as recommended). We are a friendly community here and we all have been through it. We are here to share enthusiasm and experience, not pain. Also, when it comes to computers, learning by doing is the best way for both learning and doing. Problems, questions and failures are politically correct.

Installing on separate partitions is better anyway, no matter how good those virtual machines have become in recent years. If I were you, I'd go with a normal install. Actually, that's what I always do.

Yeah, I agree with the previous posts. You have the disk space, go for a dual boot. Your new unit will be ripping fast:-)

The advice of fully installing Slack via dual boot is the best way to go. When I got this machine (Toshiba laptop A135) that was the first thing I did (partition the 120GB to make room for Slack) and now I NEVER boot into Vista. Slack roars and Vista crawls.

DO read all of the README.txt files though. They are VERY important in Slackware and will likely answer all of your questions--before you realize you had a question. Don't despair though if it does not go right the first time. This is the friendliest and most helpful community around. We all get lost on some things and need help at times.

Hi,

I would suggest that you first defrag your M$ Vista partition. Then you can use the M$ Vista Hard disk management tools to resize to allow you to add additional partitions on the hdd. By using the M$ tools you will have less problems with the resize on the Vista partition.

You can then look at 'Dual/Multi Booting With Vista' to get an idea behind dual booting. There several other references within the 'Get Slackware Section' of 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

Great information. I guess I'm going with a separate partition.

Now I got 2 more questions.
1. Why do I need to do a full install?
2. Do I need to create a swap partition? If so, how big?

Thanks to all of you for your information.

I'd also recommend an installation on a separate partition and I agree with the other posters that you should read the instructions carefully. But you can also test-run the installer on a virtual machine first, and when you feel confident about using fdisk properly and other matters, you can try the actual installation (don't be scared, it's not that difficult to learn ).

Regarding your questions:

1) A full install in not necessary, but if you're not short of disk space, why not have it all? This will save you from potential future searches for lacking software (note that if you're new, you may not know where to find what you want).

2) Swap is also not necassary, but it is strongly recommended. If you want to use suspend-to-disk (hibernate), your swap partition must be at least as large as your RAM. If you won't do this, I'd say <=500 MB should be enough, as a machine with 2 GB RAM is unlikely to use swap space at all -- unless you're running some highly memory-demanding applications (e.g. doing computational mathematics).

Hi,
The full install will let you use the machine now. If you want to trim later then that is possible, you can use 'pkgtool' to trim.

You don't have to create a swap but I would. Your hdd space allocation allows the creation of a swap. You won't have any problems if you do create one just the hdd partition space allocation. If you do have problems with the system or if you do a lot of heavy computations that exceed your memory then indeed a swap would be necessary.

Well guys, I'm having a lot of problems installing slackware 12, which is what I'm using on another laptop. The first time I was installing it the laptop shutdown for no reason! I was on CD 1 and the laptop just shutdown! The second time it was installing KDE from CD 2 and it shutdown again. I restarted the laptop and I was able to get the laptop up and running on slackware. When I try to install the rest of the packages from CD 2, it shutdown again 3 times!!! This is driving me F(@*$#&*( crazy!!! Why is it doing this!?!?!? I'm so piss that I have not completed installing CD 2. I'll try it again tomorrow. But what could be the problem? I would understand it if it gives me a message or error message but completely shutting down the computer? It just doesn't make any sense! I have use these cd's before so I know they are good. So, if you guys have any suggestions I would appreciated. Thanks in advanced.

Hi,

When you boot the install cd1 pass the parameter 'noapic' to the kernel. You could need the 'apci = off' to prevent a power control problem.

You can configure after the install.

Excuse my ignorance but how do you pass a parameter to the kernel on CD 1? Should I go: hugesmp.s noapic
Thanks for the info...

Exactly! That is what you need to type instead of just ENTER when you see the Slackware welcome screen:
Eric

Well, that didn't work. I tried hugesmp.s noapic and huge.s noapic and still didn't work. Any ideas?