Hi all,

I am trying to install Slackware, but I am not having much luck at all. I currently have a Windows/Mandrake machine, but the Mandrake is not really helping me learn Linux/Unix (which is why I got it originally). I heard Slackware has a more basic interface, in which I'll be able to properly learn Linux/Unix (if this is untrue I would love to hear it of course... save me a lot of time and trouble trying to install this).



The reason I can't seem to install anything is that I do not have a CD burner on my laptop (to make a bootable install CD), and on the Mac computer I tried (which *does* have a burner), the "mkisofs" command didn't work. So, I resorted to doing the floppy thing, with a bootdisk and a rootdisk (I haven't given much thought to what I need after that, since I can't even seem to get a bootdisk made). If I try to save say bare.i onto a 1.44MB floppy, it keeps saying there is not enough space on them, even though these *.i files were specifically made for these floppies. So... how can that be??? And more importantly: how can I solve this problem?

Thanks for the help!

-zsejk

Well I can't help much with the flopie, fortunately for me I do have a burner and the bootable disk worked out just fine when I installed slack just a couple of days ago. I would suggest a few things, a great option is A) support to good folks at slack and buy a copy (I know it's drastic but it's an option.) B) some kind folks will sometimes send you a copy if you ask nice and pay for the mailing. C) get a friend to burn a copy for you or D) I don't know. think of something.

Either way, be persistant you'll get a copy soon. As for you first comment, I will agree that slackware will "force" you to learn linux. I had used mandrake for some 2 years without knowing the basics of linux and now I'm paying for it, but that's ok because everyone learns at some point or another. If your like me and just need to know now, you'll love it.

All the luck, I'm sure someone will be able to help you with the disk thing.

Anna.

Huh?
After Mandrake starts up do "CTL-ALT-F1" and take it from there.
"CTL-ALT-F7" to return to GUI.

Change to Blackbox rather than KDE?

Type commands in the KDE terminal rather than clicking the GUI.
Using 'dd' or 'rawrite'?

Using rawrite, I get the following message:

C:\>rawrite c:\bare.i a:
Number of sectors per track for this disk is 18
Writing image to drive A:. Press ^C to abort.
Attempt to DMA across 64K boundary

I have no clue what that means.

And yes, I have contemplated buying the CDs... but... I really do not have any money.



I will now try the zipslack... I'll keep trying the bootdisk though... it's just too annoying to have myself beat my some silly floppies.



-zsejk

So yes... issue solved.



I guess I am supposed to use RAWRITEXP.... the availability of that option had somehow escaped my attention. Sorry for the trouble!

-zsejk, who is off to now try to install this thing... fingers crossed!

ISolved is good.

Great. You'll love Slackware. I came from Mandrake and its night and day. Slackware really isnt that hard, and you actually learn something.

The first thing you should do is custom compile your kernel after you install. Slackware is i386, so unless your running it on a 386, you'll want to recompile to i686. Theres a great tutorial stickied in here.

Yeah... I noticed that... I think I'll try that as soon as I get LILO to work... it either gives me L 99 99 99 99 ad infinitum, or else I get a boot menu (yay liloconfig!) but then when I try to boot into Linux I get... yes... a Kernel panic!



Its says:

"Kernel panic: no init found. Try passing init= option to kernel"

Now.... my reaction to this is...

WHAT THE F...?????



I'm gonna try to fiddle around with the liloconfig a little more, but I think it might be something completely different. I have / mounted on /dev/hda5 and /home on /dev/hda7, so I'm not sure if that is the smartest thing to have (if it's not, please let me know! I'll go in and redo things right away ).

Thanks again for all the support!



-zsejk

Ok.... I have Slackware 9 installed... I have even been able to run Gnome for a while (though when it starts I *do* get this weird display of "Windows is shutting down", almost like my screen is remembering the last displayed image). But that's not important. What I *would* like to be able to do is use my internet connection. I have no clue how to set this up, so the few things I tried probably just were useless or plain wrong. I use Earthlink DSL connected to my internal ethernet card (Intel 8255x-based Fast Ethernet) on a Toshiba laptop (Satellite... blegh). It used to work under Mandrake 9.0, so I know it *is* possible to get it to work under Linux.

Now what I tried was fiddling with the pppoe.config file: I basically changed the ETH=eth1 to ETH=eth0 'cause that seemed more right, though changing it back later didn't help either; I put in my username at Earthlink a little further down into the file); and I ran <netconfig> a few times.

The latter (the netconfig command) really kind of confuses me. I have no idea what I am supposed to fill in as values for host and domain. When I get further along in the process it checks for my connection using something like DHCsomethingsomething, and that then finds my modem (I hope it means my DSL by this, and not my internal dial-up modem) using "eepr100.o". Again, I have *no* clue what that means.



Also: when I run <pppoe> after fiddling with the pppoe.config file, I just get this message:

So basically... if someone knows exactly how to get a DSL modem running on an internal ethernet card on a laptop... please please please PLEASE let me know.



-zsejk

Please don't tell me DSL is hard.
I hope to get it going in a few days.

If you configured it yourself in Mandrake, maybe you want to use KDE in Slack? (Although I have to manually install qt to get KDE in Slack 9.)
My Debian shows a "pppoeconf" program that helps with pppoe install. Don't know if it is Debian specific or generic.

Hehehe... I'm sure it's not hard.... it's probably just me.



I will try <pppoeconfig>... haven't tried that yet I think... or I have and I just got one of those "no such command" replies...



-zsejk

Maybe the Roaring Penguin PPPoE main page will help?

I am so so so very very stupid....



All it took was running /usr/sbin/adsl-setup..... (sighs)... which by the way *is* Roaring Penguin PPPoE.

All's well that ends well eh?

Greetings and salutations from inside Slackware!!!!!



-zsejk