New arrival in the land of Slack
 

Hey Slack Heads
Thought I'd use this opportunity to blow my trumpet and create a general fanfare for my new arrival in the land of Slack. After 18 months of using RH (first 7.2 and then 8.0) and more recently experimenting with Mandrake on my laptop, I finally took the plunge loaded up Slack 8.1 and descended into the arcane world of xconfig files and text-based installation menus, etc. etc ... and loved it (altho' I confess that I am somewhat balder now with all the hair pulling!!).
Anyway, circumstances dictated that I abandon that installation and now, just this Friday gone, I loaded up Slackware 9.0 and installed it, feeling more confident this time, and it loaded straight into X (even though I was armed and ready to do battle with the config file this time), and with a bit of tweaking in KDE and using a wonderful resource http://jetblackz.freeservers.com that gives lots of help on installation and security tweaking, I am up and away with Slack - and it feels GOOD!!!!! :D
Anyway, just wanted to share the joy with folk who'll be able to understand and relate. Now, only a couple of things to figure out: printing, and whether or not I can burn CDs, and then it is probably time to say adios to the RH8.0 on my desktop and load Slack there as well.

Always good to see a new comer from red hat land ;-) Welcome to the land of slack and enjoy your stay.

Welcome tiresees... and well done!

I took a peek at that site you linked, and I must say, it's pretty extensive.

Thanks for sharing it with us. :)

Welcome to Slack!

About printing, I used the default LPRng in Slack to print to a network printer. However I believe the experience is helpful to setup a local printer. It's simple to setup printer in Slack - though not automatically:
1. Check /etc/rc.d/rc.modules to load printer related modules - if you use network printer, they are probably not needed
2. Install packages: lprng, apsfilter, espgs, gnu-gs-fonts, a2ps and optionally gimp-print, ifhp, enscript and hpijs
3. Execute /usr/share/apsfilter/SETUP and follow the prompts to setup your printer
4. Start lpd daemon

To burn CD, try the following steps:
1. Install cdrtools package.
2. Modify /etc/lilo.conf and add line: append="hdd=ide-scsi" if your CD-RW is hdd, run lilo
3. Modify /etc/rc.d/rc.modules to load sg, ide-scsi and scsi_mod
4. Reboot and run command: cdrecord --scanbus

Hope it's helpful.

I've never been able to make my printer (HP Deskjet 712C) Print in slack.... it works in redhat and mandrake cause I tried to see if I could get the settings from there and port them to slack somehow but nothing was much different. I've posted several times as well but noone seemed to want to be willing to help me out, so whatever. I try to help with what I can, I'd appreciate the same from some people

What helped me with my hp was just trying different driver's until it finally printed. You might also want to contact hp as they may have the driver you need Astro.:D

Astro, Azmeen, and terminator - thank you all for your warm welcome. I haven't been a member of this board for long, but already it is beginning to feel like home, and it is the friendliness of guys like you that create that feeling ... so thanks :)

Astro - sorry you're feeling a little miffed and didn't get the help you were looking/hoping for. Did quietguy47's post help? If not, I'll keep my eyes/ears open and if I stumble across something that might be useful I'll let you know. Have you tried the CUPS server? I have heard some folk swear by it. If all else fails, try writing to Patrick Volkerding himself - I don't know if he's receptive to that kind of thing, but let's face it ... he'd have a very specific level of expertise with Slack!!
Azmeen - yep that site is very impressive and if it works for you, please recommend it and maybe email jbz to let him know. I did and I got a nice acknowledgement from him. I think that he appreciated me letting him know I valued his work.
terminator - thanks for your suggestions around printing and cd burning. I'll have a crack at that tonight and see if I can wrangle a page to be spat out from my slumbering HP printer. I'll llet you know how I get on. I had planned on dealing with the CD burning thing tonight as well, and did pass the "hdc=ide-scsi" parameter to the kernel just after installation, but have yet to check whether or not it has been picked up.

Have any of you tried to get programs like Ximian Evolution and Galeon working under Slack? On one of my previous attempts I got error messages about specific variables missing, but I reckon I fudged that install anyway, so I will probably try again with this install.

OK folks - once again, thanks for the welcome. It is good to be here, and hope that I too will be able to make a contribution to this community of slacker hackers.
Till next time ... :)

Tireseas, Welcome to slack! I think you'll find it beats the crap out of all the other distros you've tried, I know I did. Getting my printer (HP PSC 750) working I found www.linuxprinting.org indispensible. I recommend you and Astro head there and read EVERYTHING on your printer. I use CUPS and its great. Astro, you probably want http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_pr...P-DeskJet_712C
I'm not an expert by any means, but i had some difficulties installing CUPS, the hpijs driver and hpoj backend and overcame them. If i can help i'll try!

Read the CD-WRITING-HOWTO from http://tldp.org

BigBadPenguin & kater - thanks for your welcome BigBadPenguin (lol!! :D) and to you and kater for your suggestions. I tried what terminator suggested re: cdrecord and I can tell that is going to be a long and interesting hack coming up - evven after installing as per Jorg Shilling''s instructions, still no dice ... so I'll follow up on kater's reference and start from the top again. I have probably missed something somewhere!!! As for the printer issue - I haven't even touched that one yet, but I ddo want to fix it because once I have it figured then I can clean RH8.0 off of my desktop and install either Slack 9.0 or FreeBSD4.8 (which strikes me as a tempting possibility too). But, I do need a printable system before I make the switch. I think that I will be at the code-face this weekend :read: !!!!
Thanks for the links guys - Astro, hope this helped you out mate. Let us know how you get on, okay?

Bye 4 now

Do you have 2 cd-drives?

Hello from another recent convert.

I also installed CUPS and it's a marvel. Works beautifully with my Epson C82.

For CD writing, if you're a KDE fan don't miss "CD Bake Oven" at http://cdbakeoven.sourceforge.net . It takes a while to compile (even on an XP 1800+), but it's one very nice piece of software.

Best of luck,

Trian