New Slacker: Some Observations
 

Hello :)

I have recently installed Slackware 14.0

History-

I had tried to initially install it around 2-3 months before.

First when I tried, I got kernel panics, but I searched for it and found that using rootdelay=10 solved that problem.

Then I couldnt get my wifi connection up and also couldnt use startx.

Then some days earlier I tried it again, and I thought, am I doing something wrong ;) as startx: command not found ?

Perhaps I had downloaded a minimal edition?
Then I again went to the Get Slack page and saw that there were many CDs needed.
Using the first CD, it installed the basics, and even though I had selected the GUI, it didnt install it.(no warning)
So I downloaded the 2nd CD also, and reinstalled.

One question I ask- why use Lilo?
I has to reinstall lilo like 5-6 times. It (mostly)failed on its own.
Sometimes I got the following error-
"L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99"
and once-
"The kernel overlaps with...."
I had to reinstall it many times by using the install disk -> Select / partition -> Customise and reinstalled Lilo.

Solution-How about using syslinux? Its in the repos.

Secondly I cant work with the initrd..whenever I use it I get stuck in the initramfs while booting.
I created the initrd according to the installation instructions.
Now I dont know whether (perhaps) its because of Lilo not using the append rootdelay=10 for my second entry, or due to something else.

And third I cant find a volumeicon for my system tray.

Thanks.
PS. I mean them more like suggestions than criticism :)

Welcome to the official Slackware forum. I suggest that you read the book. Many topics are covered: partitioning,installing software, etc.

http://www.slackbook.org/html/index.html

Will have a look, thank you :)

Now that I have gotten myself to the forums, I will read the stickies as well as time permits.:)

Have a look here too

http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:beginners_guide

There's also http://slackwiki.com/Main_Page

If you will download and install from the dvd you will not have those problems. Do a full install and write lilo
to the mbr.

Updates-

1.) Unable to get Syslinux working. So using Lilo ;)

2.)Initrd problem I figured out-
The error I used to get was
http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/.../slackware.png

So I again ran the command from the wiki in order to take a screenshot of it to post here, and I noticed something ;)

http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/...slackware2.png

Following the wiki, I was adding the following to lilo.conf
But I noticed that the kernel modules were being complied for the smp-kernel, not the generic one!

So after I changed the entry in lilo that also works.

3.)volumeicon
I was able to install it from slackbuilds.org :)

However on trying to increase the root partition size, I may have damaged it.
So may need to re-install.

I have another question which is partitially answered-
4.)Can I do an inplace upgrade without the CDs, like Debian?
And on searching I found slapt-get, which may do the job ;)
But I am a little unclear on this..for the update(upgrade?)to 14.1, will slackpkg update-all do?
Or will I have to use slapt-get?
Thanks!

This is because the generic (HUGE) kernel has many things built-in.

Something sounds like it went very, very wrong with your install. Did you select a full install? It's usually best until you know how slackware is laid out. And the beginner's guide has actual, useful information. I've been using slackware for a good 10 years, and I still consult it. (Namely because it's information I forget--stuff you only use once a year or so when upgrading or reinstalling.)

Nope..I meant generic specifically by name, not by function ;)

The kernel generic in function is the hugesmp, to which vmlinuz is symlinked.
However as given in the Configuration part of the wiki, its said to compile an initrd, and add to lilo the generic(striped-down) kernel + specific modules + initrd.

But as I said, in the wiki, addition to lilo is said for generic, not generic-smp.
(I will edit the wiki when I get an account there :) )

Yes, initially I didnt download CD#2, and thrahed about somewhat, but I learned that as I said in my first post :)

I consulted the beginners guide, and as I said before, its given incorrect/incomplete there about adding which entry to /etc/lilo.conf after making an initrd, which I will amend when I get access ;)


Edit-

4.) On reading more, I think I will have to use slack-apt to upgrade from 14.0 to 14.1
http://www.slackwiki.com/Upgrade_Using_Slapt-get

No. Instead, just follow official instructions provided in file UPGRADE.TXT here. That's a lot safer, especially for Slackware newcomers.

Just re-read these instructions when Slackware-14.1 will be released as there could be some changes at that time.

Ah, okay :)

And how to get the packages? Can I use slapt-get for that ;)

That's explained in the file itself, just read it.

I suggest that you use only the huge kernel. I never had problems with that.

I always download and install the new packages by hand. No slackXXX is necessary.

The result is that I never had to re-install everything (except on old computers when I moved from slackware to slackware64). Always I did only upgrade. This is a huge difference with other distributions.

Sorry, seems like I wasnt paying enough attention :(

Edit-

The CD would contain other packages that which are required for upgrading, right? like the installer and so on..

So If I didnt want to download the CD, how should I go about it?
(Thats why I said slapt-apt to get the packages)

Does this mean that Slackware(Stable) is partly rolling then, ie, apt-get dist-upgrade to go from ver 6 to ver 7 ?

Edit-
Sorry for the noob questions i will read some more. :)

Either buy a DVD on the Slackware store or use the slackpkg method. To know more, type "man slackpkg" then read this how-to on SlackDocs.

PS Preferably use only Slackware tools to manage your distribution, at least till you have a thorough understanding of Slackware internals, that are very different of that of other distributions. You'll save yourself a lot of hassle.

PPS Sorry I made a mistake in quoting myself instead of editing previous post.

Thanks a lot for your help and advice! :)
especially the systemupgrade Doc!
I will try to follow the suggestions :)


It seems like I am getting too Slack here. :(

RTFM to me. Marking the thread as solved.

Just download the packages from any mirror you want, you can use wget, ftp or rsync for that. For example, this will download the whole tree for Slackware64 -current from my mirror to the current directory, using rsync:

Thank You :)