interesting thing to note: i work for a large corporation, and Ubuntu is on our company's "do not use" list because of possible legal ramifications of using something that's not completely GPL licensed. Slackware, on the other hand we CAN use, because it is completely GPL licensed.

I'd hate to get Slackware blacklisted but it does contain software that is not free (and certainly software that is not strictly GPL licensed though I'm assuming other free licenses like the Apache license are permitted...). Java (JRE) (and JDK in extra/), xv and (maybe?) some wireless drivers are not free. Pine used to be included but Slackware now uses Alpine under the Apache license so that should be fine. You would at least have to remove jre and xv (and maybe more) to produce a free Slackware, and you'd have to remove a lot more if you want a GPL-only Slackware (though I don't think your system would be very feature-complete using exclusively GPL-licensed software).

I'll look into it.. I ask about the package manager because its kind of hard to find certain packages in slackware.. I spent half an hour looking for a slackbuild for cplay.. couldn't find it.. in debian (ubuntu) it's just apt-get install cplay.

Hi again Gene

Once again I found something new about Pat's scripts and/or Slackware and wanted to pass it along.

BackStory: I have been hitting my head against a wall getting my pvr 350 capture card to work. Using various build scripts for non USofA residents I thought I was getting close but alas things were/are still fubar. This prompted me to consider: Was KDE getting in the way? So I decided to reinvent myself.

Discovery: As root I preformed an adduser and created a new me. I then logged in as newme. But I could not remember what .thisfile to create in my new home directory to change my window manager to xfce and not use the system default of KDE. After reading pkgtool script and following it thru other scripts I found:

BEFORE issuing a startx command [which would default to systems KDE] it is possible for a user to issue xwmconfig. It is included in a users path and thus a full path name is not required. This brings up the same ncurses window where the system default window manager is selected. I chose xfce, exited, issued startx and surprise the appropriate .thisfile had been created and newme was in an xfce window environment.

So on the title referenced page of your great writeup consider advising an new user with two additional commands [root:adduser & newme:xwmconfig] they can explore the drastically different window managers.

ASIDE: Later in the same page you discuss Cleaning out the Junk. I have problems with the use of tmpfs to host/mount /tmp. UPTIME or whatever is a status symbol for geeks in training and if they don't shutdown their box regularly files in /tmp might grow to exceed their ram/swap space. Would rather use rc.local to purge /tmp on startup. Hopefully someone reading this can give you a good bash line/script to use.

Thoughts and observations

ppd

PS xfce did not solve my problems.

Another way to do that (if you boot into runlevel 3) is to append the appropriate xinitrc.???? to the startx command. So, either boot to runlevel 3 or 'telinit 3' as root, and issue the command (not as root):
to try out xfce no matter what your xwmconfig setting is. There are other xinitrc.???? files in that directory.

Of course those booting to kdm will know about the button that lets you select your WM/DE upon login.

I've seen the 'when to clean' argument before. At least for me, some temp files used by the system are created during boot and deleting them might not be a good idea. Perhaps doing it in /etc/rc.d/rc.local_shutdown? Here's an 'ls -lrt /tmp'. I booted at 17:50-ish.
I figure that the kde-root directory is because I boot to kdm in runlevel 4.

Hope this helps. ;v)

I totally agree with what PDock states about exceeding the /tmp space. I attempted to build AlienBob's vlc program and while compiling packages, /tmp ran out of space. I had to unmount tmpfs from /tmp in order to build the software.

rc.local runs very late in the boot process after many things have been started and have started using /tmp. The safest times to clean /tmp are either late during shutdown or early during boot.

Hi,

Gene, would you update the url for the tutorials in the original post and note the reason for the update.

This is the one I'm using now http://genek.net/LinuxAdventures/sysadmin

Sorry Gary; I should have got in here and posted it sooner. I'm busier than a one-legged man in an XXX-kicking contest...

The Slackware tutorials are presently available at the URL onebuck posted above. Adventures in Linux is undergoing a bit of an overhaul right now, with a new theme of "Switching from Windows to Linux". I've come to the conclusion that most beginners will probably not be willing to undergo Slackware's learning curve, and am using a different distro (and one that I like a lot) for the introductory lessons. The Slackware tutorials will have their very own space on the site by this time tomorrow. I'll update the original post at that time.