I am interested in learning unix the proper way. I am a Windows user with a bit of ubuntu usage a couple years ago and as recently as a month ago I installed Linux mint which while really great, it does not give me the satisfaction of learning linux the proper way.

Currently I am dual booting windows 7 with linux mint, both on separate ssd's. I am interested in installing slackware core or bare minimum in the same fashion replacing linux mint and learning/setting it up myself.

A couple things are confusing which hopefully I could get answered before I attempt this endeavor.

1. Once I remove linux mint from the second ssd using windows, can I create the partitions needed for slackware in windows disk management? If so is there a guide that I should follow on how and what to specifically set? or using gparted in mint?

2. Is there anything specifically that I need to do so that boot works properly between windows 7 and slackware when slackware is installed on a separate hard drive?

3.My ssd's (3 total) are connected using AHCI, will this cause trouble? do I need to select a different kernel during install?

Hopefully someone takes the time to answer these questions to ease my mind, I am really looking forward to using slackware. Thank you

Welcome to LQ

Slackbook and/or Slackbook-beta these 2 should get you started. Everything you need is there.

1. Better do it with fdisk
2. Configure lilo.conf for dual boot
3. No problem there. During install use default kernel

Hello,

Welcome to LQ.

Before you start in your endeavor, I strongly suggest that you read the documentation available in the root directory of the DVD of Slackware 14.0 (also available here for the 32-bit edition).

README.TXT and Slackware-HOWTO will be a good start.

To answer your specific questions:

1. Document Slackware-HOWTO will give you guidance about how to install Slackware including how to prepare the partition.

2. Dual-booting with windows 7 is a bit tricky. Fortunately, there is a very valuable entry in Alien's Bob (a main Slackware contributor) blog.

3. I'm not familiar with SSD's but I haven't noticed any particular thread in this forum about a structural issue with SSD and Slackware.

Thanks for the quick replies. I am actually planning on installing the 64x version (no worries got the readme file). So I cannot use cfdisk, but fdisk when doing it for my system?

You can use either one, as you prefer. Both are included in the installer (as well as gdisk and cgdisk for GPT partitions).

When you will do the installation the installer will give you guidance about that. First plan your partition's layout i.e. which ones you will use for "/" (Linux root partition) and "swap" (and maybe /home, though a dedicated partition for that be not necessary in my opinion), then you can use fdisk or cfdisk to format these partitions after booting the DVD.

You should use the partitioning tools provided by Slackware (cfdisk or fdisk), or else a Live CD like Parted Magic. If you are unfamiliar with (c)fdisk then the first thing you should do while you still have Mint installed is to make a note of which disk is which. For example, is Windows on /dev/sda or /dev/sdb? Mint on /dev/sda or /dev/sdb? That way you won't make a disastrous mistake and wipe out your Windows installation.

To illustrate, if Mint is on /dev/sdb then you should run cfdisk as follows, just after you log in as root while running the Slackware installer:

Then create something like the following setup:

Note that the old-style disk partitioning scheme will allow only 4 primary partitions so if you want to create separate partitions for /home, /opt, /usr, /usr/local and /var then you will need to create logical instead of Primary partitions. It's safe to create just / as a Primary partition and all the rest as logical. When you create swap just set the Type to 82.

If you don't want your Windows disk MBR to be touched by Lilo (the linux loader which loads your operating systems) then you should make sure the / partition you create in cfdisk is flagged as bootable, so that later in the setup routine you can install Lilo to the root partition / instead of the disk MBR. This will preserve your Windows disk MBR intact. Lilo will still add your Windows partition to its menu but if you ever decide to nuke your Slackware installation your Windows MBR will at least remain intact if you do it this way. Remember to flag / as bootable if you want to do it this way, and remember also to install Lilo to this root partition /

Another thing to bear in mind is that you won't be able to install Lilo to a root partition formatted with the XFS filesystem, so probably safer to stick to ext4. (Note that when I mention the root partition I mean / not the root user's home directory, which is /root)

You've gotten some excellent advice in the above posts. I'll just add two cents:

I find cfdisk much friendlier than fdisk. Just be certain that you point fdisk/cfdisk at the correct partitions. As carpenters say, measure twice, cut once.

You could just reformat and reuse the partitions that Mint created without repartitioning, if they meet your needs.

Just my 2 cents, but if you're a first timer to Slackware, you should install everything and learn how the system handles from the Full Installation point of view.

As far as Windows 7... I've always used either Grub2 or LILO without any issues with Windows 7, 8, Server 2008 R2, or Server 2012. Grub2 IMO works a bit better than LILO, but it's more a pain to setup.

I have done almost the same thing that you are trying to do except I have xp on my first ssd and slackware on the second ssd.
this is how I did it,

Download pmagic or gparted, burn as an iso and boot from it. Make sure and do not do anything to the windows particians.

In the top right hand corner click on the square to bring up the linux partician it will probably be sdb.
Erase or delete everything on sdb,

After everything is deleted you should have 1 unused space on sdb.


Right click on it and then click new, create a extended partician using all of it. You can only have 4 particians and you have
already used 2 for windows and the recovery. Within an extended partician you can have as many as you need.

Right click on the extended partician, then new, choose linux swap and give it about 2 times memory, or if you have plenty
of memory, like 4 gig, then don't setup a swap to preserve the ssd,

Next make a / partician of 20 gig if you can, slackware needs at least 8 gigs for the system.

Next make a home partician of all you can afford for /home

When you boot Slackware iso it will ask you to you to use the swap you have yes.
it will ask you to use 2nd partician as boot yes
the third will prompt for a name, that will be /home

install all 7,6 gig yes!

When it is done it will prompt you to automatically write lilo yes
to the mbr yes

WARNING

If you are going to install Slackware in an ssd you don't have to use Fisk or cfdisk but you have to use gdisk

Are you sure about that? I don't have a SSD but according to some pages on the net like this one it seems that one should only take care of proper partition alignment and that can be done using (at least some versions of) fdisk.

gdisk automatically aligns your partitions in the right way

Fun fact, cfdisk works fine on all of my SSDs. You only have to use gdisk if you want to use GPT partition tables, for the older MBR partition tables (c)fdisk is just fine. All you have to do is basic math, at best align your partitions on sectors that are dividable by 2048, so that the partitions are aligned at the SSDs erase unit size to prevent impacts on write-performance and lifetime (although lifetime is not really an issue anymore with modern SSDs).

Guys you are absolutely right. But in my opinion speaking about partition alignment may result over complicated to a newbie that is approaching now to Slackware. I think that for him it would be easier to just use gdisk.

As a Slackware user you have to inform yourself, I see nothing wrong with starting right here.