Netnovice,
Information on adding groups or modifying them is at:
http://docs.slackware.com/slackbook:users

I've used the following to add virtualbox to my present groups:
usermod -a -G vboxusers larry

You may need something in the order of (whatever is missing/needed):
usermod -a -G lp,wheel,floppy,dialout,audio,video,cdrom,plugdev,power,netdev,scanner,vboxusers larry

Also don't forget about these Terminal commands:
man useradd
man usermod



One other thing you will need in the future is a way to get back in your system if and when it doesn't boot via lilo.

So, you broke lilo..........

Insert your Slackware install DVD or CD1 and boot with the defaults.
Once booted you will likely need to create, as root (su -), some directory to mount /dev/sdx1 on. I used CENTON in my example:
# mkdir /mnt/CENTON
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/CENTON
# mount --bind /proc /mnt/CENTON/proc
# mount --bind /sys /mnt/CENTON/sys
# mount --bind /dev /mnt/CENTON/dev
# chroot /mnt/CENTON
# nano /etc/lilo.conf
# lilo
# exit
# reboot (reboot from your hard drive /dev/sdx)

Where /mnt/CENTON is just a mount point for /dev/sdx1 and /dev/sdx1 is your installed Slackware / partition. Adjust as necessary for your situation.

Thanks.

Larry

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

check this out too - hopefully it'll help you find your feet.

Excellent info!

Learning is limited right now due to crazy hours but this is all good!
I am actually pleased with progress so far.
Thanks again!

Welcome to Slackware.

I started with it and I am glad I did. I also found the Slackware community to be mostly friendly and helpful.

Whenever I stray, Slackware's elegant simplicity calls me back. Once you understand Slackware, no other distro will ever intimidate you.

I recommend Garrell's Intro to Linux as a good all-around reference. You can find it in several formats about a quarter way down this page.

Linux is not Windows. Do not expect it to act like Windows.

It's not harder, just different.

Last time I strayed (nobody's perfect ;)), openSUSE's elegant mess quickly drove me back to Slackware.

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement.

I admit that my first attempt with slackware – version 10 – was so traumatic (that plus hell with open office in Windows which simply DID NOT WORK) put me off open sources completely for a long time. But version 14 now allows a foothold and that’s enough for me. Then I can get started. And,to be fair, Windows 1 scared EVERYBODY and only one single third party app was ever written for the OS. So it takes a few versions for any OS to be really usable.

For the record, I am aware of the differences between Linux and Windows. Proof:

Linux is a clone of Unix which was written in 1969 at Bell labs with the purpose of being a multitasking, multi user *server* operating system. It was written by programmers for programmers and NOT the average user (though it was renowned at the time for being easy to use on the basis everything was plain text files which makes me wonder what the hell was being used prior to 1969???!) It led to the programmers favourite language – C around which the syntax of Unix is largely derived – Kinda. Unix was designed with power, extendibility, scalability and security but NOT ease of use!!! If you read the Unix philosophy it is all about making programs easy to develop and maintain. Nothing about the user experience, unless you realise when they talk about user they mean server administrator or programmer. I have described Unix as a C development environment and I wasn’t far wrong. (But, then, CP/M was an 8080 assembler development environment so what the heck?)

Windows was originally designed… to kill off DR’s GEM. No, really. Windows 1 existed only to prevent developers writing apps for GEM. That’s partly why it was unusable when it came out. Gates originally wasn’t interested in Windows much – all the focus was on OS/2. Windows 3.0 was actually a developers ‘secret plan’ which they built in their spare time. (It’s why I like the OS. I feels like a prototype which is rather fun.) But Gates was smart enough to see the potential, sold 15 millions copies of the secret project and then shafted IBM. Oh, and Digital Research with the infamous “incompatible DOS” error which seemed to be almost spite on Microsoft’s part. Kindall gave up after that and became a bitter angry man leading to his death in a bar fight. I am not a fan of Microsoft the company.

But Windows NT, which is the kernel for Windows 7 and 8, was actually lifted from OS/2. Not everyone knows that. Windows 3.51 was almost a rebadging of OS/2, the source of which Microsoft owned. So modern Windows *was* designed as a multi-user, secure OS. But since OS/2 was written for the non-multi-tasking 286 there were technical problems. Also OS/2 was partly sabotaged by Microsoft who wanted to keep selling DOS apps, and Windows NT had to run insecure apps written for single user, insecure DOS and old kernel Windows apps. And Microsoft did not really know what they were doing which is why they had to hire a mass of Unix programmers to help sort out the mess! Windows was also designed to be easy to use. So Windows had to be single user friendly, a desktop OS, plus a server OS, multi-tasking whilst being able to run apps written for a non-multi tasking, single user operating system, plus being easy to use whilst being able to run web apps as a server.
No, really… So Windows has had a mass of conflicting requirements plus having to deal with S/W hacked to run under non-rentrant DOS. Does Windows run slow with a huge OS footprint? You betcha!

Conversely Linux was designed for SERVERS! Period. It was a server OS. One reason I like Slackware is that it does not hide that and comes with all the compilers, tools and CLI stuff that Unix should come with and makes you feel you are running a server OS and can take control accordingly which is what Linux is really all about (micro distros not withstanding.) Yes, I know it's scalable but it helps to understan an operating systems intentions and roots. Before I dived into Linux,I read up on it's background and philosophy online.

Windows doesn’t know what it is as it has such a checkered history – a situation now made worse with Metro. Also, Windows is not scalable so it’s a mess. However, it was, until recently, a very usable mess! And most users, myself included, don’t care if the OS is a technical mess as long as it runs apps. However, Microsoft are deliberately (out of resale necessity) exterminating legacy app support and I am not having that. Actually, that’s one major reason why I’ve gone slackware. Putting side the need to learn the CLI and not just run KDE of Cinnamon or whatever, Slackware is the only version of Linux that allows me to download sources, apps, store then on HD and install them offline – thereby allowing me to KEEP S/W I am comfortable with. Downloading always means getting the latest version the supplier pumps to me and I don’t know what I am getting – or even how. Not for me. I would still be running Office 97 if only Microsoft would let me… but they won’t anymore. Hell, I LIKED word for Windows 1! Actually, I enjoyed seeiing people's eye bulge when I showed them Word for Windows running on an 8MHz 8086!

Anyway, prove that I do know the difference between Windows and Linux. It helps to think of Linux as a server OS. Proof: A server needs storage. Period. So, in Unix/Linux when you add a drive – any drive, it’s supposed to add to the storage transparently. The OS doesn’t ‘know’ there is a new hard drive. It just knows it’s got 100GB more storage which is PERFECT for a server OS and great for running Web apps. Thus, no diskdrives in Linux, just a file system. It’s different with a user OS who wants to navigate to their flash drive and doesn't care about roots and permissions. (And given DOS and even Windows were originally designed to run on floppies a Unix approach was never going to work anyway.)

So I do get it! What I don’t understand, yet, is how. But I do know what and why! I could tell many other tales but I’ll stop there.

Oh, and a last side... Windows was written to kill GEM not the AppleOS. Microsoft got around the AppleOS by writing killer apps for DOS while Apple kept tinkering with their lovely OS which didn’t do anything. I don’t know what happened between Kindall and Gates but seemed to be personal. DR gave up developing GEM the minute Microsoft announced Windows. They know from the CP/DOS battle that they could not compete. They didn’t have the money. No-one could believe the turkey that then came out. But the idea was just to stop developers writing for the new OS on the PC. The original plan to kill off Apple was OS/2. But Gates couldn't face a single user, PC competitor, hence Windows. So Gates didn’t care that Windows 1 was useless. It served it’s purpose. I killed GEM. Viscious. Torvalds was smart to know that the only way to compete with Microsoft back then was not to compete commercially, merely technically. Smart move.

Anyway, I’m am NOT Linux savvy. I am not a programmer (though I have written programs) but I do know a bit about Operating systems, their principles and… er, history.

Thanks for the reading material. I have downloaded. I’ll read, play and bust the OS a few times again! :-) Thanks again! I am making progress and slackware does not intimidate me. Confuse me, yes, but not intimdate!

Netnovice,
Interesting read of GEM etc. I didn't know all that went on, but I knew DR just left the scene rather quickly. I used and liked
the old CP/M OS best in those days. It was fast booting, worked well, and I've still got two Z80 Machines that boot & run CP/M.

Do you know that you can use DOSBox to run a Z80 Emulator and run CP/M software on Linux? I've posted some
Emulator HOWTO's on the Slackware DOCS site:
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:start
http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:emulators:start

I've got a couple of txt files (attached) with various Command Line Interface commands, one from Debian and one from Vector Linux.
You may want to read through them to get an idea of all things that are possible via CLI. If there is a list for Slackware,
I haven't run across it yet. Maybe some other Slackware user will post it, or the URL, if one is available.

The more you use the CLI, the more you will love it.

Thanks.

Larry

Many thanks again!
 

Mr Larry, thank you for the info.

While I have used CP/M I’m not a great fan but I *am* interested in running up DOSBox to run Windows 3.0! I liked 3.0 as I say. (Though I want to try the ‘Janet’ beta of 3.1 if I can…) It’s a project I want to run when I have sorted out a virtual machine for installation test and demos. Not there yet. A touch of dependency hell plus, well, my recent user problems. (The netbook is staying OFFLINE!!! hat, unfortunately leads to dependency issues. But great for learning. Only by solving problems do you really learn.)

Anyway – files downloaded and thank you again. I’m not afraid of the CLI but I must protest at certain design decisions. Terse commands I can understand. cp for copy is understandable but since when did ‘find’ become grep? How can you have a command called finger? And then, why after deciding upon terse commands does Unix/Linux then require 49 switches to do anything and six lines of near C code to specify parameters? In terms of the instruction set, it seems to me like the CLI is the worst of all worlds. That’s not Torvald’s fault though, it’s Bells. Programmers writing for programmers… I’m particularly impressed with the ‘man’ command in which programmers show their eloquence in Scandinavian. If just to prove there is another way… VMS uses the DOS syntax to good effect. *Only* Unix has a command set resembling C!!

But, when you have had to build an entire flat file DB from scratch while substituting drives in DOS, I dare say I’ll get there – especially with two Larrys on the case!