Hey guys, ive used redhat9, fedora core 1, and fedora core 2.
however it seems fedora is becoming a little bloated...

and i would like to try a different distro.

now, im not exactly a newbie....
ive compiled many kernels,
ive tweaked kernel source code to get winmodem drivers to compile
im comfortable compiling, partitoning, fiddling the MBR's

but after noticing slackware 10 stable is now released, i had a look, and im completely confused by the install process.

the concept of slack packgaes...
A meaning this
X meaning that
XD meansing X development stuff, blah blah blahj

what about dependency's ?
i will have to removve my current OS to make space for slack !
what happenss if i discover im missing a dependency ?

are there any slackware for redhat type guides ?
and detailed help ?

I just switched from FC2 to slack last week and updated to current and installed dropline gnome... install was not hard at all... the installer guides you through the different package series...

the thing is... i need an OS to download the packages.

for example, lets say i download the X and KDE package groups and install them,,,, but i dont have the 'a' package ? surely KDE and X will depend on 'a' ? what happens then ? am i left with an un-usable system, forced to re-installed fedora ?

or will the install floppy have my network card drivers ? and download missing dependency's via FTP ?

Well..it would be best to download the iso's and burn them, then walk through the install. This way you wouldn't miss any packages. A full Slackware install is muchless 'bloated' then a minimal Redhat install. Once you have Slack up and running, you can always just removepkg what you don't want/need .

yeah i thought of that...
its easyer.. but does waste loads of download time.

however i cannot find any Slackware 10 iso's
and bit torrent is painfully slow ! i get about 2kbps on bit torrent, 80kbps on FTP.

edit: and why the H3l does "wget -r ftp://ftp.slackwarebrasil.org/pub/li...0/slackware/a/" exit with a no such directory error !!!! ive pointed my web probser at that url, and it is there !!!!

agh ! i cant download the packages, there are no iso's
this is annoying already !

http://alphageek.dyndns.org/linux/sl...-mirrors.shtml
that's the mirror list.
Selecting package by package isn't that hard if you read their descriptions, also guessing what packages names means is not hard ie: A = apps, XA = X apss, X = X server, WM, etc D = devel, etc.

Read the guides that are sticky on this forum, also the subforum Slackware - Installation, i think that will give you some introduction to Slack.
Good luck!

soo, whats this rsync protocol ? and how does one go about getting a resumeable download through it ?

edit:
read the man file IDIOT !

okay.... so

rsync -u --partial --progress rsync://URL ./ seems to be dowrking

qwijibow i've never used rsync but i guess "the man" told you how to use it
In the mirror list there are iso files from ftp or http too if u want them (you have to scroll a little bit down)

yeah, but all HTTP connections time out.
FTP connetions report anonymous as incorrect login,
and RSYNC is at maximum connections...

seems i can only download in the middle of the night
oh well...hopefully slackware will be worth it.

just buy the isos...try ebay...it worked for me. I made the switch from FC2 to Slack and I love it.

qwigibow - you may find this page of the Slackware book to be helpful in defining the different sets of packages. Although I always do a full install, my understanding (which could be wrong) is that each series is independent, and if you choose to not install a particular series, that will not cause dependency issues elsewhere. In other words, they're modular and self-contained. The "A" series is mandatory; I believe the others are optional (although if you only installed A then your system would be very bare bones)

It isn't necessary for you to remove your existing OS in order to install Slack, but naturally you do need at least some available disk space into which it would be installed.

As for obtaining Slack 10, given its popularity and the fact that it was just released the other day, it's to be expected that there will be a huge crush of people who are all trying to get it immediately. In about a week or two hopefully the crowds will have subsided, and downloading the ISO's could be done without difficulty. My recommendation would be to download the ISO's, however, I suppose it would be possible to load the individual series that you wanted first to your hard drive, then kick off the installation process using the boot and 2 root floppies. At the point where you need to select the source media, you'd pick the hard drive option rather than the CD. I haven't tried that myself, but it is an option.

In any event, good luck with the project. I think that you will find Slack to be an excellent distro -- J.W.

This is just a shameless plug but...since downloading the Slackware 10 ISO's via Bittorrent I have uploaded 5 gigs from each torrent. I left the torrents going and are now a consistent 200K each.

Of course it helps that I have a Fiber connection at home :-)

Oh yea, I started my torrents from the slackware website. Just my way of giving back and helping out....

Enjoy Slack!

Slappy

There is a tool called "swaret" that resolves any dependencies on your system. it's a bit similar to apt-get. You can also use some redhat 9 and Fedora Core rpms on a Slack system by converting them to Slack packages using rpm2tgz. www.linuxpackages.net is a good site for getting Slackware packages and understanding how the Slack packaging system works.

qwijibow,

as a fellow convert from fedora/redhat, i feel compelled to try to point you the way i went. not sure if you have gotten the iso's and installed yet, but here is a fast mirror that i found, and here is a nice link for installation instructions that are step by step with screenshots. not that the install process is really difficult, but it was nice to have along.

hope this helps.

i organised a bit> check ftp.linux.ee/pub/slackware/slackware-10.0-iso