Hello,

I would like an distribution based on Slackware that would run fine on this configuration and with KDE 3.5.x:

CPU AMD Sempron 2400+ (1.67)
512 MB DDR
80 GB + 20 GB hard drives
Nvidia FX 5500 256 MB

Hope this is enough info!


btw, I tried Slackware 12 but installation just can't start.
I changed in BIOS so my DVD drive is first boot device, but still same problem. It just runs to GRUB menu and thats it.
I really wanted Slackware but it seems that there is no way to start installation.
I checked the ISO's md5sum and everything seems ok.
Floppy is not an solution because I don't have it.
I would be really appreciated if someone has an solution to my Slackware problem.

There many other ways to install Slackware. By NFS, use a USB stick, or mount dvd from it!

If the Slackware DVD doesn't boot but another OS one does, it's probably the DVD you used or you burned it wrong.

As SlackwareWolf says, if you are getting a grub menu, then you are not booting from the Slackware dvd.
How did you burn the dvd?
Sorry if I am stating the obvious, but you do realise that the iso is an image, which you must burn onto a dvd, you can't boot directly from the iso file you downloaded...

tobyl

Slackware doesn't use GRUB to load. Can you boot other Linux distos (CDs, DVDs)? If so then there may be something wrong with your Slackware DVD or perhaps a hardware incompatibility with your computer.
Can you boot the Slackware DVD on another computer? Maybe a bad burn.

I had no problem running the install DVD on my system.

CPU AMD Athlon 2100+
1 GB DDR
120 GB (windows) + 13 GB (slack12) hard drives
Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 128 MB

the DVD boots using isolinux, you shouldn't be seeing a grub menu at all, sounds like a bad burn to me. you could also try following the info in the slackware-12/usb-and-pxe-installers/README_USB.TXT on one of the slackware mirrors.

Wish you the best of luck
nekkutta

Wow my post must have been popular being repeated 3 times (Kidding in case one of you has no sense of humor)..

Anyway, to get to the point now that I'm back from the ER and can move my neck / type better:

If you have another machine with Linux on it, really, load KDE, pop the thing in the drive, and when it pops up asking what you wanna do, just click on cancel, load up Konqueror, find the ISO image, double click on it, K3B by default should pop up and check the MD5 sum for you, and then you can click on burn, and you'll have a bootable disk.

That's how I do it.

Also, with the number of different apps for burning CDs and DVDs, there is usually a good chance you just didn't do it properly. I mean seriously there are way to many different types of burning software and they all seem to want to tell you how to burn stuff.

If you like you said set the drive to be first boot, or at least set it before the HD in the BIOS, then you popped it in and it didn't boot, flat out, the reason is almost 100% sure to be the disk itself being burned wrong or it was a dud disk.

I've seriously installed Linux so many times I can usually walk someone step by step through it from memory just because I've done it so many times on different machines.

That's why in the tutorials section my Slackware one was posted heh.

Anyway, as I said before, it's probably the disk being burned the wrong way. Depending on what software you used to burn it, you'll want to look at the options.

Just selecting "Data disk" isn't going to do it. You need to burn it as an image. The easiest way I've ever seen is with K3b as I pointed out, so just try burning it again and making sure this time you burn it as an ISO image, or if possible, the K3B from KDE way.

If for some reason it's not working, you can always test it out to see if that one boots a different computer. If it did actually manage to boot another machine into the installer than, that's weird.

Also, you can always just buy then CD set from here:

http://store.slackware.com

Now some people really don't like ordering online and I don't blame them. I'm into computer security and people have a reason to not want to.

However, I've bought from here, and not only does my order always show up exactly when it should, it's also Pat's ONLY source of income. So it's also nice to help out in that way.

I've bought the 10.0 4 CD set, the 10.2 CD set, my Wife today found Her 7.0 CD set, and earlier I had my Slackware tee shirt on, and I'm using my Slackware mouse pad on a machine sitting next to a box with my Slackware Case Plates on them. They're very nice by the way.

Anyway, in short, the disk is crap, re-burn it, make sure to burn as an image,, and try again as I highly doubt the problem is Slackware not working on your hardware.

I have....almost 10 machines here... Wait *re-counting* 2 laptops, 8 Desktops... and none have a problem booting up Slackware.

HOWEVER... I do have ONE machine, that for some reason, is VERY picky about burned disks. It wouldn't boot from a CD I burned, yet the other machines booted fine from it. I just installed from paid for disks on that one and it was fine...

And in case someone wondered about the number of machines, well, I have a bunch and so does my Wife and I also fix computers for a living.

Probably problem is with DVD i burned because it doesnt boot on my other PC.

Dual Core 2x 2.13 intel
2 GB DDR 2
200 GB + 80 GB + 20 GB
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX.

btw I will try to burn it again with way that SlackwareWolf explained (K3B) and I will post result here did it failed or not.
Probably your correct about bad DVD, if not maybe installation over USB helps.

I agree with SlackwareWolf. I also use k3b, it never fails me when I burn CDs. k3b will auto-detect your file type (iso) and burn your install disk as an image. After k3b starts up it will automatically calculate your md5 checksum for you. You should check to ensure that it is correct. Turn your burn rate down a bit and you should be good to go.

I wonder if this is related to the boot load size issue.

Ummmmm what?

The guy said he burned the installation ISO to a DVD and it isn't booting his machine, nor did it boot another machine. The most obvious solution is to try burning it again as it seems to burn itself failed.

By the way to original poster:

If you put the DVD in your drive while you have Linux or Windows or whatever OS you have installed already on the machine, if it pops up to let you explore the DVD or view the contents of it, if you see the Slackware.ISO file, for sure it was NOT burned properly.

If you pop it into a drive and view the contents of it, you should see a bunch of files, not the .iso file.

Just a heads up in case you need a hint later on

Basically when you burn an ISO file as image, it takes what's inside the ISO and puts THAT onto the disk, so one that is properly burned will show a list of files.

If you put it in and see "Slackware12.0Something-something-version.iso"

Then for sure the burn process was not done the proper way.

This way if you do ever have this issue again, you can at least verify one of the possible solutions. I'll bet if you put the DVD in a drive and used Windows Explorer or a file manager in Linux to look at what's on it you'll most likely see the ISO file by itself.

Of course that won't boot a machine up snice no bootable datais on there, however you don't have to throw it out either. If you ever lose the installation disk and deleted the ISO you downloaded you can just grab it off that DVD.

I've done this before when I first got into Linux and BSD:

I burned the thing to disk, and when I tried to boot from it, the damn thing wouldn't load for the life of me.

When I put the CD into the drive with Windows running, I opened explorer, and went to the drive it was in, and sure enough, I saw the ISO file on it.

IT's not exactly a rare mistake to make so don't feel bad at all.

As I've said before; with the number of different software titles that burn CDs for you, it really is a pain to try and keep up with how they each burn an image file to disk and gets outright annoying at times.

Anyway, good luck on the next burn, and remember with the K3B one all you need to do is open it and it'll load K3B for you and after it's done with the MD5 sum, go ahead and start the burn process.

I know I already said this before in my other post but not everyone reads every word of every post so just in case it was missed, that works very well for me.

Good luck, and if you need help installing Slackware, go to almost the top of this page where you see "Home" "forums" and HCL and a few others, and click on "Tutorials" and from there software or applications I think it says.... Anyway, from there you can read my Slackware installation tutorial.

I went step by step through the whole thing so it should be at least useful if you're new to Slackware.

Have fun!

-SlackWareWolf

Yep, the problem was with burned ISO. I burned it again and it works now.
Installation went fine, no problems at all just one issuse: no sound.
btw, Does anyone nows where can i find good repository for slapt-get.?
Maybe a wierd question but its easier to work with repository.

For sound, I would run 'alsaconf' and then 'alsactl store' both as root. That should properly detect, setup, and unmute the soundcard and volume levels.

I don't use slapt-get so I have no idea how it uses repos, but slacky.eu is pretty good I suppose. There's always linuxpackages.net, but they don't include their SlackBuild scripts so you never really know what is in their packages (you could always check manually).

Um, don't make sound harder than it needs to be:

As root run alsamixer

Un-Mute PCM, PCM2 if you have that, and master, and Aux. Turn them up, and others you want turned up, then hit Esc and type alsactl store.

That's all I ever do. Works every time.