Ok, I'm brand spanking new to Slackware. I've got some pesky install issues left that I really could use some help with. I'm counting on the great Slack community to get me underway!

Background: I installed Slack 10.0 only keeping a /data, /win_xp (ntfs), and /backup partition intact. The rest were formatted ext3 and checked during install. I did almost a "full" install but removed alot of GNOME and added all KDE except KOffice and KDEI. The install showed no errors. Next, I wanted to update to 2.6.7 kernel from kernel.org...for whatever reason my mouse and keyboard are both USB and even in Mandy to get both working and the mouse wheel 2.6.7 handles it when 2.6.3-7mdk didn't so I'm more comfortable using 2.6.7. In 2.6.7 I have mouse with when and usb keyboard working great with a tweaked xorg.conf. So after booting 2.4.6 and setting up run level 4 in inittab and making sure kdm was listed before gdm in /etc/rc.d/rc.4, I copied the 2.4.26 .config to /usr/src/linux-2.6.7/.config and used menuconfig hoping to get a good start. This is actually the second time through the process with similar results. The first time I used the default 2.6.7 .config from kernel.org...actually I think perhaps make mrproper may generate a template config...not sure here but on the second pass I started with the 2.4.26 .config. Now, for the options I did not remove any but added some i2c based on lm_sensors suggestions and chose a k7 target. In the sound area I pretty much modularized everything. Please keep in mind that I've used Mandrake for the past 10 months as my conversion to linux so I still require a bit of hand-holding :-) This is where the story begins...

My apologies...I don't have access to my system as I write this so I didn't list file contents.

1) The next couple of issues have some similarity. I like to use KDE device icons to click to mount. I'm trying to learn a more pure linux so even in Mandy I avoided supermount and the like. I can mount my CDRW/DVD device fine from Konsole and the icon as a regular user. My floppy only as root when I tested it in the console. How can I make all users be able to mount the floppy? I've tried various fstab entries without much luck. /dev does have a floppy entry. I've toyed with the /etc/group floppy group too...no luck.

/mnt/floppy /dev/floppy auto user 0 0 <- is this ok?

2) I have a Zip 100 on the parallel port. I did a dmeg | less looking for sda* (specifically sda4 which is what is was in Mandy)...there is no mention of it. I don't see anything resembling a zip drive anywhere is dmesg | less. I have added an entry to fstab based on a previous mandrake fstab and I can get a zip icon to appear but I can't mount in kde or the console. /dev has no sda4 so I tried something like: mknod -m 666 /dev/sda4 b 8 0. I also added a /mnt/zip. I tried again to copy my Mandy fstab entry for the zip but clearly if /dev/sda4 is not there this won't help. Am I looking for the correct device...I read that /sr0 (I think) might be the one but I can't find that in /dev or dmesg | less either.

3) I also am having problems seeing /win_xp which I setup during install. What's a good fstab entry for this? Probably only root should be able to see it read only?

4) When I first booted the 2.4.26 kernel I looked in /dev and there were ttySx listings. Ever since I went to 2.6.7 there are no COM port entries that I can tell and KPPP complains that /dev/ttyS0 is not there. So I did...mknod -m 666 /dev/ttyS0 c 4 64....and 4 65 for ttyS1. KPPP still can't talk to the modem. I'm not certain what to look for here at all. The first pass on 2.6.7 aforementioned I got a 'CONNECT' from my isp but couldn't ping myisp.com (I didn't try an IP) so I think I need something like: search myisp.com in /etc/resolv.conf. I also added search 23.24.25.26 after calling my isp to get a primary and secondary DNS IP (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx format). But now, ttyS0 seems to be gone and ignored when I add it back manually. The terminal in KPPP doesn't even return OK when I type ATZ any longer. I'm not certain at all where to begin to look to fix this. Kernel compilation option? Missing kernel module or service/daemon? I also tried pppsetup and executing the ppp-go script...no luck...this seems fundamental that the COM ports are not being recognized....but why?

6) Sound. I can play audio CDs just fine. I did the alsaconf process and used KMixer to tweak. Still no sound even when enabled in KDE. I've tried auto-detect, ALSA, OSS, etc. The KDE system bell dialog also fails. In Mandy I used snd-via82xx and that does appear when I lsmod as I modprobed it. Not sure where to go from here on this one...please advise.

I should also point out that I've tried modifying the /etc/group for the mount and sound issues by adding my username to the cdrom, floppy, sound groups. I thought this might be why I didn't get access to some of the mount points above and no sound either. My system is a Biostar IDEQ 200V; thus, the sound is CMedia on board.

All in all, I've got alot of the major things working but sure could use some help with these stragglers.

Thanks,
Rich

Can't help you with everything but some things could be usefull
1) Be sure you have rights on the mount point (/mnt/floppy) . My fstab entry looks like this:
2) Why /dev/sda4 ? Why not /dev/sda1 or /dev/sdb1 ? /dev/sr0 is SCSI cdrom (or emulation of SCSI cdrom)
3) IS NTFS support loaded ? Look at the man mount command which provides lots of info of how to setup a NTFS partition in your fstab
4) Could be several things:
- hotplug did blacklist support for this device
- /dev/modem points to the wrong device
- your kernel lacks support for this device
Udev (if you use that on 2.6) detects together with hotplug what supported devices are available in your machine and created dynamicly devices in /dev. But if your kernel lacks support it won't be detected and there will be no device for it in /dev.
5) :?
6) Can'thelp you there but there are a lot of threads here about sound configuration using alsa.

Success

#2. MDK does a lot of things for the user. There are two drivers for the pp-zip depending on how old yours is. One is imm and the other is... well I can't remember, but I'll give you a link for pp-zip.
http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/ZIP-Drive-4.html#ss4.1
Just insmod imm
I fought this years ago, and yes it is sda4. As I remember, the zip company uses partition 4 for their zip disk.

Same problem with the BSDs. Most want to use partition 1.

ie if you don't have ntfs.
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win vfat auto,users,umask=000 1 0

Only other thing I can say is unless you have a lot of time and really need 2.6, stay with kernel 2.4/modules from Slackware. Upgrades are easy using upgradepkg.

Thanks for the help. Some of these issues are solved (the ntfs partition, floppy mount) others still exists but I'm going to break them out into separate threads.

the only way i have fixed alsa is to remove all the alsa packages: removepkg alsa*. Then reinstall them. Now follow these directions from www.insyte.uni.cc :

Alsa is the sound manager used by linux.

As superuser

alsaconf

As a normal user type

alsamixer

then

su

alsactl store

to store your alsa settings

Later on if ever you have problems with alsa or oss, try running aumix then save your settings. It might solve your problem.


This should work.

Ok, new to slack and have yet to use it's pacakge manager. I've done the:

alsaconf
alsamixer (turn all up)
alsactl store

So I should do:

removepkg alsa*.
<??? REINSTALL ALSA...Is this installpkg alsa*.tgz as su ...Can I use a wildcard here???>
alsaconf
alsamixer (turn all up)
alsactl store
aumix (Maybe...if needed)

Also, do I need to modprobe -r snd* first?

Thanks,
Rich

i Have not had to modprobe in the past. you cannot use installpkg alsa* however unless you have the alsa package in the directory you are in at the time.

Go to http://slackware.com/pb/searchfile.p...ring=alsa&w=on

The top four are the ones that will be removed. Then use the install cds, the web or swaret, if you have it installed and configured. then run the commands above.