New to Slackware and new to linux. Heard from several people that Slack is the most stable/powerful Linux distro. So I go to the slackware website, into the ftp folder and see a ton of folders. I want the latest (with the assumption it is the best), and I am new to this whole thing so I want the easiest install I can get. The readme in the slackware-9.0 iso directory says I need a bunch of extra stuff that isn't on the isos. The other folder seems good, and I am sure going through a manual install would be educational so leaning toward that one. But then I see Slackware - current. Is this a beta? is it fully functional and stable? I looked all over the slack site, but couldn't find any recommendations for this sort of thing

Slackware current is just a never (officially) released distro of Slack, which is *uptodate*.

Bout installing, download an iso file (at http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=17 or somewhere else - searh for mirrors: http://www.slackware.com/getslack/) burn it on your cd, pop it in and there you go ...

You need extra things to boot if you don't have a bootable cd ...

Yeah, depending on your current OS you can use rawrite or rawritexp (both programs can be found on the mirrors) to create a bootdisk. Just use the bare.i one to begin with, it seems to work fine in most instances. Then get the rootdisks install.1 and install.2, and use those as prompted (the installation will tell you when to put them in). After that it's Slackware 9.0 ISO image CD time, which the installation should pick up on automatically.

Now I know it's more than possible your burned CD will simply be bootable, and you won't need any of these boot and root disks, but I would suggest making them anyway, so you can continue with your installation even if you end up *not* being able to boot from the burned CD.

Some links:

ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.sla...9.0/bootdisks/ for the rawrite programs and bare.i

ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.sla...9.0/rootdisks/ for install.1 and install.2 (also has the rawriteprograms)

ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.sla...kware-9.0-iso/ for the ISO image to be burned on your CD.



Good luck!

-zsejk

oh, and use linuxiso.org to get the slack iso, I used the one from the slackware website and I was missing kdelibs. Here's a link, http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=17

Hope that helped,
Cam

For 2 quid - £2 - you could buy it from:

www.yourlinux.com

Thanks for all the help. Hopefully I will be running it in no time.