switching to slackware?
 

I've been using combinations of Redhat/Fedora and Mandrake for several months now and I want to see if I am ready to make the jump to slack. There are just a few questions I wanted to ask before I decide to try it out.
1. How hard is the slackware install? I've only installed Mandrake and Anaconda based distros before, so as you can imagine I don't have experience installing harder distros (other than a disasterous encounter with the Debian installer)
2. How hard is it to find packaged software to install/update software? I've only had rpm based distros in the past and rpms were always easy to find (especially with Apt4rpm). How hard is it to find software in a slackware *.tgz? Also does Slackware come with a utility for package update akin to Fedora's up2date or Mandrake's urmpi/rpmdrake?

Re: switching to slackware?
 

I find it easy. Mileage varies :}

Lots of stuff comes pre-packages with slack.
Other stuff can be found on http://www.linuxpackages.net
It doesn't have comparable tools by default, but there's
at least two projects out there that will achieve this
swaret, and I forgot the others name (I don't use either).


Cheers,
Tink

The second is slapt-get.

Go for it! I recently moved after a couple of years of Mandrake and found it OK. Once you have the hang of reading the help stuff and editing config files you may find, as I have, that it is actually easier in many ways than Mandrake - if only because you very soon get a much clearer understanding of what is going on. I found PKGsummon for updating and so far it seems very good - simple, clear GUI that tells you exactly which packages in all the sections have newer versions available. I also use checkinstall to convert ordinary tarballs to Slack packages after compiling. They are then installed into the database as Slackware packages. I find the Slackware package setup easier than rpms. I have not regretted making the leap for one moment. It boots up much quicker and seems generally to be altogether simpler and faster. Don't hesitate.

To be honest with you, I was a windows user for so long that the first linux distro i tried was redhat 7.2. things were super easy, and i saw friends using slack and i was intrigued with its filesystem structure, just seemed to make much more sense.

as for the install, its much different then redhat, it isnt as graphical. the first thing to do once your at the # prompt is run cfdisk. its easier to partition your hard drive with it than fdisk in my opinion. make sure when your done creating necessary partitions to "write" it. then simply run setup and follow the instructions. the rest is a breeze, and trust me you will never go back to redhat/fedora after you use slack.

thanks
 

Ah, thanks for the input everyone, I think I will try an install of Slackware 9.1 when I get an hour or two of free time. I still have my Fedora install on this laptop, do I need to wipe that and combine the linux partitions into one unallocated partition again? or will the Slack install recognize the root/boot/swap partitions and just use them? Also I've been having my linux distros write bootloaders to the MBR(bad things seem to happen if I try to have it go from /boot) does this make a difference? Thanks!

Try it! I'm a newbie since late december 03 and I found it not significantly harder than mandrake. The hardest part for me was partitioning for dual boot. - Joel

"I still have my Fedora install on this laptop, do I need to wipe that and combine the linux partitions into one unallocated partition again? or will the Slack install recognize the root/boot/swap partitions and just use them?"

I'm still a bit green when it comes to this stuff, but I'm pretty sure you can use the existing swarp partition, and I'm pretty sure Slackware will need to make it's own root partition. If you dn't have enough unpartiotioned space you'll need to resize or redo your existing partions. Don't know about /boot.

"Also I've been having my linux distros write bootloaders to the MBR(bad things seem to happen if I try to have it go from /boot) does this make a difference?"

I do the same thing. During your Slackware install you can choose whether or not to install LILO, overwriting your current bootloader.

If you are keeping your current Fedora installation you can opt to keep your current bootloader and can add an entry for Slackware to that bootloader from Fedora. Or you install a fresh copy of LILO and boot into Slackware, and can then add an entry for Fedora.

During your Slackware install you also have the option of doing an 'expert' LILO installation, and you can add an entry for Fedora then if you know what to do.

Actually what I meant was that my intention was to do away with Fedora and install Slackware onto the partitions that it currently takes up. Will the slackware install format the partitions and install? or do I do that beforehand?

it sure can, but make sure you back up all your stuff that you want to keep. basically slack only needs 2 partitions ie / and swap. If you have /usr or /home and you wanna keep them, u should be careful during the installation not to format them.

Well, I decided to take the jump and installed Slackware 9.1 tonight, and overall I am happy, the installation went quite smoothly. I am just having a few problems though. my windows partition is on /dev/hda1 and during installation it gave me the option to mount it automatically, so I did that, choosing to mount it to /mnt/windows. However, now when I log on as the default user and try to navigate to the /mnt/windows directory, I get an access denied error. I know I probably should be modifying something in fstab, but I'm not sure what, the column with the options just says 'default'. Also another concern is in Mozilla. I get no sound even when viewing things that should have sound (ie flash animation) however other program sounds, such as in Gaim, still work normally. Is there a fix for this?/is this a common bug?

change the /etc/fstab from default to auto,users,rw 0 0

You are on vfat or ntfs? I heard horror stories of wiping out ntfs when you access from linux, so beware. Please check with others or seach for more information on this topic.

do a chmod a+rw /dev/dsp and you should have sound from the flash sites.

I am a noob, so pls search for more information before you proceed. cheers.

RE:switching to Slackware
 

I have decided to switch also. I have ordered a subscription starting with 9.1, I am switching from SuSE and have also tried Debian (briefly) and Knoppix - which I used to install debian with.

People seem to be saying that if I learn Slackware, I will be closer to learning Linux and that's what I want to do. As it is I spend half SuSE time in the shell, so I am not expecting a big shock and I am happy with either text or GUI install, so I anticipate problems only on my Omnibook XE3. Desktop with SCSI should be no problems.

I had similar problems after changing from Redhat to Slack. Turned out that user id's are assigned differnetly in Slack (if I remember correctly, in RH starts at 500, in Skack at 1000?). Might be worth to check this thread.

Cheers, Leon.