Well I started all over again. Wiped all the partitions, installed slackware, ran through xorgsetup, eventually had to try xorgconfig. Followed Slackass's instruction, and am now booting to slackware.

Resolution looks like crap. Right now I do not care. I will work on it more later.

I will now attempt to install Debian and see what happens when I boot.

My desktop was acting up.

And I still can not agree with T3slider. This is in no way an easy installation compared to other distros I have installed. I am only a newbie, but have installed 4 or 5 different distros, dual and multi-booted, and have never had to put any where near this kind of effort out (and I am still not there yet).
That said, I am not saying it isn't worth it. I don't know yet if I will like slackware or not, only that it is more work to get up and running.

I'll post again later today with results after Debian instalation.

Thanks for all the help.

I'm getting the sense that you haven't read as much as I did when I attempted my first Slackware install. I stand by my opinion that it is an easy installation -- however, you do need to know what you're doing. And you can only gain that through reading (or a long, annoying trial and error process that you appear to be following instead of reading). As far as I can tell, you have never even attempted the LILO installation to the superblock which is by far the easiest method of getting Slackware to boot without killing Debian's booting process. I've suggested it several times and you haven't tried it. I realise that you just want to use GRUB to boot everything; THAT is where all of your troubles lie, not in the Slackware install process. Slackware uses LILO by default and includes GRUB in extra/. As far as I can tell, the ONLY stumbling block you've had is getting Slackware to boot -- and to do it, you're using another distro's tools. Tell me how this is the fault of the Slackware installer. You could always use Slackware's LILO/GRUB to easily boot, but you don't want to -- and you're blaming Slackware's installer?? No matter what, you would have to edit Debian's menu.lst to get Slackware to boot since you're not using Slackware's LILO/GRUB. This is a manual step that you have chosen to do. Again -- how is this Slackware's fault?

[edit]I sounded kind of rude there, and didn't mean to. I'm a pretty sarcastic person with a dry sense of humour -- which is usually misrepresented in text. Try not to be offended by my post; that was not my intent.[/edit]

Debian will pick up the Slack installation and add it to grub flawlessly, However:
It "may" make 4 menu.lst entry's for Slack.
If you used the default kernel during the slack installation then you will select the 4th down on the list.
Never the less, try all 4 of them till you hit the one that boots.
Now if you later change out the Slack kernel, you will have to also change the menu.list entry for Slack to get it to boot the correct kernel because the Debian entry is kernel specific.

Also:
Get the Super Grub Disk and learn to use it.
http://www.supergrubdisk.org

Slack "IS" the easiest and the "FASTEST" distro to install and setup "after" you get used to it. However you must first "learn" it. After you do, you'll have the best distro on the planet and you'll have little tolerance for many of the other distros with there various quirks.
Slack rarely brakes unless the user brakes it.

That sounds familiar; the 'authority' error may be because you are not root, though someone here said startx as root. I have never been able to run X as anything but root on any POSIX OS, though I may have setup Redhat and Suse in a lab, and they automatically ran X and let you login, but Slackware does not (probably not even if you add startx to rc.local or something.) Once I even used chmod and chgrp recursively on all X/KDE files to change to a user and t group 'users,' but X still only worked for root, though it started with a screen that remained blank for other users. So, let whoever says 'you should run X non-root' prove it is possible by explaining how!

Mhg, if you think 'easy' (automatic complete) Slackware installation, or even installation choosing packages, is harder than Debian's one, which does/did installation choosing every individual software piece and makes you resolve their conflicts, then Debian either now automates that with an option to install choosing packages or has otherwise further improved. My 1st OS after DOS - W95 was Slackware, which had no 'edit,' and I may not have known about X, but when I was alternating or dual-booting NetBSD and Debian (and W9x) years ago, Debian took at least 10 times as much of my time than Slackware installation choosing packages (much less than W9x - XP,) and at least twice as much time as NetBSD including compiling whatever I wanted from pkgsrc, though all their basic installations take nearly the same computer time.

Probably anything but Slackware-based distros. force password usage, and one might not want or (debatabley) need one at home any more than in DOS if one use(s|d) it, though if you have no password, at least for root, you cannot remotely login. If you need to, avoid root except ssh (which you should conceal whatever possible about the version) if you need to maybe if the computer is a server. The majority of people may suggest avoid root (without explaining how you can still do what you need, which you also cannot completely with a wheel group account with su to itself,) but you can chown /root to your non-root user and group (such as wheel group) if you want to keep files there (such as the same software configurations & data) or run IRC with a configuration there; IRC usually says your account name: if you are root you could get hacked, or if ops see 'root' they may kick you off.

--David

For that you can edit /etc/inittab, and change the default level from 3 to 4.
You don't have to be root to run startx.

Maybe I have been able to run X as non-root, but I doubt it--at least not KDE.

Come on man - Slackware X runs fine as non-root. If you have never been able to run X Window except as root, then your system is seriously screwed-up.

What you are telling in your post must be considered "FUD" - with Slackware, there is absolutely no problem in running X as a normal user. In the default runlevel '3' (boot in console mode) all you need is run "startx" and when you change the 'etc/inittab' file to start in runlevel '4' (boot into the graphical login manager) you can just type in your non-root account-password. You do not need to be a member of 'wheel' group or assume godly powers.

But it all depends on how you created your non-root account. After a Slackware installation, all you have is the "root" account and the first thing you should do is create a regular account for yourself using the interactive "adduser" command. It makes sense to add your account to groups like cdrom,audio,plugdev,power,floppy if you want to be able to access all your hardwa peripherals trouble-free (the Slackware "adduser" command will explicitly hint you to add your new account to these groups).

Recommended for a good X experience is to start X as root first, see if the default VESA driver works. Then, after stopping X, run "xorgsetup" as root to see if X itself can come up with a better configuration - using one of the graphics drivers targeted at your hardware instead of the VESA driver. VESA mode works almost all the time, but it's graphical performance is so-so.
After running "xorgsetup" start X again to verify that it still works - but probably much faster and with a better resolution.
If all is well, you can start using your regular, non-root account.

Eric

dchmelik, I don't know what you're doing to your POSIX systems, but any even moderately recent Linux distribution (and that really goes for any POSIX OS) will run X as a non-root user without any fiddling with permissions. As long as your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file is set up correctly, X will run properly regardless of the user. It actually generally runs BETTER as a non-root user than a root user because most developers don't run an entire X session as root, so they don't test as much (this is more speculation than fact on my part though -- you can get X to run fine as root [just ask Woodsman], but there may be additional 'gotchas').

I have never, ever run X as root using Slackware 11.0, Slackware 12.0, Slackware 12.1 (upgraded from 12.0), Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04, or OpenSUSE 10.2 (well, I may have run as root in OpenSUSE to set stuff up since it's a more graphical distro, but I can't remember...but it did work fine for a normal user, anyway. I probably didn't run X as root, but since I don't remember everything about OpenSUSE, I can't confirm that. Also, Ubuntu doesn't technically have a standard root user [it's hidden], so I guess it's kind of irrelevant here...).

- I have heard an X developer speaking on a podcast who said exactly that so good speculating !

@dchmelik - I would really try to fix your systems if I were you as running as root is a bad idea.

[QUOTE]No, I am not afraid of Slackware/Slamd64: why would I have been using it 11 years? I admit I do not know everything about it--but I recommend it above all (unless you also use other old/well-developed OSes such as NetBSD, which some people think is more secure; or DOS/w9x; etc..)

I want no such setup. You may have omitted cases of running X non-root from /home or chgrped & chowned /root: neither ever worked for me. Maybe my iso files were corrupt for all the last several versions I installed fresh.

One may need to even as root in more cases than necessary, such as when root and someone else program (a) root-owned file(s,) and maybe for certain other programming, but at least for certain things you cannot do even when you su a wheel account to itself, because root is in fact a separate group.

First one might want to edit /etc/* (such as profile) and certain ~/.* files (or add them or other files)--before booting--when you might have to chroot to adduser. I recall no such hint; if it does not ask you and maybe add groups, then if plugdev includes cards maybe it is a reason I cannot run X non-root.

If any of the 3 X configuration programs immediately enable X, which they usually do on Slackware, that is good, but usually someday X does not start. It just happened to me, and then 'X -configure' gave an error I had never seen that google only has on 7 pages (excluding X(org) sites \;\) xorgconfig and xorgsetup give a usual error for which on Slackware you maybe then must do something like on some OS before ever starting X. I did not know X video drivers work without kernel ones, but I have not been able to use them since I knew my iso files were not corrupt (before Slamd64, which I just noticed has all md5sums in one file,) but I started an X/KDE problem thread with the X error that was only mentioned on LQ 4 years ago and never answered.

--David

First of all - Slamd64 is not Slackware. Any problems you have with Slamd64, please do not bother this forum with them. I will not be able to distinguish between errors caused by Slamd64 and problems that are present in Slackware.

In that other X/KDE post you mention, you state that you have a custom case with cards at angles. How old is this hardware? And how many monitors do you have connnected? The error "inconsistent display bitmapScanlineUnit. Exiting" usually can only happen when you define multiple screens to be used with multiple monitors. Do you have an ISA card in that computer of yours?
The problems you describe with X seem hardware related.

The rest of your answers in the post above this one really make no sense at all. Why mess with the permissions of the /root folder? It's not needed. All that is needed is that the various temporary files and directories in /tmp that have your username as part of their name, are owned by your userid. Also, make sure that your /tmp directory allows creation of new files and directories - X will not start if you mess up the permissions of /tmp or if there is no more free disk space left on the partition which contains your /tmp directory.

Running X does not require you to be root. If you need to start a program as root while you are running X as a regular user, you may want to read this article or read "man xauth".

Really, I think that by reading through some of the Slackware documentation in the root of the Slackware CD/DVD will help you get to grips with the Slackware distribution. Also, can you tell me what part of your problems is on Slackware, and what part is on Slamd64?

Eric

That depends on what 'is.' Slamd64 is Slackware for native x86_64 code, which Slackware does not do, so it is not Slamd64. Usually, a word before a slash is independent from the one after, which depends on the word before. I posted no Slamd64 question here (though this is the closest forum\;\) I gave a reason X sometimes/eventually does not work on various POSIXes, and mentioned I have such a problem.

I reinstalled the OS, and X/KDE works now, but the system board is 2 - 3 years old (and has no ISA bus,) but I know not about the Matrox dual-DVI PCI G450 (made some years ago,) but it is cheaper than a Parhelia. I am using 1 monitor. I said I ran automatic X configurations, not that I edited xorg.conf, which defined 2 screens; I also said I could almost fix xorg.conf (by commenting out a screen.)

Even if all that (which I do not understand) makes sense, I disagree: '/root' is shorter than '/home/*,' and I was talking more about programming than X itself.

It seems slackbook.com is gone, and I do not understand xauth.

I have read some/all of it before, as well as gnu docs, /usr/doc/, tldp, slackware.com, slackbook, slackwiki: it is insufficient. I eventually get the xorgconfig/xorgsetup error, and probably the X --configure (scanline) one, and related errors (some of which I could have posted this time,) on most POSIXes I have installed, including Slackware (currently Slamd64 \;\) i.e. xorgconfig/xorgsetup's 'no screens' fixable error happens on any hardware & POSIX OS, though I do not recall if fixing Slackware's xorg.conf screens then results in 'cannot find PCI device(s) [number(s) given as in lspci.]'

--David