The a/, ap/, d/, e/, f/, k/, l/, n/, tcl/ and y/ directories are located on disc 1. If you don't need X, you may not need disc 2. Disc 2 contains the kde/, t/, x/ and xap/ directories. You'll need disc 2 if you want to install X, regardless of whether you want to install KDE. Disc 3 contains kdei/, so you'll only need it if you need international support in KDE. Discs 4, 5 and 6 contain the Slackware sources, and are not needed for the installation (or any time really -- if you only ever need the SlackBuilds or source packages for an individual application, you can always just download them from a mirror individually instead of downloading the full .iso). The DVD contains the whole shebang, so you'll only need the one disc.

digger95, Ubuntu puts only the essential packages on one CD and then requires that you connect to the internet and download a whole crapload of packages. Slackware doesn't require that you download ANYTHING at all after installation (although downloading patches wouldn't be a bad idea).

Thanks for the info, T3slider.

Hi,

Don't forget CD3 also contains '/extra'.

Or you could just get the DVD and avoid all of the disc swapping craziness...

A full install of Slackware has a hell of a lot more than the default one CD install of Ubuntu - all the development stuff, compilers and libraries, for instance. Everything bar the kitchen sink (which is in /extra, I think?). As I said before, let's keep Slackware as it is, and not try to copy any other distro.

Speaking of the many libraries in Slackware, I'm glad that pycairo, pygobject, and pygtk are in current. I also like the fact that ntfs-3g is a part of Slackware.

I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of nice wifi-radar or network manager in /extra so that laptop users could use it if they don't like the standard wireless tools.

I think it would also be nice for an entire copy of the slackbook to be included in the HowTo doc set, or have it in /extra if that is too much. Some new users who don't necessarily have internet would greatly appreciate that.

I've been looking at several, and none are stable/reliable enough yet.

It's always been on the cd set.

Slackbook is great, but due to the all new features since 11.0+, slackbook seems a bit out of date. Not just mentioning about the 2.6 only support now, but since USB/PXE intallers has been added, you won't find anything about that in the slackbook. Nor any of the new features about each kernel, hugesmp or such, as well as the ntfs-3g driver. It seems there needs to be an overhaul of the slackbook.

There does.

It's been discussed, and we're planning to hit that pretty heavy after 12.1 releases.
As you probably are aware, the people in charge of that book have quite a few other things going on, so dropping everything and working on the book simply isn't an option.

I'm sure much more people would probably prefer more time to Slackware than to Slackware docs anyways.

Good to know that the slackbook is on the cd as well.

I agree with that to a certain point. However I do believe that the documentation needs to be a little more inline with a release. Maybe not all the smaller features, but there already have been major changes since the 2.6 kernel support now, and new ways of installing Slackware. This is especially crucial if more new users unfamiliar with Slackware are told to refer to the documentation. I don't see how much the documentation can help if it is outdated. Granted a more seasoned Slacker will be able to figure out the minor details.

Slackbook by the way covers mostly the 10.2 release.

There is the CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT in the root of the Slackware DVD (and CD1) for Slackware that should serve as a fast-lookup source for many of the changes in the new release.
Also in the root directory of the DVD/CD1 are README_CRYPT.TXT and README_LVM.TXT which contain very helpful information for those who want to use disk encryption and/or Logical Volume Manager (LVM) during installation, the 'usb-and-pxe-installers' directory has README_USB.TXT and README_PXE.TXT for help with booting the installer using USB stick or over the network (PXE). The 'usb-and-pxe-installers/etherboot' directory contains directions for using a floppy with PXE boot if your network card is not able to do a network boot all by itself.

Eric

Hi all,

I'm a week or so behind, but one of the changes I asked for is showing up in the -current branch: an upgrade to Emacs 22!

I'm running Emacs 22 right now that I compiled on both my Slackware 11 and 12 computers, but it's nice to see it included as an official package.

Regards,

-Drew

Agreed. Slackware is excellent as is:-)

What might be helpful for people new to Slackware is to include another menu in the setup for documentation. This could simply list options for different important docs. For instance, choosing options for CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT or UPGRADE.TXT, etc could open the document using more (or less) for viewing. Choosing the Slackbook option could open it in lynx or links.

Most people get referred to the slackbook when they say they are new on this forum, but they are not always referred to the CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT, for example, unless they have specific problems pertaining to the information in that file. A lot of users don't even know these files exist. Having the user pointed to it during setup might be very helpful. If they don't need to read anything then they can just skip it like other parts of the setup that can be skipped. I think this might be more helpful than simply having a message during setup to read the file. Some users don't even know how to view it in the command line.