Hi, i have slackware 8.1 and ive just installed it onto my system. During the process I installed KDE desktop interface. I dunno if I have to load the desktop or wether its susposed to load itself either way i'm looking at the prompt after ive logged in and i aint going no further.

Can u tell me how im susposed to load the desktop, and also why cant i access my cdrom from prompt. I know it works cos i installed the system with it and when i type /dev/hdc it spins up but then says bash: /dev/hdc: Permission denied.

Can someone help me out please. Im such a noobie at linux.

At the prompt type startx.

That should get you into KDE, if your graphics card is setup properly.

CodeWarrior got you started on startx :}

As for the cdrom ... as root, do
chmod go+rx /dev/hdc
and edit your fstab
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,user,ro 0 0

The actual accessing it happens with
mount /mnt/cdrom


Cheers,
Tink

Cheers guys that did the trick. lavly

It still wont allow me to access the cdrom, after typing,
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,user,ro 0 0
it says permission denied still.

?

Use your editor of choice (emacs, pico, vi ...)
and edit
/etc/fstab

Modify the (hopefully existing?) cdrom entry
to match the line above (basically all you need
to change is the user-bit ... remove owner, add
user).

Cheers,
Tink

I only seem to have VI editor, or at least thats the only one i can seem to run. However how the hell do i use it.
Ive open the file which has lots of lines and i can see what i have to do but how?

dannyflounders, I think you should check out www.slackware.com and read the book. It will cover most of the basic questions you have.

soup

Or you can use joe. Just type joe /etc/fstab, edit and Ctrl+k x to save and exit.

DannyFlounders - I agree (FWIW): use joe - it's nice and easy, flexible and fast too. It comes with an 'on-board' help menu (just type ctrl+k+h - i.e. hold down the control key and type 'k' and then while the control key is still down type 'h'). The top half of your screen will become sectioned off and show you the different commands, all of which begin with you holding down the ctrl key. To clear the help section just type ctrl+k+h again.

Also, just double-check whether your cdrom really is hdc - it all depends on how you have your hardware setup. I have mine as the primary slave so my cdrom is at hdb and my hard-drive is (as is common) hda.
There are several tutorials on-line to read, or support Patrick's work and buy the Slackware book - although it is a bit dated now. You have chosen a great distro, but one of the things that is both a blessing and a curse for a n00b is that the distro will not do anything for you automagically like the other mainstream distros. This means on the plus side that you have a lean and mean stable system that is really responsive to your configuration without the standard issue bloat that many other distros seem to have. The downside (I suppose, if there is one) is that you have to do a lot of reading and that your learning curve will be pretty steep for the same reason. But if you have come to learn Linux there are few better ways by which to do so.
Just become comfortable with your configuration files and how to edit them (you might want to pick up a book on learning bash programming for example so you understand what the config files are actually about), and the directory structure. Once you have a grasp of that, the rest has a framework within which to be situated which makes it easier to understand.

When in doubt read, search using http://www.google.com/linux and ask lots of questions here, at justlinux, and at madpenguin. There are also a couple of other sites that deal with Slackware systems such linuxpackages, for e.g.

All the best and happy learning

- Andy

Personally I like Midnight Commander.

An Introduction to the Midnight Commander
Midnight Commander home page