first slackware installation need help choosing kernel
 

Hi,

I am at the part of the installation where it asks you to choose a kernel from a list. This is a Pentim III desktop with 64 mem and 13 gb disk. It is IDE (old IBM tower). I am installing version 11 from CDROM. I can eliminate some choices, like scsi, raid, sata, etc, but it still leaves me with some choices. The machine will be used for a small web based LAMP site.

Thanks for your help

RCS

Since the default 2.4.33 kernel got you that far, is there a reason you'd
rather not just use the default? It doesn't look like the hardware is going
to _require_ a 2.6 Kernel.

problem is I don't know which one on the list is the default
 

Choices that could make sense are:
zipslack
xfs
test26 (doubt this one)
speakup
pportide
old_cd
lowmem
jfs
huge26 (doubt this one)
bareacpi
bare

Can you help me make a choice?

OK, in the install program you will come to a screen that says:
INSTALL A LINUX KERNEL
One of the options on that screen is "bootdisk"
If you choose that, it will install the kernel to /boot/vmlinunz that the
install program has been running.

On this screen if you choose "cdrom" you get to pick from the kernels on the install cd. Among these the bare.i is a "generic" 2.4 kernel which will
probably work with the hardware you described.

Consider that if this kernel isn't satisfactory, after your system is installed
and running, you will be able to install one of the other kernels.

[edit]
Also these "generic" kernels tend to have many more options than any
particular kernel needs so a re-compile is also "fairly" easy on
slack.

OK, well I still don't have a working system
 

I finished the installation, making the floppy boot disk along wht way, but when I rebooted the system I got the single word GRUB at the upper left of the screen. Not a shell or anything, just the word.

So I booted from the floppy, getting the exact same result.

Can you suggest what I should do next?

I have installed Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva and Ubuntu and Freespire in the past. I have never had this kind of a problem.

(I picked on slackware after Googling around for a small footprint distro that would run on this minimal hardware.)

Sorry you're having troubles, sounds like grub can't find the boot image...The first install CD can be used as a recovery disk
Just follow the instructions on the first screen and enter the
name of the kernel you chose, for example bare.i or whatever--
and it should boot your kernel..then you'll need to find out
what grub is pointed to...

I always use Lilo grub is mostly food for me..

Thing of it is, I didn't choose GRUB
 

During the installtion process, no choice for GRUB ever came up. At one point it gave me the choice of installing LILO automatically, or deferring the installation or installing it manually. I chose automatic.

Any ideas?

Booting from the 1st cd got me to the command prompt with lots of errors
But I don't know what do now.

Servers could not start (Apache, Mysql, NTS), etc.

Is this whole thing unreasonable? Trying to run LAMP on 64 mb pentim III?

It sounds like you did not put lilo on the MBR (that is not the default in Slackware, and it says it could be dangerous). You should be able to boot off of CD #1 and then run the setup again and install lilo to the MBR.

As quick as Slackware is to install, you might just want to reinstall and be sure to install lilo to the mbr.

Bob

Humm...

I don't know what is reasonable in this case...some folks get good results
on the hardware you described with Slackware. A Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP
doesn't seem un-reasonable to try... but I've never done it.

On second thought, I sorta walked in
on the middle of this, didn't I? Let me back up a bit.

When you chose automatic for the lilo install, lilo wrote what it thought would
be a good configure file in /etc/lilo.conf and wrote a boot sector to the MBR of the hard drive where the root partition is...but before we go further, what kind of install did you do?

Did you see all the kernel messages flash by when it was booting?
Much of what's going on can be found in /var/log/dmesg and /var/log/debug and /var/log/messages....

After booting were you presented with a root login?
at the command line if you type
$mc
does the midnight commander run?
How did you try to start the servers?
I'm going to stop here , that's already too many questions....

--Lawrence

[edit]
If you did a full install, Apache MySQL PHP are already installed.
If as root you
#chmod a+x /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd
then
#/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd start
The
apache start script should run....if not somethin' wrong.

The MySQL start up script is named rc.mysqld not mysql.server, and
can be found at:
/etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld
From man 1 mysql.server :
You may need a bit of
configuration here.

PHP is also part of a full install, and once you have configured Apache and MySQL you should have a functioning (minimal)lamp ...

[edit2]
It not exactly Slackware but here's an interesting link
http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/No...ticle270.shtml
Some of the pgm versions are a bit dated but except for
PDF-Lib 4.0.3 you won't have to download and build anything..

Your advice is good so far, but I need more help.
 

I did a total reinstall (including reformatting the partitions).

I did a manual lilo configuration this time, which seems to have solved the boot problem. Now the system boots at least and has the Penguin in upper left corner when it boots.

The boot dialog shows the mysql server start and then stop. Why? How do I fix this.

I decided to try xfce because of the restricted amount of memory, was this a bad choice? It does not run. When I try to start it using xfdesktop in the /usr/bin directory, it says Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

Is this the proper way to start xfce?
I installed everything this time as well, instead of picking through the install list to eliminate things I will never need (in an effort to cut down on overhead). Therefore, there should be no missing dependencies.

Apache does work however and I can get the Apache page from the browser on another computer, but the page is in Hebrew. How did that happen, is that the default for Slackware?

ps -ef shows cups, rpc, sshd, inted, sendmail, and httpd all running

I don't see smbd on the process list, but smbd -V does return the version number. Is it running? I don't have any other computer on that network right now, so I can't tell that way.

I know this is a lot of questions, but I am needy and need a lot of help.

Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

RCS

rcschroeder,
let me suggest that you will get more help by starting a new thread....this
one advertises itself as "Help with picking a kernel.." What we are into now is
configuring slackware and a LAMP setup. If members more knowledgeable in these
areas know what your looking for, more help is likely...

BTW... if you chose Xfce in install setup.. at a prompt
$startx

should fire it up...