Hi all, I've decided after so many hassles to give FreeBSD the boot and in its place Slackware.

My machine is a Compaq laptop that already has FreeBSD and WinXP on separate partitions operatiing as a dual boot setup but now I want to be running WinXP and Slackware just so I can get into Linux properly without using the Live CD's I have been experimenting with.

So first of all I need to wipe the FreeBSD partition so that Slackware can take its place and then install Slackware with XFCE and the latest kernel.
If anyone can give me a few pointers that would be great, oh and also hear that Slackware has problems with dual booting?

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

All right! Slackware is a very good distribution; my favorite, in fact. Anyways, getting rid of FreeBSD and putting Slack in its place doesn't sound too bad; a friend of mine did it with no problem at all. As to dual-booting with Slackware, I've never had any problems myself, nor have I personally known anybody who did. I simply install LILO to the MBR, and configure other LILO options as necessary (sometimes you have to tell LILO explicitly where your Windows partition is; but not with Slackware 10.0, as far as I know). Slackware comes with XFCE built into it, so no problems there; as to upgrading to the latest kernel - there are some really good guides to be found online about how to compile the latest kernel. Just make sure you keep a backup of your old one! Good luck with Slackware!

I just went from FreeBSD to Slackware. I have a dual boot system with Windows 98. It installed with no problems for me and LILO installed over the old MBR that dual booted FreeBSD and Windows 98

Once installed I had a few issues that I wanted to take of. Under X, using KDE my wheel mouse would not scroll, I looked around and found the solution that worked for me.

I opened /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Under Section "InputDevice"

I added:

Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

right above the EndSection line.

--------------
I wanted the screen to clear when I logged out. I added:

the line:

alias exit='clear && logout'

to the file /etc/profile:
--------------

I wanted a firewall, (I tured off all unused services)
I found this on Linuxquestions.org posted from a user called Lucinda
I installled it and it works for for me.

-----------------
#!/bin/bash
#
# Basic script to keep the nasties out of slack-lap
# First we make the default policy to drop everything
iptables -P INPUT DROP
iptables -P FORWARD DROP
# Allow established connections and programs that use loopback
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -s 127.0.0.0/8 -d 127.0.0.0/8 -i lo -j ACCEPT
# Lets allow ssh to connect
# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -i ppp0 -j ACCEPT
#end script


Make it executable and save it as /etc/rc.d/rc.firewall.

----------------

I also downloaded and installed the Java runtime enviorment. http://www.java.com. This helps when you go to web sites that use JAVA and also using OpenOffice.org
You still need to configure Firefox to use Java but it is very simple to do. I did not have any luck with going to a web site that needed Java and it tried to install it. It said sucess but never worked. I found installing the runtime enviorment and doing a Symbolic link in the plug ins directory of firefox solved my problems and Java works fine. The added benefit is, it was in a standard location that OpenOffice.org looks.

One side note, I use KDE. I noticed this in other forums but it seems some people have problems with XMMS in Slackware 10. My sound works fine. I can play mp3 files with other programs but I can't get XMMS to work.

Hope all this helps you further tweak your system.

Thanks for the replies, Ok so I delete the FreeBSD partition by using the Slackware install?

Yes. It will ask you for an install partition, just select the partition you have FreeBSD installed on currently, then it should ask for what FileSystem you would like.

For my 2cents, when updating to the newest kernel, I would suggest when you goto compile it, not to copy over your old config file, but to configure from scratch. I've seemed to have more problems then I can count when using the old config file.

Good luck.

Sorry, just what I wrote about the latest kernel I'm referring to 2.6 and not 2.4 which to my understanding is the default?

2.4 is the default.

I've never had a problem with dual booting Slackware. Fedora Core, Mandrake and Suse had a problem with dual booting with XP though.

Ok thanks for everything fellas, all is up and running with LILO as the boot manager
Now I need to figure out how to install programs.

what seems to be the problem

you can goto linuxpackages.net and find the package
download and do as root

installpkg packagename.tgz

or uncompress the tarbar. goto folder
./configure
make
as root make install

(read READ ME)

I know it's probably been posted in another manner... however Keep Windows how it is... then delete the other partition thru 'fdisk' using the Slackware cd's for the installation and use all of the free space on the partition for the other OS in place of FreeBSD.


I don't know why you would want to downgrade though!