Slackware 8 rocks, not scary

[SpookyEddy]

Hi all,

As some of you may know I have recently installed Mandrake 8.1 on my home machine & love it

However I decided I need another linux setup to play around with to avoid messing up my normal machine (which I do on a regular bases, just ask pbharris ).

So I decided to go for Slackware 8 as I had a spare ISO image kicking around & install it on an old 6.4 gig HD.

Anyhow I was a bit intimidated as I had been told by lots of people that Slackware is a really "hardcore" distro, but I was pleasantly suprised.

I got my nice new Slackware 8 box up and running in less than 30 mins with KDE, xcdroast & internet The install process was no harder than Mandrake, just with less fancy graphics.

So my message is don't be afraid to experiment with different distro's.

Linux: its all good baby

Regards

Eddy

[pbharris]

Thanks for info Eddy! Slackware was my first distribution and it is pretty darn good, I have not tried 8.0 yet.

And Everyone - Yes SpookyEddy does play with alot of linux.

[Savant]

slackware is, and has been my distro of choice for years

[SpookyEddy]

Hi guys & gals,

Loving Slackware 8 but just a few questions :

Can I install with ReiserFS instead of ext2?

Can I install with a newer kernel (I seem to have a 2.2 version)?

How do I mount the CD-Rom drive (so to speak ) I get a "directory does not exist" error when using "mount /mnt/cdrom". Do I need to edit "/etc/fstab"?

I installed FreeBSD at work today with no major problems, my package selection was a bit dodgy & X was borked as I couldn't remember the spec of my graphics card

Think I will try and get hold of a copy of Solaris on monday

Regards

Eddy

[pbharris]

>Can I install with ReiserFS instead of ext2?
Yes, but you will need to upgrade to kernel 2.4.5 or greater for best performance. This will also be a pain because you will need to convert the filesystem to rieserFS and may need new filesystem tool packages, i am sure some are out there, slack people keep pretty up to date.

>Can I install with a newer kernel (I seem to have a 2.2 version)?
Yes! Slack8 is kernel 2.4 ready.

>How do I mount the CD-Rom drive (so to speak ) I get >a "directory does not exist" error when >using "mount /mnt/cdrom". Do I need to edit "/etc/fstab"?

Try [b]mkdir /mnt/cdrom[b] then mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdX /mnt/cdrom and yes, you will more than likely need to add something to /etc/fstab . Or maybe check out /etc/fstab first, seems like slackware had its cdrom mount point at /cdrom


BSD is awsome!

Solaris is a beetch on x86 hardware... Are you installing it on x86?

[jkrohn]

While we're on the Slackware 8.0 topic I have a question. I have Mandrake 8.1 installed on a second partition and am dual booting XP pro and Linux. I just got the Slack 8.0 ISO's and am looking to install it.
Is there an option in the install to format the linux partition and install Slack over it?
Also should I fdisk /mbr before installing Slack?
Will I have to make my own swap, root partitions etc.? Mandrake just did it for me So I never learned the correct sizes.
5 Gb is devoted to linux and I have 256 Mb Ram, what should my sizes be if it doesn't do it automaticly?

Thanks
Jkrohn

[CMonster]

what? -you mean you guys weren't intimidated, daunted, or otherwise discouraged from using Linux by the "Why Linux sucks big time (because I don't know how to use it and all my hardware wasn't supported)" post?

I haven't tried Slack since 4.x-something... as I remember Linux was really difficult back then... or was I just a total newbie -both.

[SpookyEddy]

Hi pbharris,

In Slackware 8 my fstab has no cdrom entries only HD's.

I will give the tips on mounting drive a go when I can be bothered to swap the removable drives in my box

BSD is really cool, I think I will stick with it and CLI for setting up & playing with servers.

I was going to try Solaris on an x86 (Celeron 400 at work, or Duron 600). Just out of interest do you know if it is possible to get hold of cheap alternative CPU/system types, old Sun's etc?

Also I have changed to Mozilla as my web browser of choice, after its high recommendation from other Sysopt users (& Konqueror can't render html properly ). However I keep getting "connection refused" type errors on both Sysopt & linuxnewbie . Is this likely to be my ISP or the browser, do you know of anyone who has had any problems?

Thanks for the help.

I think I managed to cause one of the largest flame threads ever without even posting

Regards

Eddy

[SpookyEddy]

Hi CMonster,

The "linux sucks thread" was my fault (a bit) as I didn't want my linux "mandrake 8.1 experiences" thread polluted by the person in questions trolling.

I do apologise, but guess it was better that the thread got posted on its own instead of wrecking a legitimate thread.

Anyhow, thanks for all the great support that pbharris, CMonster & linux_guru provide.

Regards

Eddy

[CMonster]

Lately I get this too even when using Opera, and from my son's Windows 2k box, so I doubt the problem is Mozilla.

[S.D.Willie]

ditto to that error CMonster. i get it alot too in mozilla as well.

SD

[SpookyEddy]

Thanks CMonster, I feel better now

jkrohn, I used "cfdisk" (very similar to dos fdisk) during the slackware 8 install. I selected (on a 6.4 gig HD):

Bootable Primary / 2gig
swap swap 256 meg
logical /var 1gig
logical /home rest
This worked for me using a full installation, but I am very much a beginner so maybe the local gurus can provide some help.

Regards

Eddy

[pbharris]

Here is the cdrom entry for my fstab
RedHat

/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom              auto    noauto,owner,kudzu,ro,user 0 0

Debain

/dev/cdrom      /cdrom          iso9660 defaults,ro,user,noauto         0       0

the debian would most likey work best for slack.
hope that helps!

[wysoft]

Eddy, if you'd like to run Solaris as a workstation, I'd advise against running it on Intel, for the most part. It can be very intimidating and confusing getting it to work with modern hardware (Sun's Intel hardware support seems to be perpetually two years behind the cutting-edge). However, it can be a breeze to use on Sun hardware.

A very basic Solaris system would be at a minimum a SPARCstation 4 or 5 with a 110MHz CPU, with the SPARCstation 5 170MHz model being a good step up from that. Get such a system with at least 64MB of memory, 2GB of hard disk space, a CD-ROM, and at least a cg6 framebuffer (this will only get you 8-bit video, but old Sun true-color framebuffers are rather slow on Solaris. Linux seems to handle at least the tcx more favorably). With a little bit of trimming, Solaris 8 runs acceptably on these older Sun machines. BSD and Linux still run much faster on them, though.

If you can take a step up to at least an Ultra 1 machine, this will benefit you even more. Solaris will run quite nicely on these machines, and most of them have fast 24-bit video. Of course, if you don't plan on using OpenWindows (it's better to just compile X from the Consortium sources from x.org instead of using this), the SPARCstation 5 will do quite well in any situation.

All older Sun machines are readily available on eBay, on average for around a couple hundred, depending on what model you buy and what features it has installed.

[SpookyEddy]

Thanks wysoft,

Think I will look into getting an old Sun machine with next months overtime claim .

I am really only looking for something that will let me run/learn Solaris, play with a new hardware architecture, and let me perform a few useful task like web-browsing / graphics work.

Thanks for the help.

Eddy