Slackware Linux Help ____________________ First, a little help on help. Whenever you encounter a text viewer like this during the installation, you can move around with these commands: PGDN/SPACE - Move down one page PGUP/'b' - Move up one page ENTER/DOWN/'j' - Move down one line UP/'k' - Move up one line LEFT/'h' - Scroll left RIGHT/'l' - Scroll right '0' - Move to beginning of line HOME/'g' - Move to beginning of file END/'G' - Move to end of file '/' - Forward search '?' - Backward search 'n' - Repeat last search (forward) Also, you're running a real multitasking operating system now, so you're not confined to the installation program. You can log into other consoles and look around at any time without disturbing the installation process. To do this, you need to learn the commands that control the Linux console. You'll use these commands all the time when you're logged into Linux. "Virtual" consoles and scrollback: Right now, the screen you're looking at is probably VIRTUAL CONSOLE NUMBER ONE, (or /dev/tty1 in Linux-speak). There are usually several virtual consoles available. When you log into the install disk, there are four consoles. To switch among them, use Alt-F1, Alt-F2, Alt-F3, or Alt-F4 to select which of the four consoles you wish to use. While you're using a console, you get a small amount of text scrollback buffer. To scroll the console back, hold down the right shift key and hit PageUp. To scroll the console forward, hit PageDown while holding the right shift key down. This can be especially useful for reading the boot messages, which can go by too fast to read otherwise. On the install disk, the first three consoles are login consoles. The fourth console is used to show informational messages during installation, such as disk formatting status, kernel messages, and so on. A useful trick is to log into the second virtual console during the installation. Then you can use commands such as 'df' to check how full your hard drive is getting. Also, once the Slackware CD-ROM has been mounted on /cdrom, most of the commands in the disc's live filesystem will be usable. PARTITIONING YOUR DRIVE Now lets take a look at how you progress through a typical Linux installation with the Slackware distribution. First, you'll have to make sure your hard drive has been partitioned to accept Linux. The setup program does not do this for you. You will need at least one type Linux partition, and optionally a swap partition. In my opinion, (if you have a fair amount of drive space) it's easiest to manage a system that's partitioned along these lines (ignoring any Windows or other partitions for the purposes of this illustration): [ 6 gig or more for / ] [ whatever space users need for /home ] [ swap space (match the size of your RAM) ] Some people like a separate partition for /usr/local, but I find that I usually regret dividing my free space when I don't have to... the partition I want to add to is always full that way. :^) Besides, when the time comes for an operating system upgrade you can always back up /usr/local regardless of whether it occupies its own partition. In fact, having a separate /home partition is also optional. Probably the simplest way to approach things initially is with just a single root Linux partition, and a swap partition of about 1-2 gigabytes. The amount of drive space you'll want to give Linux depends on what software you plan to install, and how much space you have to spare. My primary Linux partition is 10 gigabytes. If you've got that kind of room to spare, it will make it easier to compile and try out large pieces of software, or to work with large files such as might be used in desktop publishing or CD-ROM mastering applications. The entire Slackware system (everything -- all the X servers, Emacs, the works) will use about 5 gigabytes of hard drive space, so 5 - 10 gigs is sufficient for a complete installation. In the past, I've actually done development work on a single / partition of 110 MB. (Of course, that was back in the days of Linux version 0.99p11 or so...) Still, with careful selection you can still squeeze a small Linux system onto a system, but this is not recommended for beginners. It's more useful when utilizing Slackware as a base for an embedded system. Most people should be going a full installation. It's faster and easier, and less error-prone. Partitioning is done with a partitioning tool such as fdisk. There are two versions of Linux fdisk available now. 'fdisk' is the standard version, and 'cfdisk' is a friendlier full screen version. Most people will probably want to use 'cfdisk' now, unless they're used to the older version (like me). Either one will get the job done. Make sure you use Linux fdisk to tag partitions as type 83 (Linux, the default) or type 82 (Linux swap) so the Slackware setup program will recognize them. Use the 't' command for that, and 'w' to write out the changes. If you prefer an easy to use graphical partitioning tool, you can make all your Linux partitions directly from Linux 'cfdisk'. Or you can make them with the older 'fdisk' using the 'n' command to create a partition and the 'w' command to write out the changes when you're done. By default, 'fdisk' and 'cfdisk' will partition the first hard drive in your machine, which is /dev/sda. To partition other drives, you'll have to specify the drive to partition when you start 'cfdisk'. For example, to partition the second IDE drive: # cfdisk /dev/sdb SWAP SPACE If your machine doesn't have much memory, you might have already learned how to activate a swap partition just to make it this far. Normally you won't need to format or activate your swap space by hand, but if you're installing on a machine with low memory you will need to format and activate a swap partition to be able to install. Once you've made the partition with fdisk, you need to use 'mkswap' on it, and then activate it with 'swapon'. Checking the partition table with 'fdisk -l', we see these lines: Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda8 16650 16898 2000061 82 Linux swap So, the command to format would be: # mkswap /dev/sda8 # sync And to activate it: # swapon /dev/sda8 RUNNING THE SETUP PROGRAM Setup has quite a few options, which can be slightly confusing the first time you look at the menu. It's not really that hard, though. You just need to start at the top of the screen and work towards the bottom through the menu options. When I install, I usually do these options in order: ADDSWAP (set up my swapspace) TARGET (set up my Linux/Windows partitions and /etc/fstab) SOURCE (select the source location for the Slackware Linux packages) SELECT (pick the package categories to install) INSTALL (install the software, generally with "full") CONFIGURE (configure the newly installed system) Note that after I select the SWAP option, setup will allow me to run through all of the other options without ever returning to the main menu. I hope that these options will be mostly self-explanatory. Just read the screen carefully as you install and you should do just fine. REMAPPING YOUR KEYBOARD: KEYMAP: This option lets you remap your keyboard to one of the many international maps provided with Linux. If you are using a US keyboard, you can skip this option. ...WHEN YOU'RE DONE: EXIT: This leaves Slackware Linux setup. Have fun installing and running Linux! --- Patrick Volkerding volkerdi@slackware.com