This is Slackware Linux 3.6.0. This version contains the 2.0.35 Linux kernel, plus recent versions of these (and other) software packages: - Kernel modules 2.0.35 - PPP daemon 2.2.0f and 2.3.5 - Dynamic linker ( 1.9.9 - C compiler egcs-1.0.3 and gcc- - Binutils - Linux C Library - Linux C++ Library - Termcap - Procps 1.2.9 - Gpm 1.14 - SysVinit 2.73 - Shadow Password Suite shadow-980724 - Util-linux 2.7.1 - X Window System XFree86 3.3.2 + patch 3 Mail here _pours_ in at high volume, but feel free to report any problems you find. I can't promise a response but I *do* appreciate the help people offer me in fixing problems. Also, if you do write to me, please use include a valid email address somewhere in the message itself. You'd be surprised how many people I can't write back to because the return address is mangled for some reason. Some of these people are even writing to me in reference to mail-related problems... "Why is my return address on outgoing mail wrong?" :^) This is what you'll find in the subdirectories below: bootdsks.144, bootdsks.12, rootdsks: Boot/install disks for 1.44M and 1.2M floppy drives. You will need at least one boot disk and one rootdisk to install this software. See the README files in these directories for more information. slakware/a1 - slakware/a13: The base system. Enough to get up and running and have elvis and comm programs available. Based around the 2.0.35 Linux kernel, and concepts from the Linux filesystem standard. These disks are known to fit on 1.2M disks, although the rest of Slackware won't. If you have only a 1.2M floppy, you can still install the base system, download other disks you want and install them from your hard drive. slakware/ap1: Various applications and add ons, such as the manual pages, groff, ispell, joe, jed, jove, ghostscript, sc, bc, and the quota patches. slakware/d1: Program development. egcs-1.0.3 (gcc-2.8 based C/C++/f77/ Objective-C compiler from, gcc- (C and C++ compiler), make (GNU and BSD), byacc and GNU bison, flex, 5.4.46 C libraries, gdb, SVGAlib, ncurses, gcl (LISP), p2c, m4, perl, python-1.5.1, rcs. slakware/e1: GNU Emacs 20.3. slakware/f1: A collection of FAQs and other documentation. slakware/k1: Source code for the 2.0.35 Linux kernel. slakware/n1 - slakware/n9: Networking. TCP/IP, UUCP, mailx, dip, PPP, deliver, elm, pine, BSD sendmail, Apache httpd, arena, lynx, cnews, nn, tin, trn, inn. slakware/t1: teTeX Release 0.4 - teTeX is Thomas Esser's TeX distribution for Linux. slakware/tcl1: Tcl, Tk, TclX, built with ELF shared libraries and dynamic loading support. slakware/y1: Games. The BSD games collection, Koules, Lizards, and Sasteroids. contrib This directory contains extra packages for Slackware, such as the Andrew User Interface System (lets you create, use, and mail multi-media documents and applications). --------- Packages for the X window system: slakware/x1: The base XFree86 3.3.2 + patch 3 system, with libXpm, fvwm2_2.0.46-BETA, and xlock added. Also includes xf86config, an XF86Config writing program - just tell it your video card, mouse, and monitor, and it will configure XFree86 for you! slakware/xap1: X applications: X11 ghostscript, libgr, seyon, workman, xfilemanager, xv 3.10a, GNU chess and xboard, gimp, xfm 1.3.2, Netscape Communicator, ghostview, gnuplot, xpaint, xfractint, fvwm95, TkDesk filemanager, and various X games. slakware/xd1: X11 server linkkit, static libraries, and PEX support. slakware/xv1: xview3.2p1-X11R6. XView libraries, and the Open Look virtual and non-virtual window managers for XFree86. --------- ZipSlack, an easy to download and install version of Slackware for DOS/Windows machines: zipslack This directory contains ZipSlack, a version of Slackware supplied as a single 35 megabyte ZIP archive. Installation is as simple as unzipping on a DOS partition or Zip disk. It does not come with X, but is otherwise fairly complete, including networking and development tools. The package management tools let you add as much extra software as you need (such as X) once you boot the system. For more information, see the zipslack/README.1st file. ================================================================================ Installation notes for Slackware Linux: A more detailed description of the installation process may be found in the file INSTALL.TXT, the "Installation-HOWTO", by Matt Welsh. INSTALLATION DISKS: You will need two installation disks: a "bootdisk" and a "rootdisk". To make your bootdisk/rootdisk combination, you'll have to write the floppy images onto a pair of formatted floppy disks. (if your CD-ROM drive is bootable, you might try booting the CD-ROM -- some Slackware CD-ROMs are directly bootable, eliminating the need to make boot and root disks) _The Bootdisk_ The bootdisk contains the Linux kernel which will be used on your system, so it's important to choose this carefully. The bootdisk images are found in ./bootdsks.144 (or ./bootdsks.12 if your boot floppy drive is the old 1.2 meg type) and the rootdisk images are found in ./rootdsks. The README.TXT in the bootdisk image directory explains the various choices in detail, but in most cases, primarily IDE systems can use the 'bare.i' bootdisk, and systems with a SCSI controller can use the 'scsi.s' bootdisk. The usual way to write out the floppy is with the RAWRITE.EXE utility. This should be run under real MS-DOS, if possible. People using Win95 and NT have reported running into problems with RAWRITE.EXE, but might be able to use the alternate version RAWRITE12.EXE. The image is written to a floppy in drive A: like this: RAWRITE.EXE bare.i a: If you are using a Unix workstation (such as a Sun), you may write out the image with 'cat' or 'dd' like this: cat bare.i > /dev/rdf0 or: dd if=scsinet of=/dev/(rdf0, rdf0c, fd0, or whatever) obs=18k This uses an 18K block size, which is needed on some workstations. On the ones where it's not needed, it still probably doesn't hurt. _The Rootdisk_ You'll also need a rootdisk. This disk is a compressed Linux filesystem containing a basic set of Linux software, including the installation program. The usual choice is "color.gz", which is used to install Linux onto a dedicated Linux partition. The image is written to a floppy in drive A: like this: RAWRITE.EXE color.gz a: You may also write the image using 'cat' or 'dd' as described above. There are other rootdisks available for different types of installations, such as installing into a C:\LINUX directory on an existing FAT/FAT32 drive, or through PCMCIA devices like CD-ROM drives and ethernet cards. PREPARING DISK SETS (floppy install only) Slackware's A (base) and N (network) software sets can be installed from floppy disks as well. It's pretty rare these days for anyone to attempt an installation from floppy disk, and it's usually only done on laptops or other machines that have no CD-ROM drive or modem (i.e. there is no other choice). You can skip this section if you're installing from CD-ROM or have copied the /slakware/ directory tree (containing the .tgz packages) to your hard drive to install from there. To install from floppies, you'll need to make the disk sets you wish to install on 1.44 megabyte MS-DOS formatted disks. You'll want to download the contents of each of the A and N subdirectories of ./slakware/, copying the files onto the DOS floppies. For example, to make the "A1" disk (the first floppy in the base series), you'd copy the files in the ./slakware/a1 directory to a floppy disk: cd slakware cd a1 copy *.* a: If you need to download the files, be sure to include the index files. These have names like 'diska1', 'diska2', and so on. Sometimes badly written DOS software doesn't transfer or copy these files since they don't have a file extension (.txt, .exe, .com, etc). If the index files are missing, you'll get an error that the A series can not be found. Once you've installed the A and N series, and the machine is running Linux, the rest of the packages you need can be installed from your hard drive. INSTALLING FROM HARD DRIVE OR NETWORK: If you want to install from your hard drive, just set up a directory on your DOS, Linux, or OS/2 partition containing the the disk subdirectories for the disk sets you want. For example, if you wanted to install the A series, you might make a SLACK directory on your DOS drive and copy the A1, A2, A3, A4... directories and their contents into it. You can then specify this as the source to install from when you run the setup program. Like with the CD-ROM installation, you'll only have to make the boot and root floppies. To install from NFS, set up a similar directory on the NFS server you plan to use, and then make sure the directory is exported. If you're installing to a laptop using PCMCIA ethernet, make sure to use the PCMCIA rootdisk. It contains special kernel modules to recognize PCMCIA devices. WHAT IF MY CD-ROM IS NOT RECOGNIZED? Don't panic -- you'll still be able to install Linux from your hard drive. Sometimes new CD-ROM hardware comes out and doesn't work with Linux. It can take a while for Linux to support it because the Linux developers sometimes aren't told about the hardware's introduction and don't hear about it at all until people start sending email wondering why it doesn't work. The people making hardware almost always write a DOS driver before releasing it, so the workaround is to copy the disk sets you want to your DOS partition (under DOS) and then install them from there. Here's how you'd copy the disk sets to a C:\SLACK directory under DOS from a CD-ROM drive on e: C:\> MKDIR SLACK C:\> CD SLACK C:\SLACK> XCOPY E:\SLAKWARE\*.* . /S This will take about 150 megabytes, so if you don't have that much space you'll have to be selective about which disk sets to copy over. You need at least the A series to start with. If you want to try to get your CD-ROM running once the system is installed you can keep an eye on for new kernels or kernel patches that support your CD-ROM drive. BOOTING THE BOOT/ROOT IMAGES Insert the bootdisk in your floppy drive and reboot your system. Hit ENTER when you see the 'boot:' prompt to load and boot the Linux kernel. The kernel will produce lots of diagnostic information as it boots, allowing you to see if your hardware has been detected and is working properly. (in fact, once the boot process stops at the "VFS: Insert root floppy disk" message, you can use the right shift key with the PageUp and PageDown keys to scroll back and examine the boot messages more carefully) When the hardware detection is complete you'll see this prompt: VFS: Insert root floppy disk to be loaded into ramdisk and press ENTER Take the bootdisk out of your floppy drive, insert the rootdisk, and press the ENTER key to load it. The rootdisk will be uncompressed, loaded into a ramdisk, and mounted as your root filesystem. At this point, you may log in as 'root'. DRIVE PARTITIONING Unless you're using the umsdos.gz rootdisk to install to an existing DOS partition, or you're already got Linux partitions on your machine, you'll need to make one or more partitions for Linux. Before doing any repartitioning, you are strongly advised to back up your data! On Linux, whole IDE drives have names like /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, /dev/hdc. SCSI drives have names like /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc. Within this system, disk partitions are denoted with additional digit(s). For example, the partitions on /dev/hda might be /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, and /dev/hda3. (NOTE: Linux may not see partitions in the same order as DOS fdisk, so it's best to use size and type rather than number to identify partitions made from DOS or other operating systems) To create new disk partitions, use the Linux tool 'cfdisk'. For example, to make partitions on your first IDE drive, you'd use this command to start the cfdisk program: cfdisk /dev/hda If you don't have any freespace on your system, you'll be unable to make any partitions until you create some freespace. One way to do this is to physically add another drive to the system. Another way is to use 'cfdisk' to delete an existing drive partition, opening up some space for a Linux partition to be created. The FIPS utility in Slackware's ./install directory provides a way to shrink an existing DOS partition non-destructively (but may not work with FAT32), and the commercial program PartitionMagic can also accomplish this task. Once you have freespace available, use cfdisk's "New" choice to make a Linux partition. You'll probably want at least 400 megabytes for a full installation. Depending on the amount of memory in your machine, you may also want to allocate a 64 megabyte or so partition to be used as swap space. This will be added to the amount of RAM in your machine to get your total virtual memory. To make a swap partition, first use cfdisk's "New" choice to make a partition, then use the "Type" option to change the partition's type to 82 (Linux swap). To save the changes made in cfdisk, exit using the "Write" option. If you don't want to save the changes for some reason, you can exit with the "Quit" option (or just hit Control-C). RUNNING SETUP Once you have a Linux partition defined, you can run 'setup' to begin the installing Linux. This will scan your system's disk partitions, and then bring up the installation menu. You can start the installation by selecting KEYMAP (if you're using a non-US keyboard) or ADDSWAP. More information on running 'setup' is available from the HELP option. Make sure you have a blank, formatted floppy ready to make your Linux boot disk at the end of the installation. [NOTE]: You may install most software packages by typing "setup" on a running system. If you install a kernel (such as ide.tgz or scsi.tgz) from the A series, be sure to run LILO or make a new boot disk using the "makebootdisk" utility. Also, if you reinstall some of the base packages you might need to reconfigure files in /etc or other places. (once your system is configured to your liking, it's wise to make a backup of the /etc directory) You may review the list of installed packages on the installed system by browsing through the files in /var/log/packages. These packages may be removed, reinstalled, or upgraded with the Slackware package maintenance tools 'installpkg', 'removepkg', and 'pkgtool'. Enjoy! Patrick Volkerding