[2024-feb-29] Sad news: Eric Layton aka Nocturnal Slacker aka vtel57 passed away on Feb 26th, shortly after hospitalization. He was one of our Wiki's most prominent admins. He will be missed.

Welcome to the Slackware Documentation Project

Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

Link to this comparison view

Both sides previous revisionPrevious revision
Next revision
Previous revision
playground:playground [2012/09/02 10:19 (UTC)] tallshipplayground:playground [2022/02/18 19:11 (UTC)] (current) zeebra
Line 1: Line 1:
-====== Get Slackware Up and Running ====== +====== PlayGround ======
- +
-<note warning>Files in the playground are for syntax testing only. **NO GUARANTEES** that this text will still be there next time you look!\\ If you want to work on an article, create it for instance under howtos: instead of playground and put a "work in progress" sign on top. </note> +
- +
-This guide puts a few common tasks together in the same place so that new users have a coherent guide to doing some essential tasks in a fresh installation of Slackware. +
- +
-We'll assume that you've read [[http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:install|the Installation Guide]] and that you have a clean install of Slackware on your machine and that you're happy with that. If you're not, go to [[http://www.linuxquestions.org/|Linux Questions]] and ask for some help. +
- +
-Thanks to AlienBob - Eric Hameleers - he contributes vastly to the Slackware community and in all sorts of ways. +
- +
- +
-===== I've installed Slackware - now what? ===== +
- +
- +
-  +
-When you start Slackware for the first time, you will boot to a simple log in screen. +
- +
-Log in as root (you’ll have set the root password during the installation process). +
- +
-So what now? You may want to start your desktop environment, get your wireless up and running or a host of other things. +
- +
-===== Switch to generic kernel ===== +
- +
- +
-It's recommended that you switch to the generic kernel. This is easy to do but there are a few steps to follow. +
- +
-You will need to make an initial RAM disk (which is the file initrd.gz in your /boot directory). There is a handy script available [[http://slackware.com/~alien/tools/|here]] to do this for you. +
- +
-Grab mkinitrd_command_generator.sh. +
- +
-All you need then to do is run the script as root; +
- +
-# sh mkinitrd_command_generator.sh +
- +
-It will output something like this depending on your kernel version, the file systems you chose when you installed Slackware and so on. +
- +
- +
-mkinitrd -c -k 3.2.28 -f ext4 -r /dev/sda1 -m usbhid:ehci-hcd:uhci-hcd:ext4 -u -o /boot/initrd.gz +
- +
- +
-Run the script's output as root to generate your initrd.gz. +
- +
-If you installed lilo, then you will also need to make changes to /etc/lilo.conf by adding a line to your Slackware entry as follows; +
- +
- image = /boot/vmlinuz-generic-3.2.28 +
-  initrd = /boot/initrd.gz # add this line so that lilo sees your mkinitrd +
-  root = /dev/sda1 +
-  label = Slackware +
-  read-only +
- +
-Save and then run  +
- +
-# lilo +
- +
-If you do try and use the generic kernel without creating an initrd.gz your boot will fail with a kernel panic. +
- +
-If you use grub or other bootloader, then make changes as applicable to the version you use. +
- +
- +
-===== Create User ===== +
-  +
- +
- +
-One thing you will need to do is create your user account.  +
- +
-There are two ways you can do this, with the adduser script, thus; +
- +
-# adduser +
- +
-and follow the prompts.  +
- +
-Look [[http://docs.slackware.com/slackbook:users|here]] for more detail on the adduser script. +
- +
-You can use the command line too and use something like this; +
- +
-# useradd -m -g users -G users,wheel, floppy,audio,video,cdrom,plugdev,power,netdev -s /bin/bash slacker +
- +
-Once that’s done you can switch to your userspace.  +
- +
-Type in the command +
- +
-su – slacker +
- +
-===== Mirrors ===== +
- +
- +
- +
-So you can keep your Slackware installation up-to-date, you will need to set a mirror from which to download updates.  +
- +
- The list of mirrors is in this file. +
- +
- /etc/slackpkg/mirrors +
- +
-Uncheck one mirror near you for your version of Slackware. +
- +
-===== Network ===== +
- +
- +
- +
-Have a look at AlienBob’s comprehensive guide to networking in Slackware here. +
- +
-==== Wired ==== +
- +
- +
- +
-netconfig +
- +
-You have the opportunity to run this script during the installation process. +
- +
-NB netconfig only deals with a wired connection.  +
- +
-On the assumption that you set configured your wired connection with netconfig, wired connections should start automatically without the need for any post-installation configuration. +
- +
-If you didn’t run netconfig during installation, just run netconfig as root +
- +
-then  +
- +
-/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 eth0_start +
- +
-You should have a working internet connection which will start at boot. +
- +
-Various tools exist for you to monitor your network connection, including wicd. +
- +
-==== Wireless ==== +
-  +
- +
- +
-Wireless isn’t difficult, or rather it isn’t difficult when all goes well.  +
- +
-It will be worth checking whether your wireless hardware is supported by Linux, if you’ve not already done so.  +
- +
-Again, read AlienBob’s guide.  +
- +
-To summarise AlienBob, you need to add information about your wireless connection to your wireless configuration file +
- +
-/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf +
- +
-You will also need to take steps to include wireless security too, whether WEP or WPA2.  +
- +
-With the configuration file amended and your network security included, you should then be able to establish your wireless connection. +
- +
-If you encounter particular problems, ask on or search for a solution on LinuxQuestions.  +
- +
-Slackware ships with wicd so you can use that to start and monitor your connection – it’s not installed, so you’ll need to grab the file from your installation medium – it’s in the folder extra. +
- +
-===== Update ===== +
- +
- +
- +
-This is how you can keep your Slackware up to date. +
- +
-slackpkg update +
-slackpkg install-new +
-slackpkg upgrade-all +
- +
-NB Slackware can demand a little of its users sometimes and so you should check before you update or upgrade your installation to see whether you need to anything other than run the simple slackpkg commands above.  +
- +
-This is especially true of switching to Slackware’s testing version, current.  +
- +
-You can use these commands to change to current if you want to do that, though should probably update your base installation first. +
- +
-===== Start Desktop Environment ===== +
- +
- +
- +
-During boot, Slackware will auto-detect your graphics card and load applicable drivers.  +
- +
-You can simply run;   +
- +
-$ startx +
- +
-Your preferred desktop environment will then start up. +
- +
-Before you do that, it can be fun to see what you can do with a non-graphical environment (and in *nix you can do plenty), so you needn’t rush to start a graphical environment, you can even surf the web with Lynx.  +
- +
 playground:playground ()