[Note: This is a work in progress. This page consists of the contents of my setup log file, prettied up a bit. Some things remain untested.]
See Changelog for list of updates.
This is the third document in a series. The first being Setting up Slackware Linux 8 (plus upgrade instructions for 9) and the second being Installing and Configuring Software for Slackware.
This document deals with the insallation of Slackware 10 on a Dell Inspiron 3000, a machine which is almost 7 years old now. (For information on installing Linux on other laptops, see the Linux on Laptops site).
When I installed Slackware 8 and 9, sound setup on the laptop was a trial. Slackware 10 and the newest versions of the ALSA sound system have solved this problem. Printing, another former trouble spot, has not been tested yet.
The rest of this document describes my system, software installed, hardware setup, and any problems encountered.
Since Slackware 9, it has been necessary to add boot parameters to boot from the CD as the newer versions of Slackware automatically search for USB devices. My Inspiron 3000 has not had its BIOS upgraded, so the system hangs because there is a non-functional USB port on the laptop chasis. To get around this, I typed "bare.i nousb" at the boot prompt.
After booting into Slackware, the first step is to partition the system (although, if you're upgrading from a previous version of Slackware this may not be necessary). There are plenty of good guides to partitioning, so all I will mention is that the recommended configuration is three partitions: swap, / (root) and /home (user files). I have also added a /boot partition. (The following article is an excellent guide to moving partitions. And this article provides some tips on selecting a partitioning scheme for your Linux machine.)
Target and source selection for the installation was trivial. Slackware has been able to autodetect my CD drive since version 7 (and that was the earliest version I tried on this machine). I chose to continue using the reiserfs file system because it has worked well for me over the past 3 years. It is worth noting that lilo does not support reiserfs so that the /boot partition has to be formatted using ext2 or ext3.
I chose an abbreviated set of the available Slackware software series, installing the A series (base system), some of the AP series (console applications), part of the D series (development tools) required to compile from source, part of the N series (network programmes) required to get on the net using an ethernet card or modem, the X series (basic X windows programmes), a few programmes from the XAP series (X applications) and the Y series (console games). The others are strictly non-essential on a machine with limited space (2 G hard drive).
Configuring a network card and connecting to the network using DHCP was trivial. I provided a host name, a dummy domain and let the setup programme know that my ISP uses DHCP and everything was set up automatically by the netconfig script. My ethernet cards were autodetected properly and the default DHCP settings worked with my ISPs.
X-Windows configuration was likewise simple. No changes were required to the settings autodetected by X-Windows. I chose GNUStep's WindowMaker as my GUI environment as it has a lighter memory footprint than some of the more popular desktop environments.
Then run /usr/X11/bin/mkfontscale and /usr/X11/bin/mkfontdir to register the fonts.
Restart the X server [ctrl-alt-bksp] and the fonts should be listed.
For more information on tweaking fonts try the Font De-uglification HowTo.
The CS4232 chip is listed and alsa is able to set it up properly. The hacks required to play sound as a regular user are also no longer necessary.
e.g.: /dev/hde1 /mnt/cf auto noauto,owner,users 0 0 (If the floppy and cdrom lines don't have it, add users to them as well to allow mounting by regular users.)
For a network using some form of wireless security it is usually just a matter of creating an entry for this network including the ESSID and the KEY value.
To turn these off, you need to log in as root and go to the /etc/rc.d directory. There, you should comment out the services you don't need in rc.M and rc.inet2. I turned off just about everything except the two system log scripts (klogd and syslogd), dhcpd (to connect to the internet) and apmd (power management for the laptop's battery and to enable auto power off on the harddrive).
The next step was setting up a firewall. I simply copied all the appropriate gShield files over to my laptop from my desktop and started gShield. It's well commented and seems to do a good job of securing my systems. I have also made a few changes to this script to allow it to autodetect different ISPs settings.
In addition, it may be necessary to set some programmes up to not listen on various ports if you have a standalone system and don't want to allow remote logins. To check for open ports type socklist and then check the /etc/services file to see what programme normally uses that port.
See the Linux Security site for more information on Linux security in general as well as the Linux Firewall and Security Site.
For Slackware specific security updates subscribe to the Slackware Mailing Lists.
Legalese: This page does not purport to be a guide to installing Slackware Linux, only a description of how I installed Slackware Linux. Just my little bit of Slackware Advocacy.
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Author: Margaret Kipp
Changelog:
2004-07-27 - created