New Linux User

Geeky Fun: Logging On To Darkstar

by Jon on March 2nd, 2006

I bought a copy of Linux Format yesterday because it had this overflowing DVD of goodies with it. I guess it should have since it cost me $22 (Cdn), but something about shiny CD/DVDs attracts me. For some reason, software on a nice shiny disc just seems more complete and more reliable than something I’ve downloaded. I mean, someone put all this stuff on the disk. They must have checked it all out, right? Maybe not, but I can’t shake the feeling.

The most major thing on the disk in my opinion, was Slackware 10.2. I’ve been running Linspire for a while now on my laptop and arguably there aren’t two more diametrically opposed distros. Slackware is the grandaddy GNU/Liunx (even coming stock with the outdated 2.4 kernel) and Linspire is the Windows of GNU/Linux. One thing I really love about Linspire, though, is the CNR client application and repository. I can reinstall Linspire in about 20 minutes and then go into the CNR and restore all my applications in another 10 minutes. Ironically, this great little Linspire feature that has bred so much reliance into me is also the tool that makes it so easy for me to wipe my partition and try other distros. If it doesn’t work out, no problem - an hour later I’m back at my Linspire desktop with all my applications reinstalled. I thought that was how the Slackware install would go, but I was surpised.

Slackware is, indeed, not really meant for new Linux users. I was pleasantly surprised that it detected all my hardware correctly (including my Linksys PCMCIA Wifi card), but in true Slackware fashion it didn’t bother to set anything up. Not only did I have to mount my home partition (setup asked me where it was…shouldn’t it mount it if it’s going to ask?), but I had to set up my wifi, my wheel mouse, and my sound. Slackware definitely fails my New User Friendliness test. I have a post on that test around here somewhere but can’t find it right now. In a nutshell, for me to consider a distro to be new user friendly, it has to configure (out of the box) the following stuff:

• video - good!
• network hardware - good!
• keyboard - good!
• mouse - partial
• sound - failed

Historically, a distro that doesn’t set the basics up for me fails to do so because it can’t for some reason. There are missing libraries , or the toolchain (gcc, make) isn’t installed, or it just plain old doesn’t recognize my hardware. Not so with Slackware, it recognized everything but is just too cool and aloof to bother setting it up. What I’m trying to say is that Slackware actually comes with all the tools you will need to set up your system, it just doesn’t do it automagically for you. Other distros that failed to hit all my happy points gave me no end of trouble setting them up manually.

Wifi

My Linkysys wifi card was recognized as eth0. A simple iwconfig eth0 key and a dhcpcd brought it up. You may have to do more (since my Dlink PCI wifi card in the desktop upstairs is still failing to come up) and might want to check out my posts on iwconfig and iwlist.

Mouse

I have a portable USB two-button wheel mouse. I can’t remember the brand name, but it’s nothing you would recognize anyhow. It’s a $30 cheapie from the local Best Buy. The mouse itself worked fine (I selected USB mouse during setup), but the wheel wasn’t working. To make the wheel work I had to make the following changes to my /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

1. Find the mouse settings in the file. Look for the section that starts with Identifier “Mouse0″ (yours may start with Mouse 1, I don’t know.
2. Add the following lines to the end of that section

Option “Buttons” “5″
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″

3. That wasn’t quite enough to get it working for me, I also had to change the Option “Protocol” “auto” to Option “Protocol” “imps/2″

I restarted X and it worked. It’s sad how I’ve become so reliant on that little wheel. I missed it terribly for the 20 minutes it was gone.

Sound

Strangely (in my opinion) the sound in Slack comes muted by default. A quick Google immediately turned up the solution:

1. As root, type alsaconf to run the Alsa Sound configuration application. Use the right/left and up/down arrows to move between channels and to raise/lower the volume. I set all of mine to middle volume.
2. As root, type alsactl store to store the settings.
3. I still didn’t have sound when I went back into Xfce (that’s another story). I had to run KMix and unmute the system. Then I had sound.

I mentioned that was using Xfce, which is a light-weight desktop environment. Slackware comes with KDE, Xfce, fluxbox, blackbox and a couple of others that I can’t remember right now. KDE was version 3.4.2 and I thought it would be a good idea to raise it to 3.5.1, but that blew up on me. I found all of the Slackware KDE 3.5.1 packages and upgraded them fine, but there’s a bunch of libXXX.so.6 dependencies that KDE whines about when it starts. I’m working my way through them, but in the meantime, this presents a really good opportunity to use Xfce on a regular basis. I’ve played with it before, but this is different because I have to use it. KDE is bOrked at the moment.

Another point of interest is that Slackware only boots to runlevel 3 out of the box. This leaves you staring at a command-line login prompt rather than a more typical GUI login screen. I was going to change that and make it boot directly to runlevel 4 like most desktop distros, but I’m going to wait. I figure about 90% of the time the first thing I do when I log in is to open a terminal window. I’m curious how often I actually require the desktop. I’m going to boot into runlevel 3 for a while and see how that changes what I’m doing. Besides, with Xfce the desktop is only 30 seconds away anyhow.

So, in short - Slack treated me pretty well. I have all my functionality, and I’m into tweaking for preference rather than for function now. That’s a lot farther than I thought I would get with it because lesser old skool distros have beaten me more often than not in the past.

The last few things I need figure out are:

Package Management. I’m going to need OpenOffice shortly and while I’m familiar with Debian’s apt-get and Red Hat’s yum, I have no idea what to use in Slackware.

Speed up the boot. I have autoprobe (is that what it’s called) running. That’s the service that (apparently) monitors hot plug devices. I like auto mounting of CDs and stuff (is that what it does?), but it hangs on boot for about a minute. I want to turn it off, but I have to experiment with what that will do to me. As you can see, I don’t know much about this thing yet.

Suspend! That’s what has kept me with Linspire for so long. Suspend works in Linspire out of the box. I’m not really willing to give that up. I’m not sure if the 2.4 kernel is up to it, but I’ll have to get suspend/resume working if I’m going to continue using Slack. Or speed up the boot time to under a minute :)

Lastly, here’s a great Slackware FAQ.

Share This

Related Stories

Geeky Fun: Xandros Linux.
HOWTO: Become Another User Without Logging Off.
Post to Twitter via the terminal
Geeky Fun: I Sit Again at My Linspire Box.
15 Javascript code snippets

POSTED IN: Geeky Fun