After some initial toolings in Arch and Gentoo, I settled on Slackware…which was my first distribution I tried ever in 1995.  It felt good to be coming back to Slackware…there is a simple elegance about it.  It’s ultimately fast on just about every system I’ve put it on.  I really like the unix like rc files Slackware has; to me, it’s simple to get things working.  This could be because I cut my teeth on Solaris…but then again, I think it’s much easier to manage system services by making an rc file executable (chmod).  Sure Red Hat style is ok with ‘service name start|restart|stop’ but I really like going into a directory, listing it out, and seeing all my services that execute on startup in green.  Maybe it’s my nostalgia getting the best of me.  I’m sure that’s it.

Regardless, I stuck with Slackware only a short while because I was interested in XFCE (not that Slack doesn’t have XFCE…just that I wanted to see a distro that prides itself on XFCE) and decided to give Zenwalk 6 a try (I’ve tried Wolvix already…it just didn’t click with me).  I’d heard nothing but good things about this distro and it is Slackware based, which makes all the nostalgic parts of me tingle.

I installed and all I can say is WOW!  It’s a fantastic implementation of XFCE regardless of distribution.  The Slackware speed and rc system are there, greeting me on each startup/login.  XFCE is done brilliantly there and really feels like a superb implementation.  Updating is a snap with netpkg, something I haven’t had any experience with…it does the job nicely though.  Overall, I’m quite satisfied with Zenwalk and will be sticking with it for a while.  I’ll post back from time to time with any tips or tricks I might find as I’m stretching my legs so to speak in my new environment.

Slackware and Zenwalk originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on June 4, 2009.

In its place, I forked out 23 bucks for a PC Chips Socket A motherboard. I then slapped in a spare XP 2600 and I have the newest flavor of SimplyMEPIS and PCLinuxOS installed. It’s running like a champ and is turning out to be the best 23 bucks I’ve spent in some time. For those that want a steady board for Linux, check Newegg here.

Alas, the PII was a good board. I knew it well. So glad I didn’t have to put it down and that I could gracefully retire it on a good note. Now the slowest PC I have is the CentOS 4 gateway/firewall with a Celeron 900 (Emachines w/ a refurb Gateway mATX mobo). Works great. Sorry I couldn’t finish out all those other distros.

In the meantime, I’ve made it my mission to document some really simple things using KDE and Gnome (How-Tos) for stuff that you’d normally do in Windows. I’m attempting to track down the easiest way to setup an anonymous share using KDE and Samba (with no smb.conf or smbpasswd or smbuser alteration…no shell). Thus far this has proved quite challenging. Getting Samba to play nice without passwords and users with full write access on a share is murder. If anyone has tips or links to a great how-to, I’m all ears. Thanks for reading.

The PII 350 MHz Computer Dies?! originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 16, 2006.

Pics of the 350MHz:

STX 1.0

I started off pretty stoked because It is my understanding that STX is built on the solid base of Slackware Linux which happens to be my favorite distro. Boot up went relatively fast on the old PC. I was very impressed with the boot time. Everything was going fine with the install up until the software began to install. The install froze. I figured this wasn’t a good thing (duh!) so I rebooted and repartitioned the hard disk. I then made sure to format with cfdisk (along with some bad block checking). Another bootup and I’m back to installing again.

No dice on this. STX freezes again right as it is getting ready to install software. I decided to let this one sit for a few minutes so I went in and watched an episode of Monk. Coming back in, I can see that we have a kernel panic. I’ve seen this a couple of times with the 2.6.13 kernel and this computer. Perhaps it’s just old and unique? Not sure. For whatever reasons, this PC won’t take an install of STX. I figured that since this only took about 40 minutes, I could try another distro.

Wolvix 1.0.4

I’ve heard good things about Wolvix as well. I’ve heard that XFCE is the default desktop (something I think that many lightweight distros should embrace more often). The Wolvix homepage has an overview of the distro here. I’m looking forward to this distro as well.

Bootup seemed to be going fine until we get to looking for data modules after setting up the Union filesystem. I froze again. This is getting old. Perhaps it REALLY is getting old…the PC that is. Will Linux still be able to install on just any old PC out there? Is this the end for my PII 350? I had such a hard time giving up my PI 75MHz in 2002…that thing wouldn’t quit. It had been a great Linux firewall for four years. Now my PII 350? I sure hope not.

To make sure that I’m not having problems with a bad burn I decided to check both the Wolvix disk and the STX. I brought down my firewall so that I could try an install with it. I run a Celeron 900 in an old Gateway mATX for my firewall/webserver/gateway. No problems installing/booting there with either distro. Perhaps it is the CDROM? I put Slackware 10.2 into the PII 350 and boot up then proceed to install. No problems installing at all. I can install the full distro with all the fixins on the current setup with the CDROM. I’m thinking that this is something with the motherboard and the 2.6.13 kernel. Not sure exactly what it is but it is preventing me from installing these handful of distros.

I’ll have to give up tonight. I’ll try a few more of the distros I listed previously. Sure hope that I can find at least one of these that can give me a nice working XFCE desktop. Thanks for reading.

350 MHz XFCE Desktop Search Continues originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 8, 2006.

Want to Install the 2.6.13 Kernel is Slack but don’t know how? Ask and ye shall receive!

First, mount the CDROM…in my case, it is /dev/hdb

mount -t auto /dev/hdb /mnt/cdrom

or

mount -t auto /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Next, let’s install that Kernel! Insert Slackware Disc 2…then issue the commands below.

installpkg /mnt/cdrom/linux-2.6.13/kernel-source-2.6.13-noarch-1.tgz

installpkg /mnt/cdrom/linux-2.6.13/kernel-modules-2.6.13-i486-1.tgz

installpkg /mnt/cdrom/linux-2.6.13/kernel-headers-2.6.13-i386-1.tgz

installpkg /mnt/cdrom/linux-2.6.13/kernel-generic-2.6.13-i486-1.tgz

installpkg /mnt/cdrom/linux-2.6.13/alsa-driver-1.0.9b_2.6.13-i486.1.tgz

Ok, we’re almost there. Next, do the following:

umount /dev/cdrom

Insert Disk 1, we’ll need initrd from there if you use any filesystem other than ext2…so if you use ext2, you’re done. Otherwise, keep going:

mount -t auto /dev/hdb /mnt/cdrom

or

mount -t auto /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Now that the 1st disc is in and mounted, let’s get mkinitrd installed so we can use it:

installpkg /mnt/cdrom/slackware/a/mkinitrd-1.0.1-i486-3.tgz

Now let’s make it for our filesystem…see[url=ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-10.2/testing/packages/linux-2.6.13/README.initrd] This How-To[/url] for specifics to your filesystem. For me, I use reiserfs…so my command would be as follows…you may use a different filesystem…so please refer to that linked document above for filesystem specifics:

mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.13 -m reiserfs

Now that you generated an initrd…let’s update lilo, the bootloader for it…here’s my /etc/lilo.conf settings for the new kernel. Please note that I did not change any of the global lilo.conf settings such as framebuffer settings and timeouts, etc.:
image = /boot/vmlinuz-generic-2.6.13
root = /dev/hda2
initrd=/boot/initrd.gz
label =”Slaq-10.2″
read-only
Notice the initrd.gz line above is in the /boot directory. I hopped over to that directory to make sure I was referencing the right thing by listing the contents (ls -al) and ensuring that I was pointing to the right image initrd.gz. I’ve seen other how-to’s reference different files…hence, why I’m clarifying this.
Next, update the MBR with the lilo.conf info by executing

lilo

Now reboot, and hopefully things will have gone well for you. If you have any questions, drop a comment. I’ll try to answer any that you may have. Have fun with Slackware! It was my first and favorite and still is! (NOTE: this article was previously published in the forum tips and tricks area. The forum has been absolved and the article moved here)

Slackware 10.2 Tips and Tricks originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 2, 2006.

Slackware 10.2 more than stacks up to my expectations…having not installed slackware since version 9, I was very impressed. XFCE 4.2.2 and KDE 3.4 are just a few of the nice things that come with Slack. My XFCE desktop was decidedly fast…much faster than any other distro that has run on my ancient PII desktop. That in itself is amazing. So amazing in fact that I immediately set out to document as many tips and tricks as I can for all of us slackers

So, I’ve written a nice How-To for installing the 2.6.13 kernel that didn’t come installed by default with 10.2 (Patrick instead opting for the proven 2.4 tree with 2.4.31). I dropped the how-to into the forum in case anyone had questions…since the forum would provide for a much more organized and dynamic way for people to pose questions. You must be registered to post questions (see links at top of the blog). So, if you’re interested in having Slackware 10.2 with a 2.6 branch kernel ( 2.6.13 ) then check it out!

Thanks for reading

Slackware 10.2 + 350Mhz PII = Bliss originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on September 17, 2005.