Slack 11 boots up -- some first impressions

[Glen Strom]

On Fri, 09 Mar 2007 05:34:58 -0500
"Paul King" <sciguy-Ja3L+HSX0kI at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> Here now are my first impressions after booting once with Slack 11.
> 
> This time, it would seem that in order to install slackware, I have
> to log in as root, and manually mount my filesystem under a
> virtual /mnt directory. Otherwise, pkgtool won't work.

I've never installed Slackware from a DVD, but I would think the
process would be similar to the CD install.

To install Slackware, all you need to do is type "root", press
Enter, and then type "setup" and press Enter. The install process
starts. You don't need to mount anything.


> But you see,
> in order to install stuff, I would have to also manually format the
> install partitions (there being apparently no install script to
> streamline this process for me). To be fair, I only booted once with
> the DVD, and I could have missed something, but I don't recall being
> given any other choice other than logging on as root.
> 
You could try cfdisk -- it has an easier-to-use interface. In fact, the
author of fdisk even suggests this. Although cfdisk doesn't seem to
have an option for creating an ext3 filesystem, you can do that
during the install process. (That is, if you're using ext3. You can also
create a reiser filesystem if that's what you prefer.)

>From the fdisk man page:

"There are several *fdisk programs around. Each has its problems and
strengths. Try them in the order cfdisk, fdisk, sfdisk. (Indeed, cfdisk
is a beautiful program that has strict requirements on the partition
tables it accepts, and produces high quality partition tables. Use it
if you can. fdisk is a buggy program that does fuzzy things - usually
it happens to produce reasonable results. Its single advantage is that
it has some support for BSD disk labels and other non-DOS partition
tables. Avoid it if you can. sfdisk is for hackers only - the user
interface is terrible, but it is more correct than fdisk and more
powerful than both fdisk and cfdisk. Moreover, it can be used
noninteractively.) These days there also is parted. The cfdisk
interface is nicer, but parted does much more: it not only resizes
partitions, but also the filesystems that live in them."

> Slackware was one of the first Linux distros I've tried, back in '95
> (when it was part of a TransAmeritech distro). I do not recall it
> being this difficult to use, even going by 1995 standards.
> 
If you haven't installed Slackware in some time, it would probably be
useful if you re-read the Slackware-HOWTO.txt file. It walks you
through the entire process.

-- 
Glen Strom
gstrom-R6A+fiHC8nRWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org
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