Posts Tagged ‘Linux’

A while ago, I posted here about Fluxbox on Debian Linux. Fluxbox is a window manager or graphical user interface for Linux and Unix environments running X.

Thursday night, I gave a presentation on Fluxbox at my local LUG. You can download a PDF of the handout here.

The handout is not a stand-alone document; it was written to accompany the presentation and the accompanying hands-on demonstration, but it can give you an idea of some of the things you can do with Fluxbox.

At the end of the document are links to sources of detailed information about Fluxbox.

I have just installed VirtualBox on one of my Slackware computers. I should have fun testing stuff on that and letting you all know what I find out.

This is the fifth of series of posts on installing Slackware Linux. The previous parts:

Part 1: Considered why some persons find Slackware difficult to install.

Part 2: Partitioned the hard drive for a clean install, as opposed to an upgrade or a dual boot installation.

Part 3: Formatted the swap drive and target drive and pointed the computer to the source media.

Part 4: Installed the operating system and included software and configured LiLo (the Linux Loader).

This post looks at the final steps of configuring the system.

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This is the fourth part of a series on installing Slackware Linux.

Part 1: Considered why some persons find Slackware difficult to install.

Part 2: Partitioned the hard drive for a clean install, as opposed to an upgrade or a dual boot installation.

Part 3: Formatted the swap drive and target drive and pointed the computer to the source media.

Now it’s time to put Slackware on the box.

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Yesterday, we looked at using cfdisk to partition the hard drive (this morning, I changed to the title of that post to make it more accurate).

Today we will look at formatting drives and selecting the target drive for the installation.

We left off yesterday by exiting cfdisk and returning to the command line. To enter the installation program, type “setup” at the command line and press enter.

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Update: I changed “formatting” to “partitioning” in the title to make it more descriptive.

This is the second of several posts on installing Slackware Linux. The first post is here.

Before installing Slackware or any operating system, you have to have the installation media. I use CDs because some of my computers are old enough that they do not speak “bootable DVD.” For most Linux distributions I try, I simply download *.ISO files and burn CDs from them. Almost every DVD/CD burning program includes the ability to burn CDs from *.ISO files, but sometimes you have to hunt around a bit to find it.

(If you haven’t burned from an *.ISO file before, read the burner help file; all that copying the *.ISO to the CD does is give you a backup of the file, not a usable disk. I know; I’ve done it even after I knew better).

The computer needs to be set to boot from the CD drive before booting from the hard drive; this setting is found in the BIOS. See the note at the end of this post for pointers about setting the computer to boot from the CD.

Slackware 13.0, which I used in this test, comes in a six CD set; three of the CDs are installation CDs. Three contain extra programs and source code (under the terms of the GPL, source code must be made available to users–hence the term “open source”). Slackware does not have a live CD, which allows you to boot from the CD and test the OS without installing it, but there is a Slackware-based live CD project called “Slax.”

So, let’s boot this puppy.

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For some time now I’ve wanted to write a post on how to install Slackware Linux. I even had a bunch of pictures taken and kept getting distracted, then a new version came in the mail. I’ve finally sprung the time to set it up and will devote several posts to installing and configuring Slackware Linux.

About Slackware:

Slackware is the oldest named Linux distribution. It is also supposed to be the “most Unix like.” I cannot speak to that because I’ve never used Unix. I can say that in the Unix user group in my new area, my first impression is that most of the old Unix heads seem to be using Slackware.

Indeed, Slackware is venerable enough in the short history of Linux that it has given its name to a family of distributions, which are described as Slackware-based, Debian-based, or Fedora-based. (Of the ones I’ve tested, Ubuntu is Debian-based and CentOS is Fedora-based. I am currrently using Ubuntu on my laptop and my netbook because they came that way from the factory and if it ain’t broke etc.; my desktops all run Slackware.)

Slackware is conservative, not cutting edge. In the choice between “new” and “stable,” stable wins out.

Ease (or Not) of Install:

There are some Linux users who will claim that Slackware is difficult to install. (They do not, of course, use Slackware.)

Others, true geeky snobs, take the position that anything less than Slackware really is not Linux. There is one fellow currently participating in the newsgroup, alt.os.linux.slackware, whose signature includes something like this (I’ve edited it slightly):

“Ubuntu”: an African word meaning “I can’t figure out Slackware.”

The truth is this: Installing Slackware is not very difficult, but it is more difficult than installing and using many other Linux distributions. This is primarily because Slackware expects the user to be able to use either Linux fdisk (command line) or Linux cfdisk (menu-driven) to prepare the hard drive to receive the installation. (Linux cfdisk is similar to DOS fdisk). Most other distributions I’ve tested default to suggesting a formatting scheme and giving the option of doing it yourself.

Consequently, someone who has never formatted a hard drive is quickly confronted by a bunch of unfamiliar stuff to do and can understandably go up a tree complaining that “This Slackware stuff is too hard for me.”

Testbed:

The computer I’m using is a Pentium III 1000 with three hard drives:

• 40 GB IDE drive jumpered as master.
• 4 GB slave IDE drive jumpered as slave.
• 4 GB slave SCSI drive jumpered as slave (the primary drive when the computer started its life as a WindowsNT server; I added the other two).

Over the next several days, I’ll describe the initial installation and configuration of the operating system. This is not intended to be a text book install–I’m hardly qualified to write a text book–but rather one person’s lessons learned.

1966 – The Johnniac Open Shop System (JOSS) was taken down by the RAND Corporation. It was set up to relive bottlenecks in programming batches, but more and newer work pretty much took the JOSS to the limit and ultimately became a bottleneck. Therefore, the system was taken offline indefinitely.

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Other Historical Events in Technology

• Digital Computers discontinues the Rainbow
• CRUX Linux 0.5.3 Released
• Starbucks announces they will switch from T-Mobile to AT&T at their stores.

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Did you want a Netbook with a Touch screen? The Asus EeePC Touch Netbook will be for you. Last year we stopped at the ASUS booth and became impressed with their touch screen technologies in smaller computers. Well, this netbook will definitely continue the trend.

The Touch Netbook has an ATOM z520 – 1.33 GHz processor, 512MB L2 Cache, 533 MHz Front Side Bus, DDR2 memory, 32MB  SSD and 500 GB Web Storage. It also comes with USB ports, audio jacks and a RJ-45 connector.  Price point will be around $470 – compared to the 32 GB iPad, which has a slower processor for $599.  And it will do Linux or Windows 7.

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The Guardian documents a case of creeping jargon: The UK is going to create its own “cloud“:

By 2015, the strategy suggests, 80% of central government desktops could be supplied through a “shared utility service” – essentially a cloud service resembling Google Docs, which lets people create documents online for free.

The move to a “government cloud” mirrors the system used by Google and other large companies, which put cheap “server” computers into huge data centres to provide computing power on demand which is delivered where it is needed via the internet. That would be provided to government departments and local government, replacing the ageing and inefficient systems used in many of the hundreds of data centres presently used – and frequently run at far below their capacity because they are dedicated to one department.

Buried in the story, though, is some news I find exciting: they are encouraging a move to open source. From the same story:

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Computers are getting smaller. With a processor like an ATOM Z530 – that needs no fan – and an Intel US15W chipset, you can have a computer in your pocket. Add Video, keyboard and mouse, your computer is set.

Todd Cochrane finds a great box in Compulab called the FitPC2. The device runs at 1.6 GHz and can display an image up to 1920×1080. 6 USDB ports and 802.11g wireless among other cool features. Run Windows XP or Windows 7 and even Linux on this machine.

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Other Technology History Facts

• Version 2.2 of Linux
• Jini Network Architecture
• Judge reinstates how Microsoft can incorporate Sun Java

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