Slackware is the oldest surviving Linux distribution out there. For those who believe that Slackware was the first Linux distribution I have news, because SLS was before Slackware, but that is another story. It is the most
*NIX like distribution and has borrowed many of the things we can find in
BSD *NIX. Here is a mini-review of their latest release, 9.0.Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
Test hardware: eManchines T2200 with:
AMD AthlonXP 2200+ CPU 512 DDRAM @ 266 (2x133) WD 100Gb Hard Disk ATI Radeon 9000 Pro accelerator Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Realtek RTL8139 NIC Samsug DVD Rom 16x Sony CD-RW 48-16-40 USB Keyboard PS/2 Wheel Mouse Cable Modem (connected to NIC) Samsung SyncMaster 171v LCD Monitor HP PSC 2110 Printer&Scanner (USB)Installation Process
I would like to say for the first that I didn't only download *just* the official ISO released by Slackware; I also downloaded all of the other stuff from the /slackware-9 directory including zip-slack (which by the way I've never tried). I also did not upgrade from 8.1 to 9.0 for two reasons:
1) I don't like to upgrade distributions, unless it is absolutely necessary that I do so.
2) This release is compiled with gcc 3.2.2 so everything needs to be replaced anyway.
The installation process we all know from 8.1 and earlier releases hasn't
changed much. In fact, it is almost the same with some
improvements. After the CD booted, I was asked to select a kernel and press
*Notice for newbies and those who don't know: every Linux distribution
loads a kernel before the install process starts, but Slackware just asks
before so that it can load one with specific drivers for specific hardware.
I selected my keyboard mapping and logged in as root without introducing
any password. This may seem a little strange to people who are used to
distributions like Mandrake or Red Hat, but it is normal. I've typed cfdisk
(utility for partitioning a hard disk, pretty intuitive IMHO), and made a
Linux partition and a swap partition. This is not a server, only a desktop,
so I won't make any extra partitions like for /usr or /home. After this I
simply typed "setup" and I've entered in the installation program. The
program looks a little like the install from Free BSD, but it is very
intuitive, although text based. Many users get scared when they see text
based installers and very often they don't take a Linux distribution into
consideration only because of this particular reason. So, after the
installer formated and mounted my swap partition, it did the same thing to
my Linux partition. Before formatting, it gave me 3 choices: ext2, ext3 or
ReiserFS. Only these three filesystems are supported by the default bare.i
pre-compiled kernel. I formated my Linux partition as ReiserFS
(quickformat).
I will not get into depth with the package installation, but I do want to mention
this to those who are new to Linux or Slackware: Slackware's package
management system doesn't check for dependencies, so when you install just
make sure you install the bases system and all the libraries if you are
unsure what to install, but I'm sure that everybody will get along here
because the install process is intuitive as I said before. Actually,
Slackware is mainly focused on simplicity.
After installing what I needed, the installer asked me if I have a modem,
and I said no, and then it asked which kernel to use. But I already
installed the kernel-ide package, so I didn't need any kernel from the CD.
After that it asked me about how to install Lilo (the boot manager). You can
configure Lilo manually at install or let the software install it for you. I
choose "Simple Install" and I was done with Lilo. Next step was the network
configuration. I think this is much easier than in some other distributions.
It asks for hostname, domainname, IP configuration, static or DHCP, and then
it autodetects the NIC and installs the driver for it (well, actually it is
a kernel module, like all other drivers :) ). After this, console
fonts, mouse type, and time zone configurations followed. Finally it asked me
for a root password and I was done.
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