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402 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Patrick decided to take the leap to separate Slackware from SLS after MacDonald suggested that Slackware was infringing on his copyrights (despite the only license on the SLS code saying, Distribute freely; do not restrict. ). Patrick: So, I promised Peter that I would write a new installer for Slackware instead of using a modified SLS one, and that the new installer would be the next change made to Slackware online. Did the great success of Slackware from the get-go surprise him? Patrick: Absolutely. I knew it worked better than the other distributions that were out at the time, but I didn t expect the kind of mass exodus from SLS that occurred. What kind of person would choose Slackware over other Linux distros? Patrick: It seems to attract the kind of users who want to configure software the old-fashioned way (using a text editor), and who don t want a lot of unnecessary things running in the background. I try to compile software with as few of my own changes as possible, which also makes it pretty easy to update things from source if you decide to go that route. In the early days of Linux I think most of the users were like this, and as time has moved on and various distributions have focused on different markets, the profile of the average Linux user has changed quite a lot. Most of today s commercial Linux distributions seem to target a user who wants to administer his machine with a point-and-click interface much like Windows. Slackware and other lower-level distributions serve a different niche users who don t mind a learning curve if it means the operating system will stay out of their way. Today, Patrick is still the Project Lead and maintains complete control over Slackware s features and release schedule. In this arrangement, Patrick can choose the features to include, and he s doesn t add features that don t suit him (even popular ones). This is how Patrick characterizes the Slackware development process: Patrick: Most of what I do is research(trying to figure out where Linux is going so I can make (I hope) sane choices about what to implement. There s not really a core development team (which really streamlines the development process by sidestepping the usual time-wasting squabbles that usually happen in any official development hierarchy). But I get a ton of help from people who e-mail me with problems or suggestions that lead to an upgrade or fix somewhere in the system. The best way to keep up with Slackware development issues is to read the Change Logs (available from the Slackware home page). Slackware aficionados expect releases on an it s ready when it s ready schedule, as the Slackware FAQ notes: As things are built for the upcoming release, they ll be uploaded into the -current
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Chapter 14 . Running Slackware Linux 401 Anything you can do with other Linux distributions, you can do with Slackware. It might just take a bit more manual work to get there. Slackware doesn t yet officially use a full-featured package management system, such as the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) or Debian s deb files. However, some software package management tools are compatible with Slackware s native package format: gzipped tar archives. (I describe these tools later.) In general, however, most Slackware users become adept at building and installing their own applications (using tar, make, and similar tools). Slackware comes with a good set of libraries that will take care of the dependency needs of most Linux applications. However, for video, audio, and some other types of applications, you may find yourself hunting around for libraries. The tools for satisfying package dependencies (such as yum and apt) that save you this trouble in other distributions are beginning to be developed or adapted to Slackware. Characterizing the Slackware Community Like many other successful Linux distributions, Slackware was started by a strongminded individual who created the kind of Linux system that suited him. Slackware users are people who pretty much agree with him. The Slackware Creator Patrick Volkerding started Slackware in 1993 as a Linux distribution to use for himself and his friends. He was kind enough to answer some questions I had about Slackware, and I want to share his answers with you here: Patrick originally used a Linux distribution called SLS Linux (named after Soft Landing Linux, the company that made it). Why didn t he just contribute to SLS instead of starting his own distribution? Patrick: I tried. By April of 1993 I had collected a huge list of bugs in SLS, along with the fixes for most of them. Plenty of people tried to get these to Peter MacDonald (SLS s author/maintainer) but the bugs in SLS (many of which were quite obvious) never seemed to get fixed. Of course, I d started work on my patched version of SLS with no plan to try to launch a lasting distribution. I figured I d get it online and SLS would fix the issues, and that might just be that. SLS was a great distribution and isn t given enough credit for all the ideas that started there. Unfortunately it was while Peter was busy working on inventing kernel modules that SLS sat online for a few months full of bugs and not getting any updates. Note
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400 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution If something goes wrong, it can be hard to debug a problem with most graphical interfaces. The Slackware installer is menu-based, very flexible, and quite intuitive. . Less bloat In general, graphical interfaces consume far more resources than their command-line counterparts. GUIs require more room on the distribution medium, plus more hard disk space and more RAM. Slackware relies primarily on basic Linux commands, text-based configuration files, and some simple menu-driven administration tools. With a Slackware 10.2 system, you can install a basic but functional command-line version on a 100MB hard disk. . Better for low-end computers Slackware is the first distribution I recommend to run on low-end machines. A special ZipSlack distribution (www.slackware.com/zipslack) can be installed from a 100MB Zip drive or floppy disks. ZipSlack can install on a 386 PC with as little as 4MB of RAM. Even with the latest Slackware distribution, if you want a GUI, the installation procedure for Slackware lets you choose small, efficient window managers, Web browsers, mail clients, and other graphical tools. . Packages as projects intended Slackware doesn t mold the software it includes into one look-and-feel. The Apache Web server, KDE desktop, or Samba file/printer sharing projects work pretty much as they are delivered from those projects. So, again, the knowledge you gain from using those projects will transfer fairly easily to those same projects on other Linux systems. Instead of providing a unified look-and-feel, Slackware gives you the maximum amount of control. It allows the desktop environment or window manager you choose to dictate the desktop presentation. You can change your desktop as you like, using the menus or preference windows that come with those environments. A full KDE desktop environment is included with Slackware (contained mostly on the second of two Slackware installation CDs). Or you can opt for a lighter, more efficient window manager, such as XFCE4, fvwm2, or twm. The GNOME desktop environment was dropped from Slackware 10.2. Patrick Volkerding, Slackware s creator/maintainer, cited demands of keeping up with GNOME development changes and some GNOME features that don t match Slackware objectives (such as including PAM and replacing some system packages, such as X11). Volkerding suggests two projects if you want to add GNOME yourself to your own installation of Slackware: http://gsb.sf.net and http://gware.sf.net. For system administration, Slackware offers some tools based on the ncurses textmode windowing library. Ncurses allows an application to provide a screen-oriented interface on a character terminal, so you can use forms, menus and sometimes even a mouse to configure some basic Linux features from any shell (no X-based GUI required). Note
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Running Slackware Linux Ask old-time Linux users about the first Linux distribution they used and many will tell you it was Slackware. Slackware is the oldest Linux distribution still actively developed today. Although it does not have a fancy graphical installer or specialized GUI tools, Slackware still has a loyal following and is a good way to get a basic Linux system that is both secure and stable. This chapter explores the Slackware distribution, discusses its strengths and weaknesses, and introduces those who use it. It also explains how to install Slackware. The two Slackware 10.2 CD images are on the DVD for this book. You can burn those images to CD, as describe in Appendix A. You can also buy Slackware from the Slackware Store (http://store.slackware.com). Getting into Slackware Although full graphical installs and GUI administration tools can make installing and configuring Linux easy, those tools carry with them some overhead. They also hide some of the details of how Linux is being configured. Ask Slackware devotees the value of Slackware and they might recite their mantra, the 4S Rule : Stable, Solid, Simple, and Sensible. By keeping things basic, Slackware offers the following advantages: . Better comprehension Because you use commands and configuration files with Slackware, you learn more about how Linux works on the inside. Most graphical installers and GUI tools hide the actual configuration that is going on and often limit the features you can use. On the DVD-ROM 1C H A4P4T E R . . . . In This Chapter Getting into Slackware Characterizing the Slackware community Installing Slackware Starting Slackware . . . .
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398 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution 33. Install a Desktop. For most of us, it s not much fun just working from the command line. The following command installs a basic set of desktop packages, including the X Window System (xfree), KDE desktop (kde), Mozilla browser (mozilla), and Openoffice.org office suite (openoffice-bin). This takes a long time to install over the network! # emerge xfree kde mozilla openoffice-bin As an alternative, if you have these packages available on CD-ROM, you can type the following commands to identify the location of the packages and install them from that location: # export PKGDIR= /mnt/cdrom/packages # emerge -k xfree gnome kde mozilla openoffice-bin You can also save some time by installing only GNOME or KDE (not both). If you don t plan to create documents or spreadsheets, you probably don t need to install openoffice-bin either. 34. Configure the X server. Now that your desktop software is installed, you need to configure the X Window System to work properly with your video card and monitor. Type the following to configure your video card and monitor: # /usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config At this point you should have a working Gentoo system. For further documentation, check out www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml. Summary In just a few years, Gentoo has distinguished itself as a premier distribution for Linux enthusiasts who are interested in complete control of the components and settings of their Linux systems. The jewel of the Gentoo system is the Portage package management system. Using the Portage emerge command, you can install any of thousands of Gentoo software packages. Those packages can be downloaded and built from scratch, using settings you choose to tune them for how you use your Linux system. If you don t want to learn about the inner-workings of a Linux system (and spend lots of time getting it to work), Gentoo may not be for you. An experienced Linux person usually takes several tries to get Gentoo going, while someone new to Linux may not get it installed and running at all without lots of help. However, if you like to tune and tweak your operating system, Gentoo is a great way to go. . . .
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Chapter 13 . Running Gentoo Linux 397 30. Add kernel modules. Add any extra kernel modules that you need to add at boot time. You usually need to do this only if some piece of hardware isn t detected and the module needed to use it isn t automatically loaded. Edit either the kernel-2.4 or kernel-2.6 file, depending on which kernel you are using. # nano -w /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel- You can type uname -a to see what your current kernel version is. 31. Configure the boot loader. You need to install a boot loader (grub in this example) and configure it. The example makes the following assumptions about your setup: Gentoo is installed on your first IDE hard disk (/dev/hda). You have a separate /boot partition on /dev/hda1. Your initrd file in the /boot directory is initrd-2.4.26-gentoo-r9. Your kernel file in the /boot directory is kernel-2.4.26-gentoo-r9. If any of that information is different for your setup, you need to adapt the following step appropriately. To configure grub, install it with emerge, run the grub command, and then create the grub.conf file as follows: # emerge grub # grub grub> root (hd0,0) grub> setup (hd0) grub> quit # nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf default 0 timeout 15 splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz title=Gentoo Linux root (hd0,0) kernel /kernel-2.6.13-gentoo-r3 root=/dev/hda0 initrd /initrd-2.6.13-gentoo-r3 32. Reboot. Exit from your chroot partition by running umount to unmount all partitions and then rebooting as follows: # exit; cd / # umount /mnt/gentoo/proc /mnt/gentoo # reboot Remove the installation disk and allow the computer to boot from hard disk. After a few moments, you should see the GRUB boot screen. Select Gentoo Linux (press Enter). From here on you will be booting from the hard disk and working directly from the operating system you installed. If you see error messages, such as missing kernel drivers, I recommend that you go to http://forums.gentoo.com and search for the driver that s causing problems. Chances are that someone else has had the same problem and can offer you a solution. Note
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396 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution 26. Configure system services. Install your system services system logger, cron service, hotplug, and reiserfs service and set the domain name. Then turn on each of those services, as follows: # emerge syslog-ng # rc-update add syslog-ng default # emerge vixie-cron # rc-update add vixie-cron default # emerge hotplug # rc-update add hotplug default # emerge reiserfsprogs # rc-update add domainname default 27. Add special driver support. There may be particular kernel modules required by your computer at this point. For example, if you have a special Ethernet adapter or a special type of video card, use the emerge command to install kernel modules now. You may not need any of them. Here are a few examples: # emerge nvidia-kernel # emerge nforce-audio # emerge e100 # emerge e1000 # emerge emu10k1 # emerge ati-drivers These emerge command lines are used only if you have special hardware associated with the kernel drivers. Respectively, those commands load drivers for accelerated Nvidia video cards, audio for Nvidia NForce motherboards, Intel e100 Fast Ethernet cards, Intel e1000 Gigabit Ethernet cards, Sound Blaster Live!/Audigy support for 2.4 kernel, and ATI Radeon+/FireGL graphics acceleration video cards. 28. Add user and machine information. Add a password for the root user, a regular user account name of your choosing (chris in this example), a machine name, and a domain name. If you like, you can also edit the /etc/hosts and /etc/rc.conf files to add IP addresses and host name or change the basic system startup script. # passwd # useradd chris -m -G users,wheel,audio -s /bin/bash # passwd chris # echo mymachine > /etc/hostname # echo mydomain.com > /etc/dnsdomainname # nano -w /etc/hosts # nano -w /etc/rc.conf 29. Set up networking. Edit the net file, and then run rc-update to add the eth0 interface as the default. (Uncomment the line iface eth0= dhcp to have the network use DHCP to start up automatically.) # nano -w /etc/conf.d/net # rc-update add net.eth0 default
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Chapter 13 . Running Gentoo Linux 395 22. Set the time zone. Use the following command: # ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/path /etc/localtime You need to replace path with the path to the file that represents the time zone your computer is in. For example, the entire path for Central time in the United States is /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Central. 23. Create file system table. Add the file systems you want to mount automatically at boot time to your /etc/fstab file. Here s an example: # nano -w /etc/fstab Here s what /etc/fstab might look like (given the partitions created earlier in this example procedure): # /dev/hda1 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 2 /dev/hda2 none swap sw 0 0 /dev/hda3 / reiserfs noatime 0 1 /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,user 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 24. Build kernel. Either install a prebuilt kernel or build one yourself. To build one, you need a kernel sources package (gentoo-sources is recommended). Type the emerge command as follows to get the gentoo-sources package: # emerge gentoo-sources Next, use the following command to get the genkernel package and configure a kernel using menuconfig: # emerge genkernel # genkernel –menuconfig all After you have made any changes you want to your kernel configuration, select Exit, and then choose Yes to save it. At this point, genkernel makes your new kernel. This takes a while. Configuring your own kernel can be quite tricky at first. If you run into problems, refer to the Gentoo Linux Handbook (www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/ handbook-x86.xml). Select Section 7, Configuring the Kernel, for further information. After genkernel is complete, note the names of the kernel and boot loader. (Type ls /boot to see names that are similar to initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.13- gentoo-r3 and kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.13-gentoo-r3.) 25. Add coldplug. Type the following to enable coldplug (so hardware outside of that which is detected during initialization is detected and configured automatically): # emerge coldplug # rc-update add coldplug boot Note
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394 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution 13. Extract the stage 1 tarball. Use the following commands: # cd /mnt/gentoo # tar -xvjpf /mnt/gentoo/tmp2/stage1-*.tar.bz2 You can remove the stage1 tarball once you have untarred it. 14. Select mirror site. Use the mirrorselect command to search for a Gentoo mirror site from which you can efficiently download the files you need to do the install. Run the following command to select an efficient mirror and add it to your make.conf file (it will take a while to test download speed from more than 150 servers): # mirrorselect -a -s4 -o |grep GENTOO_MIRRORS >> /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf If, when you run emerge commands later in this procedure, you see messages that files are not found from any of the download sites, you might need to add other mirror sites to the make.conf file. 15. Mount file systems. Mount the /proc file system as follows: # mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc 16. Change root directory. Use the chroot command to change /mnt/gentoo to be your root directory, but first copy the resolve.conf file so it can be used from there: # cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf # chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash 17. Update environment. Read in environment variables as follows: # env-update; source /etc/profile 18. Update Portage tree. Type the following command to have the latest package information installed to your /usr/portage directory: # emerge –sync 19. Modify make.conf. Use the nano text editor to change the make.conf file that is used to build your Gentoo system. Here s how: # nano -w /etc/make.conf If you don t know what to change, refer to the /etc/make.conf.example file for information on the settings you may want to change before continuing. If you don t know what processor your computer has, type cat /proc/cpuinfo. 20. Bootstrap Gentoo. Run bootstrap.sh to bootstrap Gentoo as follows: # cd /usr/portage/ ; scripts/bootstrap.sh 21. Install Gentoo. Run the following emerge command to install: # emerge -e system It takes a long time for emerge -e system command to complete. If it fails before it is finished, check that the settings in your make.conf file are correct. Note Note
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Chapter 13 . Running Gentoo Linux 393 Then type h to display a list of commands. (See Chapter 7 for information on using fdisk to partition your hard disk.) Repartitioning your disk destroys existing data on your hard disk. Back up any data you value before starting this procedure. Be sure not to delete or change any partitions that have data on them that you want to keep. # fdisk /dev/hda 8. Make file systems. To create the appropriate file systems on your disk partitions, use the mk2fs and mkswap commands. For example, with an IDE hard drive that has the first partition as the boot partition (/dev/hda1), the second as swap (/dev/hda2), and the third as the root (/) partition (/dev/hda3), you can type the following: # mke2fs /dev/hda1 # mkswap /dev/hda2 # mkreiserfs /dev/hda3 9. Turn on swap. Use the swapon command to turn on your swap partition. For our example (with hda2 being the swap partition), type: # swapon /dev/hda2 10. Mount root (/) partition. You need to mount the root (/) partition temporarily to begin installing Gentoo to it. In this example (with the root file system on /dev/hda3), type: # mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo 11. Mount the /boot partition. Next, mount the boot partition so you can install boot files to that partition: # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot # mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot 12. Get the stage1 tarball. Assuming that you have the minimal Gentoo installation CD, you need to download the stage1 tarball. Find a mirror site near you (as described earlier). Then make a directory on your hard disk to copy it to and download the tarball using a tool such as wget. Here is an example: If you are using the universal CD, the stage1 tarball is available there. Instead of downloading it, jump to the next step and extract the tarball from /mnt/cdrom/ stages/stage1*.tar.bz2. # mkdir /mnt/gentoo/tmp2 # cd /mnt/gentoo/tmp2 # wget -c http://gentoo.osuosl.org/releases/x86/2005.1/ stages/x86/stage1-x86-2005.1.tar.bz2 The wget command, which appears on multiple lines here, should all be typed on one line. (There s no space between the slash at the end of the first line and the word stages at the beginning of the next.) If the download should stop in the middle, you can restart it by running the same command again in the same directory. Note Note Caution
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