How to Install and Run Slackware 13
Posted by:
Joshua Price on January 21st, 2010
A former co-worker once told me “If you want to learn Debian, install Debian. If you want to learn Fedora, install Fedora. If you want to learn
Linux, install Slackware.” The philosophy behind Slackware is to keep the system as UNIX-like as possible. There’s not a lot of automatic configuration and you won’t find many bells and whistles, but you’d be hard set to find a more stable and mature distribution. In fact, Slackware is one of the few distros still in existence from Linux’s early days, right along with Debian, SuSE, and Red Hat. Because of this decision to keep things as UNIX-like as possible, Slackware has a reputation for being somewhat difficult to install and confusing to use. While this has been true for a long time, there have been some great improvements in the past few releases, and now seems like a great time to run a guide on this often misunderstood distribution.
Getting Slackware
Torrent downloads for Slackware 13 can be found
here. I’ll be using the full DVD ISO for this article as it includes all the packages necessary for a typical install.
Booting the Installer
After burning the ISO to DVD and rebooting, you’ll be taken to the initial boot screen, pick a keymap, and log in.
Setting up Disks
Chances are, before you can begin the install, you’ll need to set up some partitions. The Slackware Install DVD provides fdisk (purely text-based) and cfdisk (semi-graphical interface) to do the job. In general I’d recommend cfdisk, as I think it’s easier to navigate.
If you’re unsure how to set up the partitions, check out
A Quick Guide to Linux Partition Schemes.
Once you’re finished with your partitioning, make sure you write the changes to disk and exit the partitioner. You’ll be taken back to the command line, and we can begin the install. Slackware has an installer built into the install DVD, which you can launch by typing
setup
As long as the partitioning has been done correctly, you’ll be taken to the opening screen of the installer.
The first thing we’ll do is set the target partition. This will be whichever partition you created in fdisk or cfdisk that you intend to be root (/). In my example screenshots above, it would be
/dev/hda1. Next you’ll choose your filesystem. There’s no right or wrong choice here, there are pros and cons to most of the filesystem options. If unsure, ext4 is a good choice.
Installing the System
When asked to choose the installation source, pick
Install from Slackware CD or DVD and let it scan for the drive. You’ll then be taken to the first package installation screen.
If you’re looking to save on space, some of those can be removed without negatively affecting your installation. Deselecting KDE, for example, would greatly reduce disk space needed.
The next step is choosing just how much detail you want to go into when choosing packages. The
Full option will install everything,
minus the items you deselected in the previous step and is by far the simplest option.
Menu and
Expert give a good balance between ease and flexibility, allowing you to choose from groups of packages. If you choose one of those options, you’ll be given several screens, one group per screen. Choose this option only if you’re very familiar with what is and isn’t essential your system. We’ll be proceeding using the Full option.
Once you’ve chosen your packages, installation will truly begin. Chances are this will take a while. A long while. A nice feature of the Slackware installer is that it gives descriptions of each package as it installs. You can learn quite a bit by simply watching the packages install and reading what they do.
Installing the Boot Loader
Once the file copy is complete, you’ll be asked if you want to make a USB recovery key. Take your pick from the suggestions provided and you’ll be brought to the boot loader screen. The somewhat odd thing about this is that Slackware uses the
lilo boot loader instead of GRUB. According to their website:
Slackware holds to the “tried and true” standard for what gets included inside the distribution. While GRUB works well and includes some features that LILO does not, LILO handles all the essential tasks of a boot loader reliably with a proven track record.
Our example partitions are quite simple so we’ll proceed with the automatic.
Reminder: Installing any boot loader overwrite whatever boot loader may already be in place.
Once you choose the screen resolution for startup and some other minor prompts, you’ll be taken to the screen asking where exactly lilo should be installed. If Slackware is the only operating system on this computer, it should be perfectly ok to install at the default location, the MBR. If you intend to use lilo with other operating systems or without overwriting the MBR, see a more detailed guide such as
this.
After that you choose mouse type (default should be fine) and whether or not to include
gpm (recommended).
Network Config
Network configuration in most situations can be left automatic with DHCP. You’d probably know if you needed a special IP or anything. Hostname can be whatever you like, “slackware” is a good standby. When it comes to domain name, unless you have a specific reason, there’s no need to worry about whether or not it’s a “real” domain name, you can put in anything, like
mynetwork.rox.
Final Setup
At the Startup Services screen, you can choose… well… startup services. The defaults are all good choices but there are some you may wish to enable or disable, such as CUPS printing or SSH.
Next up is one of the nice little additions that made Slackware a little more endearing to me, a menu to test and set console fonts. Not much utility but a nice touch.
When you’ve finished picking a font and entering time settings, you’ll get to choose which of the desktop environments you’d like to run.
Once you set a new root password, you’re ready to reboot into your new Slackware system. Don’t forget to create a new user once you’ve rebooted so you won’t be running as root. Your desktop environment can be started from the console with the command
Installing New Software
Even if you installed the full 4GB system, there will eventually be some things you want that Slackware doesn’t have preinstalled. This is where a lot of people give up on Slackware, because unlike most other modern Linux distributions, it has no automated online package manager with dependency resolution and such. That means nothing like
apt-get or
yum or other such tools by default. This can make package management and upgrades a much more tedious process. There is an alternative, however, to get that functionality. To cover all the bases, here are the three main methods for software installation in Slackware:
Method 1: Slackware Packages
This is how it’s “supposed” to be done. Some software developers make Slackware packages (in .tgz format) available for download, and others can be found on sites such as
LinuxPackages.net. Once downloaded, you just open a terminal and enter
Código:
installpkg package_name.tgz
Update – MTE readers have suggested SlackBuilds.org and Slacky.eu as better places to find Slackware packages and build scripts.
Method 2: Compile From Source
As with all Linux, you almost always have the option of compiling programs directly from the source code. If you need a refresher on that, check out
How to Install Software from a Tarball in Linux.
Method 3: Slapt-get
As the name implies,
slapt-get is an apt-like tool for Slackware. It can be used to install, remove, and upgrade packages. The output is nearly identical to apt-get in many places so it should be familiar to most Debian/Ubuntu users.
Unlike apt-get, slapt-get parameters start with double dashes (–). Some common ones include:
- –update Refresh lists of packages
- –upgrade Perform system upgrade
- –install Install a specific package
- –remove Remove a package
- –search Find keyword in package lists
That should be enough to get you started. If you run into any trouble, check out the
Revised Slackware Book Project. Happy Slacking!
