A Penguin in the Orchard

Slack Blogcast Start

I’m doing a Slackware install this afternoon. This one’s got a bit of a twist from the previous installs. I’m installing the late beta version of Slack 9.0. One of my Penguin Shell readers suggested it, and provided a script to get all the necessary files and create an iso image. [ Go ahead and get it. If you’re using Mozilla or Netscape, you’ll have to Shift+Click on the link and select “Save File As …” ]. The script worked flawlessly. So well, in fact, that I forgot I’d started it until at least an hour after everything was finished. I burned the disc, and here you go.

The first item in the install is selecting the kernel. I just hit enter to select the “bare” kernel. Next is the selection of a keyboard layout - US, obviously. Next, I logged in as “root” without a password. I’m given the following choices:

To partition your hard drive(s), us ‘cfdisk’ or ‘fdisk’.
To activate PCMCIA/Cardbus devices needed for installation, type ‘pcmcia’.
To activate network devices needed for installation, type ‘network’.
To start the main installation, type ’setup’.

I don’t have PCMCIA devices in the machine, and will install packages from the disc rather than a network connection. I do need to partition, however.

fdisk /dev/hda

I’ve been a bit spoiled by the OTB distributions I’ve installed of late. I haven’t had to use fdisk for a bit. No problem, though, despite some rust. I divvied up this drive into /, /boot, swap, and /home partitions. I formatted the partitions as ext3. The only confusing element of setting the target partitions (right after using fdisk to partition and format) is remembering to set the / partition first. I took them in list order first, which made my intended /boot partition the / partition. Correcting it was easy - I just could have saved the step had I remembered this.

I’m starting the package selection right now. Let me post this (I’ll try to pause and post every ten minutes or so), and I’ll be right back.