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Get Slack

This is installment three of my series on Slackware version 13.0. In chapter one I described how I installed Slackware 13.0 on a computer whose primary mission is to run Climate Prediction work units.

In chapter two network setup and changes to /etc were covered along with my reason for preferring the additional step – starting dhcpcd explicitly – before connecting to the Internet.

In this chapter I’m going to talk about moving user data from one Linux distribution to another i.e. from OpenSUSE 10.3 to Slackware 13.0. I believe that Slackware is an appropriate choice not only for advanced users but also for intermediate users who are willing to study and follow instructions. Before creating the normal user(s) there is still a bit of system administration to do. One project is to switch from the huge-smp kernel to a generic-smp kernel. Another task is to make changes to LILO configuration. If you have been reading this series from the beginning, you know that I have made every dumb mistake that could be imagined. So, here is another one – a dumb mistake – which is making more than one change to LILO configuration at a time. Please do not do that.

Starting with Slackware version 12.2 a default boot logo ships with the distribution. The /etc/lilo.conf file is self documenting on this.

You already know of the debt I have with Shilo Bacca of Stockton, CA. Shilo was a leader on the Slackware forum at Linux Questions Dot Org. He documented how to add a boot logo to LILO and gave some sources where the user could get a Linux Bmp to use. So, I’ve been using a LILO graphic boot logo for years. I find that whatever LILO troubles I have had were caused by my trying to make more than one significant change in /etc/lilo.conf at one time instead of making each change seperately then rebooting to make sure that the system still works as expected.

Whenever I do a Slackware installation I’m running the huge-smp kernel when the installation finishes. As documented in the mkinitrd-README that kernel is not really the best choice for daily use. But you have to make an initial ram disk in order to switch to another kernel. I use the mkinitrd_command_generator.sh which produces the arguments for mkinitrd

Let’s say that the suggested mkinitrd arguements are like this

mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.29,6-smp -m mod:mod:mod -f ext3 -r /dev/hda1

but you forget to put the slash before dev so it looks like dev/hda1 instead of /dev/hda1

What result? A kernel panic on the next boot. I did this one time. Bottom line avoid typographical errors in code.

Posted by The GNUinator