Tungsol Filaments

I have be using Slackware since the early versions (about Ver. 3 or so). I cannot resist trying the latest release when it happens. Having just tried Ubuntu 8.04 (amd-64) and having the experience fresh in my mind , I decided to install Slackware 12.1 on a new hard drive. As usual, the install is extremely fast (about 15 minutes or less). Configuration is the usual slackware shell menu system which works flawlessly. I noticed immediately that I could only see 3gb of my 4gb memory. I recompiled the kernel with pae enabled and fixed that problem.

I have grown to like Gnome (while testing Ubuntu and Fedora). Slackware now installs kde only. It was fast and looked good for a kde system. I had to add the nvidia driver (no problem..just run the nvidia driver script). Fonts in Firefox did not look quite as sharp as they do in Ubuntu or Centos (or Fedora). I found a tip which cures that problem. First you uninstall freetype and then you recompile it with freetype.bytecode uncommented and subpixel rendering uncommented (just remove the # in the freetype.SlackBuild script in the freetype slackware souce code. rerun fc-cache -fv and you now have crisp sharp fonts. I had also gotten used to having color xclock on my desktop. Slackware defaults to black and white. All you do is cp /etc/X11/app-defaults/XClock-color to XClock (in the same folder). You now have xclock with green minute hand, red hour hand, and blue second hand.

I like kde but having gnome really was important to me. I found the slackbot 0.91-pluto script after a little googling and installed it (get it here: http://www.mkanet.de/content/buildsystem/). This script downloads the latest gnome packages source, compiles, makes and installs slackware packages based on your distro version. It took about 3 hours to compile ..install and reboot. Amazingly, it all worked without a hitch. Gnome 2.22 came up and looked great.

I added slapt-get and the repo for it, installed compiz-fusion, emerald, etc. All of this worked excellent also. Actually, the end result is better than my Ubuntu experience. The Gnome 2.22 packages include great multimedia support. I have everything working (mplayerplug-in, flash, and java). I highly recommend Slackware 12.1 if you understand slack and know how to configure it.

tech ramblings

Here is the way to upgrade your Slackware 12.0 to 12.1.

It works pretty much as indicated in the UPGRADE.TXT file located on the cd/dvd. Here are the steps for your linode (assuming you already have 12.0 installed).

wget http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/slackware-12.1-iso/slackware-12.1-install-d1.iso

Use your favorite mirror above.

Once you have the slackware-12.1-install-d1.iso,
mount slackware-12.1-install-d1.iso /mnt -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0

Then execute:

telinit 1

cd /mnt

upgradepkg /mnt/slackware/a/glibc-solibs-*.tgz

upgradepkg /mnt/slackware/a/pkgtools-*.tgz

upgradepkg –install-new /mnt/slackware/*/*.tgz

That should do it. Read the UPGRADE.TXT if you have questions. This installs some stuff you probably don’t need if your running slackware as a server (like gimp, etc). If you are worried about disk space you can run pkgtool and remove things you are sure you won’t need.

Reboot and..

Have fun!

tech ramblings