Slackware goes 64-bit

bigg, did you try this?

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/slackwa...

Re: OO ... did you install from Slackbuilds?

@Steven: I need to get plugged into your network for finding free or nearly free ($15 is close enough) systems. I see some old boxes with very low specs go for insane prices on eBay. I'd particularly like a Macbook or Mac Mini from the last days of PowerPC. I'd also like to find one or more suitable MIPS boxen, either something like a circa 1999-2000 SGI O2 or something relatively new, as in just a few years old, like a Lemote Fulong.

@Steven

Thanks, I'll have to try that when I get home. In 12.1 and 12.2 automounting worked out of the box, so I don't know what's going on.

I got OOo from Robby Workman's page. No dependencies, just downloaded and used upgradepkg --install-new.

I'll be doing a download of 13 tonight and burning it to DVD in the morning. It sounds like some things are much improved, a lot is the same just updated (Slackware is Slackware, after all), and there are a few little bugs. Pretty much what I'd expect from a new major release.

Quoting:I got OOo from Robby Workman's page. No dependencies, just downloaded and used upgradepkg --install-new.

I used Robby's packages for Abiword and a few other things the last time I ran Slackware. I think all the Slackbuild does is grab the Linux binary, turn it into a Slackware package and install it ... or something equally non-sinister. For a minute there, I worried that the Slackbuild wanted to build OO from source, which would take many, many hours ...

> I see some old boxes with very low specs go for insane prices on eBay...

Standard Dell, IBM, and HP hardware can be found for reasonable prices at some resellers. The one I've had good luck with is Intechra (http://www.intechraoutlet.com). They currently have off-lease Dell Optiplex GX-280's for as little as $92 plus shipping. The machines tend to be 3-5 years old. My wife just got a GX-620 from them for $175 which a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4, 2 GB of memory, a 160 GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and a modem. She's trying out Ubuntu 8.4 on it, and very happy so far. No Sparc, PowerPC, MIPS, or ARM though. We have no affiliation with Intrechra, we're just satisfied customers.

Pacificgeek.com has these dame kind of deals, and we have a new store here that sells the same kind of junk locally -- I'm hoping to go soon and check it out.

But once you let it be known that you'll come and pick up people's old gear, the phone starts a-ringin' ...

You can also check with your local college/university. They often sell off the old stuff for cheap.

> I'll be doing a download of 13 tonight and burning it to DVD in the morning.

I downloaded it on Friday after it came out, but my DVD burner has apparently "burnt". It won't burn either CD's or DVD's. Reads them fine, but no burning. I booted from a live CD to test that it wasn't a software problem and got the same result. Sigh, time for a new burner.

@jdixon:

If the drive will still read at max speed, don't replace it; just add a new burner. That way, you can watch movies etc. while recording ISO's.

> If the drive will still read at max speed, don't replace it; just add a new burner.

There's already a DVD player in the system. :( I'll keep it for future use as a player, yes, but not in this system.

I've been having so many burning issues ... with my optical drive, that is ... that I'm thinking of just ordering from osdisc.com and stopping the headache.

@S_R One thing you could do wherever you get the CDs or DVDs is to create the Slackware 13.0 disk sets on your hard drive. Assuming you have enough space in whatever /home and /opt directories you're using, this could be /home//disk1, disk2, disk3 ... or whatever. I obtained the three install CDs rather than the DVD, so I needed less than 2 GB of my home directory for this... a straight copy of the .iso files from CDs to each diskX directory. I set up all the expanded Slackware .iso install disk-files onto /opt/diskX directories using the 'mount -o loop' option and then deleted each /home/diskX directory after successful expansion and copying. I think that whatever device /opt is mounted on could be stretched to 6 GB or more with the gparted so that there is enough disk space for the total /opt/diskX's. The /home is the main backup for the upgrade -- did not need to reformat /opt and /home in the Slackware 13.0 install process. So all this allowed the Slackware 13.0 installation process to find the SETUP packages locally, rather than from CD/DVD. Saved some time!

On the subject of KDE-4, I put an AMD-64 KDE-4 install on VirtualBox. Runs fine, but I keep running into little KDE-4...lackings.

I wanted to change the look of KDM login, and I found the right place in the settings, but there is no "administrator mode".

Not to fear, I was told on the Debian-KDE mailing list, Debian has 4.3, and "administrator mode" is for 4.4.

I also miss the "turn off all sounds" button. Oh well.

Quoting:I also miss the "turn off all sounds" button.

And I miss my ex. But my aim is getting better with practice...

Nowadays I use UNetbootin to create a bootable USB out of an iso for linux distros instead of burning discs. This has been much smoother and easier for me. It should work with slackware 13 too.

> It should work with slackware 13 too.

Depends on the formatting of the USB stick and whether we're talking a CD image or the DVD image. I believe the DVD image is too large for a fat32 formatted drive. A CD image should work though, yes.

@Bob,

System Settings > Notifications > System Notifications > Player Settings > No audio output

See if that works for you.

Rij,

I saw that, but "no audio output" doesn't have the same meaning (to me) as "turn off all sounds". It was obvious in -3 that it simply unchecked the audio alerts, rather than the impression that the "No Audio Output" switch gave me which was to disable the audio system itself.

I'll try it, thanks.

True that, Bob. Not clear at all.

The new release of Absolute Linux 13.0, a variant of Slackware 13.0, just came out yesterday -- see DistroWatch summary at http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=05663 and Sherman's own http://absolutelinux.org/forum/index.php?topic=421.0

Given the recent concerns about setting Slackware 13.0's wireless support in such pieces as 'Slackware 13 Wireless'-- linked to by the author at LXer via http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/125438 -- wondering how Absolute 13.0 compares here??

Hopefully, these pieces could give SOME help with wireless on Absolute 13.0 : - The Slackbasics Wireless interfaces section at http://www.slackbasics.org/html/netconfig.html#id3768835 - Slackbook's Configuring your network in Slackware, http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:ne... - Tourrilhes' wireless device and driver reviews at http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.W...

Will have to try this out and see how Absolute Linux 13.0 performs on older laptop hardware meeting minimum HW specs compared to a trimmed-down install of Slackware 13.0 with the questionable KDE 4.x. Just using IceWM would seem to trim resources down even further.