From LQWiki
Version Specific
Slackware 12.1
Q) I can't get my Intel Pro 3945 wireless card to connect!
A) Slackware 12.1 supports the Intel Pro 3945 with the iwlwifi drivers, which come with the kernel. These don't work properly and need to be replaced. You have two options:
One option is to install the latest compat-wireless snapshot, which replaces the kernel iw3945 drivers with new versions that work.
The other option is to replace them with the currently more reliable ipw3945 drivers:
- Put "blacklist ipw3945" in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
- Download the ipw3945 microcode, extract it, read the included README, and put the relevant file in /lib/firmware
- Download the ipw3945 regulatory daemon, extract it, read the included README, and put the relevant file in /sbin
- Download the ipw3945 kernel module and a patch to get it to compile on current kernels.
- Apply the patch to the kernel module. Build it and execute the following commands: cp ipw3945.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r) ; depmod a
A future third option would be to install a newer kernel. As of this writing, however, the latest stable kernel (2.6.25.4) still includes the old buggy drivers.
Q) Firefox renders Linux.com and parts of Yahoo with very small, nonscaling fonts!
A)
- Install Microsoft's Core Fonts for the Web. They are available from most places that provide Slackware packages.
- Delete /etc/fonts/conf.d/60-liberation.conf
- Run fc-cache -f -v
Firefox will now render both sites properly.
Slackware 10.2
Q) Why is .Xmodmap no longer working with KDM?
A) Pat is now using auto-generated configs from KDE for the KDM settings. Their /opt/kde/config/kdm/Xsession does not load .Xmodmap, so any key bindings in it are not read.
This post contains a possibile solution: LQ.org Post
Slackware 10.1
Q) Superkaramba won't build!
A) You need to download a version of Superkaramba with support for Python 2.4. Either download from CVS, or get a modified package here: SuperKaramba 0.35 for Python 2.4 Source
Hopefully this will be fixed in the next version of Superkaramba.
Slackware 10.0
Q) I'm running Slackware 10.0. I updated my kernel to 2.6.X. Where have all my devices gone? Why is 'man XYZ'/'less XYZ' not working and giving me errors?
A) The 2.6 series of kernels use udev to manage the devices. Unlike the devfs of old, udev works entirely in userspace and only creates nodes for devices that exist (and it does so dynamically, so if you remove the device, the nodes will be removed. Makes /dev a lot smaller and easier to figure out what's what.
udev also allows you to write rules, so that you can, theoretically, assign any name to a device that is plugged in, perhaps based on criteria such as it's name, or description (e.g. my Creative Muvo2 may be /dev/sda or /dev/sdb, but I have a rule that always creates a symlink at /dev/muvo to wherever the device is plugged in)
But what does this have to do with man page or less errors? Unfortunately, one of the rules in the udev-026-i486-1.tgz package that ships with Slackware 10.0 is wrong, causing problems with the terminals that less (which man uses) relies on. Either:
Taken from this thread (EL):
In /etc/rc.d/udev.rules change:
KERNEL="tty[p-za-e][0-9a-f]*", NAME="tty/s%n", SYMLINK="%k"
to:
KERNEL="tty[p-za-e][0-9a-f]*", NAME="pty/s%n", SYMLINK="%k"
Alternatively, upgrade to the udev package in 10.1
Non Version Specific
Q) How do I get Gnome?
A. Gnome for Slackware is available from various sources:
Gnome Slacky (slacky.eu)
Gnome SlackBuild (gnomeslackbuild.org)
GWARE (gware.org)
Dropline Gnome (www.dropline.net)
Q) How do I edit text files in a terminal?
A. Often, you'll be told you need to "edit the file xyz and insert this, that, etc"
For system files (those stored in /etc) you need to be root to edit them, so you need to type 'su' in a terminal (either a real terminal, or one of the X terminals, such as xterm, konsole, gnome-terminal, etc) and enter the root password. For files in your home directory, you don't need to be root.
To edit files, Slackware comes with a variety of editors.
- Emacs (GNU Emacs, not XEmacs)
- Vi clones: elvis (default), vim
- joe
- pico (Note: nano is the GPL clone of pico.)
- mc
If you're not that comfortable editing files, pico is an excellent tool for making quick, small changes.
Just run it as (without the <> brackets):
pico <yourfilename>
Some basic pico commands (In pico, ^Letter means Control + Letter to call that command)
- Control + O to save your changes
- Control + X to close (if you haven't saved, you'll be prompted to)
- Control + W to search for a text string (if you want to find a specific thing in the file quickly)
Q) (Related) Why does vi act funny?
A) Slackware's default editor is elvis, which you can determine for yourself by doing
$ ls -l `which vi`
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 NNNN-NN-NN NN:NN /usr/bin/vi -> elvis
You can access vim (if that's what you think of as vi) by invoking vim directly. (Slackware ships two versions of vim - a GUI-enabled (gvim) and GUI-disabled (vim) version which you can select at install time by picking either the vim or xvim packages.)
Alternatives are to change the symlink or install yet another vi clone. By default, no settings file is created for Vim - the ~/.vimrc - but once a .vimrc is created, Vim will behave as it should.
Q) How do I create a new user?
A) As root, run adduser
Q) Which groups do I need to belong to?
A) These groups are those that you will likely need to be a member of. They can be set either whilst creating your user, or by editing /etc/group as root later and adding your username against them.
- users - the 'main' group that you are a member of
- disk - for accessing hard drives
- cdrom - accessing optical media (CD's, DVD's)
- audio - to access the sound card
- power - to power off or reboot
- video - for video devices (e.g. TV tuner. May be needed for OpenOffice.org)
- wheel - if you plan to use sudo
Most of the other groups are 'special' groups for certain services/daemons to run, and you should not be a member of these.
Q) How do I set up a wheel mouse?
A) In X, a scroll wheel counts as three buttons - up is one, down is another. Clicking the wheel is a third button.
For any scroll mouse, as root you will need to edit:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf - Slackware 10.0 and above
/etc/X11/XF86Config - Slackware 9.1 and below
You then just need to add these two lines under the mouse section (usually 'Identifier "Mouse1"' or something similar).
For a 5 button mouse (2 buttons with a scroll wheel):
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Or, for a 7 button mouse (4 buttons and a scroll wheel):
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"
For a 7 button mouse, you also need to create the file /etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap and put the following in it for the wheel to be mapped onto the right buttons:
pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5
If your mouse protocol is set to
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
or
Option "Protocol" "auto"
You may have to change it to:
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
or
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
In either case, once the changes are made, restart X to use your scroll wheel.
(For some mice, more specific information can be found here (www.linux-gamers.net)).
Q) How do I change my default window manager?
A) To change the default window manager for all users, as root run xwmconfig.
To change the window manager just for your user, run xwmconfig as your user.
Q) How do I get Slackware to boot straight into X?
A) Edit /etc/inittab and replace:
id:3:initdefault:
with
id:4:initdefault:
Q) My sound's not working - what do I do?
A) You may have deeper problems, but the first step is to run alsamixer and unmute your soundcard. When you get the settings how you like, run alsactl store as root and they'll be re-stored from then on.
this applies to alsa, version 9b and higher.
note:
If after installing you boot into KDE and you get a windows pop up that says "/dev/dsp" or some "audio device not found", then you need to run alsaconf as root. This fixed it on slack 10.1 with asus a7n8xvm400 with nvidia chipset.
Q) How do I get the sequencer/ midi loaded for Alsa on startup?
In /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa, replace:
modprobe snd-pcm-oss
modprobe snd-mixer-oss
with
modprobe snd-pcm-oss
modprobe snd-mixer-oss
modprobe snd-seq-oss
Q) Where do I put commands that I want run on start-up?
A) Add them to /etc/rc.d/rc.local, and make that file executable
chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.local
Q) What's the best way to upgrade?
A) Some people like using the unofficial automatic tools and some people have had horrible experiences with them. Outside of those extremes, the best way is to read UPGRADE.TXT on your Slack discs or in the Slack tree of your nearest mirror and follow Pat's tips.
(This is a good general principle - there are many text files in the Slack tree full of useful information.)
If you are tracking -current, please read the ChangeLog first for any changes you need to be aware of.
Q) How do I install the ATi proprietary drivers?
A) You can either download a repackaged version from LinuxPackages or:
1) Download the drivers in RPM format
2) Use rpm2tgz to convert to the tgz package format (you must have the CPIO package installed for this)
(2B) You may want to rename to replace _ with - to match the Slackware package name format)
3) Follow ATi's instructions for installing the drivers manually
4) Add the following line to /etc/fstab:
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
Then as root run:
mount tmpfs
If you are using any of the 2.6.11 kernels, you will need to patch the driver before following section 3 with two patches available from here (www.rage3d.com).
Also, if you are building your own kernel (more important for 2.6.11), remove the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) section - if it is built in, you will get complaints about "Operation not permitted" and other obscure error messages about DRM from 'dmesg | egrep "fglrx"'
Q) Is there a 64 bit Slackware for the AMD64/ x86_64 architecture?
A) Yes, an unofficial port exists:
Slamd64 (EL)
Q) Is there a Slackware port for the S/390 architecture?
A) Yes, an official port exists:
Slack/390 (EL)
Q) Is there a Slackware port for the ARM architecture?
A) Yes, an unofficial port exists:
ARMedSlack (EL)
Q) Is there a Slackware port for the SPARC architecure?
A) Yes, an unofficial port exists:
Splack (EL)
Q) Is there a Slackware port for the PPC architecture?
A) There is an unofficial port, Slackintosh (workaround.ch).
Q) Does Slackware use UTF-8 (Unicode)?
By default, UTF-8 is disabled in Slackware for greater backwards compatibility with programs that do not yet support it.
To enable it, edit /etc/profile.d/lang.sh and add:
export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
Where en_GB is whatever language you use.
Be aware, you will also probably need to change the default terminal font to a Unicode one, and you're going to have to rename any directories or files that use characters from the ISO 8859-* sets that are not part of the 'core' ASCII characters - e.g. any accented characters. GTK2 and QT based programs should be fine, as well as any that call directly XFT.
Also, the console support for unicode is rather poor at the moment, it's more useful in X. There are also other problems associated with Unicode (evaultions in scripts, etc) that you should be aware of before switching.
man requires you to use an alias to work properly (otherwise it displays very strange characters):
alias man='LC_ALL=C man'
This code can be adapted as need be
Q) How do I get the Euro symbol?
If you're not using UTF-8 (Slackware does not enable it by default) then:
1) Edit /etc/profile.d/lang.sh
You need to change to a character set that supports the Euro. If you're using ISO 8859-1 (the default for Western Europe), use it's replacement, ISO 8859-15/Latin-9/Code Page 924 (some unused characters are dropped, and the Euro and a few others are added - read here (www.cs.tut.fi) to learn more)
Uncomment out the 'export LANG=en_US.ISO8859-1' line and replace it with something like this: (replace en_US with a setting of your choice ('locale -a' can help you. The first two letters are language, the second, in capitals, ISO initials for the country. e.g. en_GB refers to British English (en = English, GB = Great Britian)
e.g.
# Another option for en_US:
export LANG=en_US.ISO8859-15
2) To get support in a terminal, as root run "setconsolefont". If you are not using a customized font, simply select one of the lat0-* fonts (experiment to find one).
(The READMEs for the console fonts can be found with them in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts)
Q) How do I add my printer/ enabling printing/ etc?
By default, Slackware now uses CUPS (as of 10.1, though apsfilter and lrpng can be found in /pasture).
To start CUPS, as root:
cd /etc/rc.d
chmod +x rc.cups
./rc.cups start
Confirm CUPS is running, thus:
ps -ef | grep cups
If running, result will be like:
root 3657 1 0 09:24 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/cupsd
Before using CUPS, check the information for your printer at www.linuxprinting.org - it will tell you which is the best driver for your printer, and where to get it (gimp-print drivers come with the gimp-print package in Slackware, Ghostscript (LP's "PPD") based drivers require you to download a PPD front end file and put this in /usr/share/cups/model)
To add your printer, you can either use the command line: CUPS Admin Manual - Managing Printers (www.cups.org)
Or you can use the web based configuration: http://localhost:631
Either of the methods above can also be used for managing printers, printer classes, etc.
Worked example using Firefox to browse to http://localhost:631/printers (Slackware 11, Netgear PS110 print server at IP address 192.168.0.20 and HP LaserJet 2200D on Port 1)
Admin
Add New Printer
Name: HPLJ2200D
Location: Study
Description: HP Laserjet 2200D
Device for HPLJ2200D
Device: LPD/LPR Host or Printer
Device URI for HPLJ2200D
Device URI: lpd://192.168.0.20/P1
Model/Driver for HPLJ2200D
Make: HP
Model: HP Laserjet 2200 Postscript (recommended) (en)
Printer HPLJ2200D has been added successfully.
For more information, check out CUPS home page: www.cups.org
Q) How do I play encrypted DVDs?
A) You need to install two extra libraries (Slamd64 users can find these in the /z series (FTP, or the CD for non-US users)
libdvdcss
libdvdread
(If building and installing from source, libdvdcss must be installed first).
There is some question about the legality of libdvdcss in the US regarding the DMCA, hence many distributions play it safe and do not ship with it.
Q) GTK programs look ugly when I'm not in Xfce or GNOME!
A) Run xfce-mcs-manager if you set up your GTK themes in Xfce, or gnome-settings-daemon if you set them up in GNOME. These daemons run in the background and apply the specified theme, icon and font settings to all running GTK programs.
Application Specific
Mozilla Thunderbird
Q) How do I change the date format in Mozilla Thunderbird?
A) Thunderbird inherits the date format from your environment settings. If, for instance, you live in the UK, the date format is dd-mm-yyyy, not the default US mm-dd-yyyy. To change this, you need to put the following in /etc/profile.d/lang.sh or ~/.profile:
export LC_TIME="en_GB"
For other countries, replace 'en_GB' with the correct setting for your language and country. Use 'locale -a | less' to get a full list.
(If you want to change the default for all locale settings, you can instead use
export LC_ALL="en_GB" )
Gaim
Q) How do I use Gaim with Mozilla Firefox instead of Mozilla?
A) As root, add:
/usr/lib/firefox
to /etc/ld.so.conf and run 'ldconfig'.
(You can only *run* Gaim without Mozilla, you still need Mozilla for the NSS includes to build Gaim, or to use GnuTLS).
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