Minimal Slackware Installation

Retinix

Minimal Slackware Installation

Introduction

This is for those people that have been told that Slackware is not as bloated as other distributions , but have performed a default 'Install all' and been disappointed that it still uses over a gig like those 'other' more popular distributions. If you be a bit more selective you can have a substantially smaller install. The example in this document is to have a setup with basic Xwindows and all the gcc compiler stuff so you can recompile kernels and other stuff. The total size of my install is just under 350MB.

The following notes were performed from my own copy of Slackware 7.1.

The Steps

Get a CDROM with the main chunk of the slackware distro on it. You need to have a directory somewhere on the CD that contains the a1, a2 ,a3 ,, etc directories.
Make up a boot disk and a rottdisk floppy from the bare.i and color.gz files somwhere on the CD. If you have another unix box you can create them with:
```
   dd if=bare.i of=/dev/fd0 bs=1k
   dd if=color.gz if=/dev/fd0 bs=1k
```
Boot off the boot disk. Press ENTER at the first screen
Insert the root disk when asked and press ENTER
login as root
Do the following to simplify access to the CDROM later:
```
   mkdir /c
   mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /c
```
hdc is where my cdrom drive is, yours may be hdb or hdd or whatever. Now cd into /c and poke around until you find the directory where all the a1, a2, a3 ... directories are. Write this down. On my cd this would be /c/slack7.1
Run fdisk (eg. fdisk /dev/hda) and partition your hard disk. I'll assume you don't have windows on the hard disk. Just create a swap partition (use the 't' option to set its type to 'Linux SWAP') and a Linux native partition. Make sure the Linux native one is at least 400MB.

Run 'setup'

ADD SWAP. Choose the swap partition you just created and format it.
Set TARGET to the Linux native partition you just created. Choose to quick format and use 4096bytes/inode. Ignore all the suggestions about setting up other partitions.
Set SOURCE. Choose Install from pre-mounted directory. Enter that directory on the CD I told you to write down (ie. in my case its /c/slack7.1).

Select software groups as follows:

  [X]  A
  [X]  AP
  [X]  D
  [ ]  DES
  [ ]  E
  [ ]  F
  [ ]  GTK
  [X]  K
  [ ]  KDE
  [X]  N
  [ ]  T
  [ ]  TCL
  [X]  X
  [X]  XAP
  [ ]  XD
  [ ]  XV
  [ ]  Y

INSTALL mode. Choose 'menu'

'A' Software group

  [X]  ide
  [ ]  scsi
  [ ]  aoutlibs
  [ ]  bash1
  [ ]  cpio
  [X]  floppy
  [ ]  getty
  [ ]  gpm
  [ ]  ibcs2
  [ ]  isapnp
  [ ]  kbd
  [ ]  loadlin
  [ ]  lpr
  [X]  minicom
  [ ]  pcmcia
  [X]  infozip
  [X]  zoneinfo

'AP' Software group

  [ ]  apsfilt
  [ ]  ash
  [ ]  bc
  [ ]  cdutils
  [ ]  diff
  [ ]  enscript
  [ ]  ghostscr
  [X]  groff
  [ ]  ispell
  [ ]  jed
  [ ]  joe
  [ ]  jove
  [X]  manpages
  [ ]  mc
  [ ]  mp3
  [ ]  mt_st
  [ ]  quota
  [ ]  raidtool
  [X]  rpm
  [ ]  sc
  [ ]  seejpeg
  [ ]  sox
  [ ]  sudo
  [ ]  texinfo
  [ ]  workbone
  [ ]  zsh

'D' Software Group

  [X]  autoconf
  [X]  automake
  [X]  bin86
  [X]  binutils
  [X]  bison
  [X]  byacc
  [X]  flex
  [X]  egcs
  [ ]  egcs_g77
  [ ]  egcsobjc
  [ ]  gcl
  [ ]  gdb
  [ ]  gdbm
  [X]  gettext
  [X]  glibc
  [X]  gmake
  [X]  jpeg6
  [X]  libgr
  [X]  libpng
  [ ]  libtiff
  [X]  libtool
  [X]  linuxinc
  [X]  m4
  [X]  ncurses
  [ ]  p2c
  [X]  perl
  [X]  pmake
  [ ]  python
  [ ]  rcs
  [X]  readline
  [X]  slang
  [X]  strace
  [X]  svgalib
  [X]  termcap
  [X]  zlib

'K' Software group
```
  [X]  lx2216
  [X]  linuxinc
```

'N' Software group

  [ ]  apache
  [ ]  bind
  [ ]  dip
  [ ]  ftchmail
  [ ]  imapd
  [ ]  inn
  [X]  mailx
  [ ]  metamail
  [ ]  netatalk
  [X]  netmods
  [ ]  netpipes
  [ ]  nn_nntp
  [X]  lynx
  [ ]  pine
  [X]  ppp
  [ ]  procmail
  [ ]  rdist
  [ ]  rsync
  [ ]  samba
  [ ]  sendmail
  [ ]  smailcfg
  [X]  tcpdump
  [X]  tcpip1
  [X]  tcpip2
  [ ]  tin
  [ ]  trn
  [ ]  uucp
  [X]  wget
  [ ]  xntp

'X' Software group. The first screen lets you choose your X Server. Usually xsvga.

  [ ]  fvwmicns
  [ ]  lesstif
  [ ]  libc5x
  [ ]  oldlibs5
  [ ]  oldlibs6
  [ ]  xdoc
  [ ]  xhtml
  [ ]  xps
  [ ]  xset
  [X]  xman
  [X]  xf100
  [ ]  xfnon
  [ ]  xfcyr
  [ ]  xfscl
  [ ]  xfsrv
  [ ]  xnest
  [ ]  xvfb
  [ ]  xprt
  [X]  xaw3d
  [X]  xlock

'XAP' Software group

  [ ]  fvwm95
  [ ]  gnuchess
  [ ]  gnuplot
  [ ]  gs_x11
  [ ]  gv
  [ ]  imagick
  [ ]  netscape
  [ ]  seyon
  [ ]  tkdesk
  [ ]  xfm
  [ ]  x3270
  [ ]  xgames
  [ ]  xfract
  [ ]  xpaint
  [ ]  xpdf
  [ ]  xspread
  [X]  xv
  [ ]  xvim
  [ ]  xxgdb

INSTALL LINUX KERNAL. Choose 'skip'
MAKE BOOTDISK. Choose 'continue'
MODEM CONFIG. "Just pick some device other than COM1".
CDROM devidce. Choose NO thanks

INSTALL LILO. Choose Expert mode.

  BEGIN
   Options. Just press OK
  FRAMEBUFFER CONSOLE.
   Choose standard
  Use MBR
  Wait Forever
  LINUX
   Add your linux partition in
 INSTALL LILO

Configure Network. Choose NO
Hrdware Clock. Choose NO, set to local time
Timezone. Select your timezone.
XWindow Manager. Choose fvwm2
Enter root password
Exit and reboot.

After the 1st boot

Login as root
vi /etc/HOSTNAME and change it to something sensible
vi /etc/inittab and comment out c3, c4, c5 and c6. You only really need 2 virtual terminals.
vi /etc/rc.d/rc.M and comment out crond and atd.
vi /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and find your network card (if any) and uncomment the modprobe for it.
vi /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1. Change IPADDR, NETMASK, NETWORK, BROADCAST and GATEWAY to something sensible for your LAN.
vi /etc/rc.d/rc.inet2. Set IN_SERV="". Comment out hte line to start rcp.portmap. Comment out the inetd startup. Comment out rpc.mountd and rpc.nfsd. If you're like me and comment out the whole if statements around these then be aware that there is a lone 'fi' statement right at the end of the file.
Reboot, login as root again and run xf86config to configure your video card. RUn 'startx' to start X windows. If you don't get the pager thing in the bottom right corner, cd to /usr/X11R6/libexec/fvwm and change the 2.2.5 to a 2.2.4.

Nov 02,2001