Optimizing Slackware
April 29, 2010 at 12:50 | Posted in Adventures | Leave a commentTags: linux, optimize, performance, slackware, speed, tips, tweak
- Disable whatever services you don’t need starting in /etc/rc.d by removing execute permissions (chmod -x)
- Compile custom kernel with only support for what you need
- Disable additional unnecessary virtual consoles (CTRL-ALT-F1,F2,F3,etc) in /etc/inittab
- Use a lightweight desktop environment such XFCE/LXDE/Openbox
- Move /tmp folder to memory if you have plenty of RAM by adding “tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noexec,nosuid 0 0” to your /etc/fstab
More later if I feel like it. I’ve read a bit about concurrent b0oting in Ubuntu, I’d like to find a way to achieve this in Slack. I <3 my quad-core.
Slackware 13.0 64-bit
August 28, 2009 at 17:37 | Posted in Adventures | 6 CommentsTags: 64-bit, slackware
Well, I’ve decided to give Slackware 13.0 64-bit a try. I was super-excited when I realised they had come out with a 64 bit version, and I’ve been researching it.
I’ve come to a few conclusions based on extensive forum-reading, which I will post again about after actually installing the OS. (I’m torrenting it now)
Firstly, Slack 64-bit is going to be “pure 64-bit”, meaning that there will be no support for 32-bit applications. However, because I compile all my programs from source, this should not be an issue, as they will compile as 64-bit programs. I have read some kind of conflicting posts, however, about how there will be support for 32-bit applications, but only by placing required 32-bit library files into /lib and /usr/lib, etc (which will be initially empty).
Further researching 64-bit linux problems I might run into, I have found threads about people getting wine to work under 64-bit, and pages about 64-bit ndiswrapper. It looks like I might have to sacrifice Google Earth, however, because it is a 32-bit binary, and I have yet to find the source code for compilation.
One line in the news article yesterday, however, confused me.
… major changes since Slackware 12.2, including a completely reworked collection of X packages (a configuration file for X is no longer needed in most cases) …
Does this mean there will be no /etc/X11/xorg.conf? How will one configure their X settings? How will the OS know which graphics driver to use, which resolution to use, etc?
I guess there’s only one way of finding out 
Despite my excitement, my torrent download is running pretty slowly, lmao.
Static ip address via wireless in Slackware?
August 18, 2009 at 11:26 | Posted in Adventures | 5 CommentsTags: networking, slackware, wireless
Why is this so difficult?
I’ve tried configuring my /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf like this:
# Generic example (decribe all possible settings)
*)
INFO=”Home”
ESSID=”WirelessHomeNet”
MODE=”auto”
CHANNEL=”9″
KEY=”[my encryption key here]“
;;
esac
I’ve editted my /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf like this:
## Example config information for wlan0. Uncomment the lines you need and fill
## in your info. (You may not need all of these for your wireless network)
IFNAME[4]=”wlan0″
DHCP_IPADDR[4]=”192.168.0.33″ # I tried using regular IPADDR first to no avail
NETMASK[4]=”255.255.255.0″
USE_DHCP[4]=”no”
WLAN_ESSID[4]=WirelessHomeNet
WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
WLAN_CHANNEL[4]=”9″
WLAN_KEY[4]=”[my key here]“
If I don’t run `modprobe ndiswrapper` on bootup, my wireless interface won’t show up, so I even added a line in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 to do it right before attempting to bring up any interfaces.
However, no matter where I place that line, the wlan0 interface doesn’t show up in ifconfig after bootup, even if I try running the command manually afterwards.
If I don’t put the line in any bootup script, and then do `modprobe ndiswrapper` manually and bring wlan0 up with ifconfig, and set it up with iwconfig, and run dhcpcd, though, it works fine (mostly). It also works if I just execute a handwritten script to do all that inside of /etc/rc.d/rc.local.
So, it’s become apparent that if I attempt to use rc.inet1 and rc.wireless to connect to the internet, it will fail entirely and prevent me from connecting.
What I need to know is:
- How to have the ndiswrapper module correctly load on bootup
- How to start the process of actually connecting to the router, similar to the dhcpcd command, but without using DHCP?
- What I am doing wrong in the /etc/rc.d/ configuration files
slackware 12.1 + 256 byte inode ext3 partition + grub
July 2, 2008 at 10:11 | Posted in Guides | Leave a commentTags: ext3, grub, slackware
(be sure to change device name appropriately in the grub-install line)
tar -xvvf grub-0.97.tar.gz
patch --verbose < grub-support-256byte-inode.diff
>grub-0.97/stage2/fsys_ext2fs.c
cd grub-0.97
./configure
make
sudo make install
sudo grub-install /dev/hdx
sudo update-grub
/boot/grub/menu.lst template:
(be sure to use actual kernel image and not the symlink at /boot/vmlinuz)
title Slackware
kernel (hd0,3)/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-2.6.24.5-smp root=/dev/hda4 ro vga=791
savedefault
boot
Broadcom WMIB-184GW + Ndiswrapper + Slackware
June 24, 2008 at 20:32 | Posted in Guides | 3 CommentsTags: broadcom, ndiswrapper, networking, slackware, wireless
First, install ndiswrapper from source. I suggest the latest version from here. Untar it and do “make” and “sudo make install” from the command line. Or instead of using sudo just “su root” and do everything from there which would be easier because many of the upcoming commands require root privileges as well.
You’ll need the drivers for your chip which you can get here. You can either run this self-extracting exe under wine, which works well for me, or if you dual-boot Windows, run the program there. It will extract into the default folder “C:\cabs\BCM40100″, with another self-extracting exe, BCM_REL_4_100_15_5_WHQL.exe. Run that and it will extract by default to “C:\BCM_REL_4_100_15_5_WHQL”. Copy over the files bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys to your home folder (if you ran the programs under windows, just mount your windows partition under Slackware to copy them).
Now you can install your drivers under ndiswrapper with:
ndiswrapper -i ~/bcmwl5.inf
This should result in the command “ndiswrapper -l” displaying something similar to:
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device present
To disable the conflicting non-ndiswrapper drivers, edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add the lines:
blacklist b43
blacklist ssb
(bcm43xx should already be blacklisted in later versions of slackware, but make sure the line “blacklist bcm43xx” is there anyways, and if not, add it)
To configure ndiswrapper for usage on bootup, do:
ndiswrapper -ma
modprobe ndiswrapper
Slackware does not by default save your network settings, so what I did was add what I needed to get the network running to /etc/rc.d/rc.local. There was a /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless, but I found it simpler to do it this way. Here’s the example based on what I used:
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid "<your network name here>"
iwconfig wlan0 key <your encryption key here>
iwconfig wlan0 rate <optional - set wireless speed, ex: 54M>
iwconfig wlan0 channel <also optional - your channel here>
/sbin/dchpcd wlan0
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