Information Density: The Revised Slackware Book Project – Signal Evidence & AI Readability

[H2] What's it all about?
This website is the home of the Revised Slackware Book
Project (the project).
The regulars on alt.os.linux.slackware (a newsgroup) have been
discussing the revision of "The Book", otherwise known as
"Slackware Linux Essentials - The Official Guide To Slackware
Linux", created by David Cantrell, Logan Johnson & Chris Lumens.
This website is the result of that project. So far it's been a long and
grueling project with lots of struggles as we all have jobs and other
volunteer work, and let's face it, documentation isn't fun. :^) All the
content here is licensed with the Gnu General Public License version 2.
Should you be willing to contribute to this endeavor whether with your
own personal writing or by pointing out errors and corrections, you can
send me an e-mail at the address alan at lizella dot net (e-mail
munged and not linked because spammers have been harvesting e-mails
from here for some time).
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Slackware is a
registered trademark of Slackware Linux, Inc. and Patrick Volkerding.

[H1] The Slack Book
Table of ContentsForewardIntended AudienceWhy A New Slackware Book?Conventions Used in this BookAcknowledgements1. Introduction to SlackwareWhy Use Slackware?Differences Compared to Other Linux DistributionsLicensing2. InstallationBooting the InstallerPartitioningThe setup ProgramHelpKeymapAddswapTargetSourceSelectInstallConfigure3. BootingmkinitrdLILODual BootingDual Booting with PartitionsDual Booting from Hard Drives4. Basic Shell CommandsSystem DocumentationDealing with Files and DirectoriesListing Files and Directory ContentsMoving Around the FilesystemFile and Directory Creation and DeletionArchive and Compressionzip and unzipgzipbzip2XZ / LZMAtarReading DocumentsmorelessLinking5. The Bourne Again ShellWhat Is A Shell?Environment VariablesWildcardsTab CompletionInput and Output RedirectionTask ManagementTerminalsCustomization6. Process Controlpskill and killalltopcron7. The X Window SystemWhat Is (And Isn't) XConfiguring the X ServerChoosing a Window ManagerSetting Up A Graphical Login8. PrintingChoosing A PrinterGetting the driverSetting Up a Printer in CUPSPrinting from the Command LineFormatting for Print9. Users and GroupsWhat Are Users and Groups?Managing Users and GroupsOther User and Group ToolsManaging Users and Groups Manually10. Filesystem PermissionsPermissions Overviewchmod,
chown, and
chgrpSUID, SGID, and the "Sticky" Bit11. Working with FilesystemsThe Filesystem HierarchyLocal Filesystem Typesext2ext3ext4reiserfsXFSJFSiso9660vfatswapUsing mountNetwork FilesystemsNFSSMB12. viWhat is vi?The Different Modes of viOpening, Saving, and QuittingMoving AroundEditing A Documentvi Cheat Sheet13. EmacsWhat is Emacs?Starting OutHow to Move AroundGetting HelpCalling FunctionsEmacs Cheat Sheet14. NetworkingnetconfigManual Configuration
Automatic Configuration with rc.inet1.conf
15. Wireless Networking
iwconfig
Wired Equivilant Protection (or Lack Thereof)Wifi Protected Accessrc.inet1.conf revisitedwicd16. Basic Networking UtilitiesNetwork Diagnostic ToolspingtraceroutetelnetsshtcpdumpnmaphostdigfingerWeb BrowserslynxlinkswgetMail ClientspinemuttmailxFTP Clientsftpncftplftprsync17. Package ManagementpkgtoolInstalling, Removing, and Upgrading PackagesPackage Compression Formatsslackpkgrpm2tgz18. Keeping Track of UpdatesThe -stable BranchSecurity Update Mailing ListUpgrading Slackware Versions19. The Linux KernelWhat Does the Kernel Do?Working with ModulesCompiling A Kernel and Why to do SoList of Tables4.1. Man Page Sections4.2. tar Arguments10.1. Permissions of /bin/ls10.2. Octal Permissions10.3. Alphabetic Permissions10.4. Alphabetic Users and Groups10.5. SUID, SGID, and "Sticky" Permissions11.1. Filesystem Layout11.2. Common mount options12.1. vi cursor movement12.2. vi Cheat Sheet13.1. Emacs Cursor Movement13.2. Accessing Emacs Documentation13.3. Emacs Cheat Sheet16.1. rsync Arguments
[H2] Foreward
Table of ContentsIntended AudienceWhy A New Slackware Book?Conventions Used in this BookAcknowledgements
[H2] Intended Audience
[H2] Why A New Slackware Book?
Slackware Linux may be one of the oldest surviving Linux distributions
but it's still regularly updated and includes the latest releases of
many of the most popular free software programs. While Slackware does
aim to maintain its traditional UNIX roots and values, there is no
escaping "progress". Subsystems change, window managers come and go and
new ways are devised to manage the complexities of a modern operating
system.
While we do resist change for change's sake, it's inevitable that as
things evolve documentation becomes stale — books are no exception.
[H2] Conventions Used in this Book
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[H2] Acknowledgements
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[H2] Chapter 1. Introduction to Slackware
Table of ContentsWhy Use Slackware?Differences Compared to Other Linux DistributionsLicensing
[H2] Why Use Slackware?
Slackware has a long tradition of excellence. Started in 1992 and
first released in 1993, Slackware is the oldest surviving commercial
Linux distribution. Slackware's focus on making a clean, simple Linux
distribution that is as UNIX-like as possible makes it a natural choice
for those people who really want to learn about Linux and other
UNIX-like operating systems. In a 2012 interview, Slackware founder and
benevolent dictator for life, Patrick Volkerding, put it thusly.
"I try not to let things get juggled around simply for the sake of
making them different. People who come back to Slackware after a time
tend to be pleasantly surprised that they don't need to relearn how to
do everything. This has given us quite a loyal following, for which I
am grateful."
Slackware's simplicity makes it ideal for
those users who want to create their own custom systems. Of course,
Slackware is great in its own right as a desktop, workstation, or server
as well.
[H2] Differences Compared to Other Linux Distributions
There are a great number of differences between Slackware and other
mainstream distributions such as Red Hat, Debian, and Ubuntu. Perhaps
the greatest difference is the lack of "hand-holding" that Slackware
will do for the administrator. Many of those other distributions ship
with custom graphical configuration tools for all manner of services. In
many cases, these configuration tools are the preferred method of setting
up applications on these systems and will overwrite any changes you make
to the configuration files via other means. These tools often make it easy
(or at least possible) for a rookie with no in-depth understanding of
his system to setup basic services; however, they also make it difficult
to do anything too out of the ordinary. In contrast, Slackware expects
you, the system administrator, to do these tasks on your own.
Slackware provides no general purpose setup tools beyond those included
with the source code published by upstream developers. This means there
is often a somewhat steeper learning curve associated with Slackware, even
for those users familiar with other Linux distributions, but also makes it
much easier to do whatever you want with your operating system.
Also, you may hear users of other distributions say that Slackware has
no package management system. This is completely and obviously false.
Slackware has always had package management (see Chapter 17, Package Management for more information). What it does not have is
automatic dependency resolution - Slackware's package tools trade
dependency management for simplicity, ease-of-use, and reliability.
[H2] Licensing
Each piece of Slackware (this is true of all Linux distributions) is
developed by different people (or teams of people), and each group has
their own ideas about what it means to be "free". Because of this,
there are literally dozens and dozens of different licenses granting
you different permissions regarding their use or distribution.
Fortunately dealing with free software licenses isn't as difficult as
it may first appear. Most things are licensed with either the Gnu
General Public License or the BSD license. Sometimes you'll encounter a
piece of software with a different license, but in almost all cases
they are remarkably similar to either the GPL or the BSD license.
Probably the most popular license in use within the Free Software
community is the GNU General Public License. The GPL was created by
the Free Software Foundation,
which actively works to create and distribute software that guarantees
the freedoms which they believe are basic rights. In fact, this is
the very group that coined the term "Free Software." The GPL imposes
no restrictions on the use of software. In fact, you don't even have
to accept the terms of the license in order to use the software, but
you are not allowed to redistribute the software or any changes to it
without abiding by the terms of the license agreement. A large number
of software projects shipped with Slackware, from the Linux kernel
itself to the Samba project, are released under the terms of the GPL.
Another very common license is the BSD license, which is arguably "more
free" than the GPL because it imposes virtually no restrictions on
derivative works. The BSD license simply requires that the copyright
remain intact along with a simple disclaimer. Many of the utilities
specific to Slackware are licensed with a BSD-style license, and this
is the preferred license for many smaller projects and tools.
[H2] Chapter 2. Installation
Table of ContentsBooting the InstallerPartitioningThe setup ProgramHelpKeymapAddswapTargetSourceSelectInstallConfigure
Slackware's installation is a bit more simplistic than that of most
other Linux distributions and is very reminiscent of installing one of the
varieties of BSD operating systems. If you're familiar with those, you
should feel right at home. If you've never installed Slackware or have
only used distributions that make use of graphical installers, you may
feel a bit overwhelmed at first. Don't panic! The installation is very easy
once you understand it, and it works on just about any x86 or x86_64
platform.
The latest versions of Slackware Linux are distributed on DVD or CD
media, but Slackware can be installed in a variety of other ways. We're
only going to focus on the most common method - booting from a DVD - in
this book. If you don't have a CD or DVD drive, you might wish to take
a look at the various README files inside the
usb-and-pxe-installers directory at your favorite
Slackware mirror. This directory includes the necessary files and
instructions for booting the Slackware installer from a USB flash drive
or from a network card that support PXE. The files there are the best
source of information available for such boot methods.
[H2] Booting the Installer
Booting the installer is simply a process of inserting the Slackware
install disk into your CD or DVD drive and rebooting. You may have to
enter your computer's BIOS and alter the boot order to place the
optical drive at a higher boot priority than your hard drives. Some
computers allow you to change the boot order on the fly by pressing a
specific function key during system boot-up. Since every computer is
different, we can't offer instructions on how to do this, but the
method is simple on nearly all machines.
Once your computer boots from the CD you'll be taken to a screen that
allows you to enter any special kernel parameters. This is here
primarily to allow you to use the installer as a sort of rescue disk.
Some systems may need special kernel parameters in order to boot, but
these are very rare exceptions to the norm. Most users can simply press
enter to let the kernel boot.
Welcome to Slackware version 14.0 (Linux kernel 3.2.27)!
If you need to pass extra parameters to the kernel, enter them at the prompt
below after the name of the kernel to boot (huge.s etc).
In a pinch, you can boot your system from here with a command like:
boot: huge.s root=/dev/sda1 rdinit= ro
In the example above, /dev/sda1 is the / Linux partition.
To test your memory with memtest86+, enter memtest on the boot line below.
This prompt is just for entering extra parameters. If you don't need to enter
any parameters, hit ENTER to boot the default kernel "huge.s" or press [F2]
for a listing of more kernel choices.
After pressing ENTER
you should see a lot of text go flying across your screen. Don't be
alarmed, this is all perfectly normal. The text you see is generated by
the kernel during boot-up as it discovers your hardware and prepares to
load the operating system (in this case, the installer). You can later
read these messages with the dmesg(1)
command if you're interested. Often these messages are very important
for troubleshooting any hardware problems you may have. Once the kernel
has completed its hardware discovery, the messages should stop and
you'll be given an option to load support for non-us keyboards.
<OPTION TO LOAD SUPPORT FOR NON-US KEYBOARD>
If you are not using a US keyboard, you may need to load a different
keyboard map. To select a different keyboard map, please enter 1
now. To continue using the US map, just hit enter.
Enter 1 to select a keyboard map: _
Entering 1 and pressing ENTER will
give you a list of keyboard mappings. Simply select the mapping that
matches your keyboard type and continue on.
Welcome to the Slackware Linux installation disk! (version 14.0)
###### IMPORTANT! READ THE INFORMATION BELOW CAREFULLY. ######
- You will need one or more partitions of type 'Linux' prepared. It is also
recommended that you create a swap partition (type 'Linux swap') prior
to installation. For more information, run 'setup' and read the help file.
- If you're having problems that you think might be related to low memory, you
can try activating a swap partition before you run setup. After making a
swap partition (type 82) with cfdisk or fdisk, activate it like this:
mkswap /dev/<partition> ; swapon /dev/<partition>
- Once you have prepared the disk partitions for Linux, type 'setup' to begin
the installation process.
- If you do not have a color monitor, type: TERM=vt100
before you start 'setup'.
You may now login as 'root'.
slackware login: root
Unlike other Linux distributions which boot you directly into a
dedicated installer program, Slackware's installer places you in a
limited Linux distribution loaded into your system's RAM. This
limited distribution is then used to run all the installation programs
manually, or can be used in emergencies to fix a broken system that
fails to boot. Now that you're logged in as root (there is no password
within the installer) it's time to start setting up your disks. At this
point, you may setup software RAID or LVM support if you wish or even
an encrypted root partition, but
those topics are outside of the scope of this book. I encourage you to
refer to the excellent README_RAID.TXT,
README_LVM.TXT, and
README_CRYPT.TXT files on your CD if you desire to
setup your system with these advanced tools. Most users won't have any
need to do so and should proceed directly to partitioning.
[H2] Partitioning
Unlike many other Linux distributions, Slackware does not make use of a
dedicated graphical disk partitioning tool in its installer. Rather,
Slackware makes use of the traditional Linux partitioning tools, the
very same tools that you will have available once you've installed
Slackware. Traditionally, pa