Welcome to the ZipSlack(tm) UMSDOS Linux installation. This is a great way to install an up-to-date Slackware Linux system on a DOS partition. It'll use about 65 megabytes of drive space, which means you can install this on a Zip disk. It'll probably work with LS120 and all the other Zip-imitators as well (but I haven't tried it myself, as I'm pretty loyal to Iomega :^) and, it can also be installed to any DOS partition (including FAT32) as a quick and easy way to get a nicely loaded base Linux system up and running without having to repartition a hard drive. This system includes: 2.0.33 generic Linux kernel, with support for many SCSI adaptors. Includes parallel port Zip support (not parallel ZipPlus, but that works when connected with SCSI). The egcs-1.0.2 C/C++ compilers and development libraries. An easy to configure PPP setup script (pppsetup) and a nice collection of network applications like pine, lynx, ircii, tin, BitchX, and more. Slackware 'setup', 'installpkg', 'rpm2targz', and other tools to let you customize the system and add additional software that the ZipSlack installation doesn't add by default for space considerations (like X). Extra applications and utilities: -- bash and tcsh shells. -- development tools like bison, flex, m4, ncurses, and perl. -- Midnight Commander v. 4.1.21. -- A large set of kernel modules. Here's the list of packages ZipSlack installs: aaa_base bash bin bind binutils bison bsdgames bsdlpr bzip2 cpio devs diff e2fsbn egcs elflibs etc fileutls find flex gmake gpm grep groff gzip hdsetup ircii-4.4 joystick kbd ldso less libc lilo linuxinc loadlin lynx m4 mailx manpages mc metamail minicom modules modutils ncurses perl pine pmake pnp ppp procps seejpeg sendmail sh_utils shadow sox strace svgalib sysklogd sysvinit tar tcpip1 tcpip2 tcsh texinfo tin txtutils umsprogs util workbone zoneinfo INSTALLATION: To install Slackware using ZipSlack, all you need to do is unzip the file ZIPSLACK.ZIP on the DOS partition where you want Linux installed. To do this, you'll need an unzip utility. If you don't already have an unzipper such as PKZIP for DOS or Windows, http://www.pkware.com is a great place to get one. Here's how you'd install on a Zip disk on drive D:\ -- first, fire up Win95 and start PKZIP for Windows. Then, from the "File" menu, select the "Open..." option. In the dialog box, browse for and select the file ZIPSLACK.ZIP. If you're planning to put this on a Zip disk, make sure it's in your machine, formatted, and ready to go. Next, you need to extract the files to a DOS partition. From the "Extract" menu, select the "Extract Files..." choice. In the "Extract" box, make sure the "all files" choice is selected. In the "Extract to:" box, make sure the "Disk" choice is selected. In the text box next to "Disk", you'll need to fill in the path to where you want to extract the files. (They'll be extracted into a \linux subdirectory) For example, if your Zip drive is D:\ and that's where you want to install, then you'll want to put D:\ in the box. Otherwise, fill in any DOS drive with enough free space to install (about 65 megabytes will be used). When you've got everything filled in correctly, hit the "Extract" button to extract the files. BOOTING THE LINUX SYSTEM There are probably countless ways to boot this system once you've unzipped it. Here, I'll cover two. Loadlin ------- Loadlin is a DOS program designed to load the Linux kernel and boot it. In the \linux directory, you'll find these files: LOADLIN.EXE: The loadlin loader executable. LINUX.BAT: A simple DOS batch file to boot Linux using LOADLIN.EXE. vmlinuz: A Linux 2.0.33 kernel, with support for SCSI and IDE devices. You can use the provided vmlinuz kernel (a generic kernel with support for many devices that will work for most machines), or you can use another Linux kernel of your choosing by copying it to \linux\vmlinuz over the existing file. Slackware includes a large collection of precompiled kernels in its \kernels directory, any of which will work. To boot the system, you'll need to edit the LINUX.BAT file, and make sure the root=/dev/XXXX statement on the loadlin line (the one that's not commented out with 'rem') is set up to use the partition where you unzipped ZIPSLACK.ZIP, such as /dev/sda4. If you're not sure which partition to use, just go ahead and guess. If you get it wrong, you'll still be able to use scrollback (right shift key and PageUp) when the kernel halts to go back and look at your partitions, noting the names Linux gives them. With this information, you should be able to edit the LINUX.BAT correctly. Once LINUX.BAT is edited, you can try to boot the system by entering LINUX on a prompt while in the \linux directory. IMPORTANT: You'll need to be in DOS mode for the boot to work. A DOS prompt running under Windows95 will not work! What you need to do if you use Windows95 is shut the machine down, selecting the "Restart in MS-DOS mode" selection. Then, you'll be able to use Loadlin. I've also had great success booting with a "Startup disk" made from Win95 (Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, and then "Startup disk" tab) and then switching into the \linux directory on the target drive and running LINUX.BAT. If it doesn't work, the problem could be DOS memory management -- I had to run both HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE to get LOADLIN to load a large kernel, but it also worked fine with no memory management. I ran into problems when I tried to run _just_ HIMEM.SYS. You can also run LOADLIN directly. Here is a sample boot command to boot Linux on /dev/sda4 in read-write mode using the kernel file vmlinuz: loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/sda4 rw Using a boot floppy ------------------- The other way you can boot the system is by using a boot floppy. There's one provided (bootdisk.img) that uses the generic kernel, or you can use any of the bootdisks included with Slackware. To write the image to a floppy disk, use the RAWRITE.EXE program: rawrite bootdisk.img a: To boot a Linux system in read-write mode on /dev/sda4, boot the bootdisk. On the 'boot:' prompt, you'd enter this command: mount root=/dev/sda4 rw CONFIGURING THE SYSTEM Once you've booted the system, log in as 'root'. One of the first things you should do is add a root password with the 'passwd' command. Then, (if you want some things like 'df' to work) you'll need to edit /etc/fstab to add an entry for your root partition. Seasoned UNIX veterans will probably use 'vi' for this, otherwise 'pico' is another option. If you're on an ethernet connected to the Internet, you can run 'netconfig' to configure your network access. You may also need to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules to load a kernel module that supports your ethernet card. If you use PPP to connect to the Internet, you can configure your PPP connection using 'pppsetup'. ============== I hope this system makes it easier to get Linux up and running. At around 35 megabytes (or so) most people can download this package in just a few hours. If you like the ZipSlack installation, let me know so that I'll know that people are interested in seeing continued support for it. And, if you find any problems with it, let me know about them. Have fun! --- Patrick Volkerding volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu volkerdi@ftp.cdrom.com