One click install

Entry Filed under: Software

May 23rd, 2008

I needed to install a Linux distro on a server machine for (currently) testing purposes, and it's quite weird to not be able to find any install CDs when dozens of them are just lying around - either it's a prehistoric version of Ubuntu, or SuSe 9.x, or Ubuntu for PPC (how the hell did that get there?) or the fist two CDs of SuSe 10.1 (the remaining 3 probably ened up being somebody elses beer coaster).

So, I managed to grab a Slackware 12 install DVD and slipped it in the server's drive bay. The greeting I got was certainly not as graphically pleasing as one might expect it to be with Fedora, Mandriva, SuSe etc. Only text based dialogs were letting me choose a font, keyboard map etc. The setup is started by running a command called (obviously) - "setup". Although the setup procedure it's pretty ugly (non-graphical), it's quick to do and is quick to finish (but I can't stand the fact that there is no progress bar while installing).

Eventually, the setup finished - telling me to reboot... After the first startup, a text-based login was waiting for me. Every successful login spits out a "message of the day" which are usually some quotes. So, how to go graphical? "startx" didn't do the trick, so I ended up running "xorgsetup" which got me going. KDE quickly popped up without the unnecessary bloat that most other distros put in - it was quite refreshing to see. But, I needed fluxbox, so I changed the default window manager to that and logged in again.

To give a hint about the ease of use for Fluxbox - here's how to change the default desktop wallpaper:

fbsetbg -f /home/me/.fluxbox/backgrounds/wallpaper.jpg

The conclusion? When using "KISS" distros, such as Slackware, allot of effort is needed to get things going, but once it's done, don't touch ANYTHING else! To be honest, although I feel a bit proud for configuring such a disasterous user-unfriendly (yet stable) Linux distro, I would trade it for OpenSuSe or Fedora any time! (if anyone asks, the server is a test HTTP server... it works.)

Gee wiz, Billy! The Blue dental plan