Welcome to my second article about installing Slackware on an Asus EeePC. This is a follow-up article to the one I posted in May 2008 soon after Slackware 12.1 was released. In this article, I will assume that you're doing a fresh installation of Slackware 12.2 and that you have access to an external USB CD/DVD ROM drive.

In all honesty, the installation process is extremely similar to what I did with 12.1. However, looking back at my previous article, I realize that my steps may not have been the most useful in the world. This time around I will try to be more helpful.

Booting The Install Disc

After you have a good copy of the installation disc (the DVD or the first of the CDs), put the disc into your CD/DVD ROM drive and reboot your computer. To ensure that your computer boots from the disc rather than the hard drive, hit F2 when you see the initial boot screen. Then go to the "Boot" tab and verify that your external CD/DVD drive takes precedence over the internal SSD. While we're in the BIOS, let's hop over to the "Advanced" tab and set "OS Installation" to "Start". This will increase the chances that your external drive will be recognized or something.... mine didn't work until I made that change. When you're all done with that, exit your BIOS, saving your changes.

The computer will reboot, and it should access your installation disc immediately after the initial boot screen disappears. Once you boot from the installation disc, you should be presented with a screen which allows you to pass some settings to the installation kernel.

To make the installation go faster, use the following boot string:

hugesmp.s hdc=noprobe

This makes it so the installation will see the internal SSD as /dev/sda instead of /dev/hdc, which also boosts the read/write times by about 13 times.

During the boot process you will be asked to specify your keyboard map. Unless you want something special here, just hit the enter key to proceed.

fdisk /dev/sda
cfdisk /dev/sda

Installing Slackware

As soon as your partitioning has finished, go ahead and run setup to begin the actual installation program.

Since we don't have a swap partition, can jump straight to the TARGET option. Use the arrow keys to highlight this option and hit enter. Select /dev/sda1 from the list, and format it with ext2. On the EeePC, most people prefer this format since it is a non-journaling filesystem. That means fewer writes to the SSD, which supposedly translates to a longer lifetime.

After the SSD is formatted, you will be asked to select the installation source. Again, I'm assuming that you want to use your fresh Slackware 12.2 disc, but you are free to choose what you want if you know what you're doing.

I went with the default "Install from a Slackware CD or DVD" and told it to auto scan for my disc drive. It was found at /dev/sr0.

Choosing Your Packages

Next, you are given the opportunity to tweak the package series which will be installed on your EeePC. I chose the following series: A, AP, K, L, N, TCL, X, and XAP. I planned on using XFCE instead of KDE on my EeePC simply because it is much more light-weight and still capable of what I need. If you want KDE, be sure to check the appropriate series.

Once you mark each of the package series you wish to install, hit the "OK" button. You'll then have to choose which prompting mode to use. I chose menu, simply to be a little more picky about which packages I wanted installed. Installation took approximately 28 minutes with my package selection and setup.

Configuring Your System

When all of the packages are done being installed, you will be presented with some other screens to finish up the installation process.

1. Choose whether or not you want to make a bootable USB... I skipped it.
2. Choose how you wish to install LILO. I chose simple.
3. Choose your frame buffer mode for the console. I chose 640x480x256.
4. Specify any optional kernel parameters. Ensure that the hdc=noprobe from earlier is here to speed up your system considerably.
5. Specify whether you wish to use UTF-8 on the console. I chose no.
6. Specify where to install LILO. I chose MBR.
7. Specify your mouse type. I chose imps2.
8. Specify whether or not you wish to have gpm run at boot, which allows you to use your mouse in the console. I chose yes.
9. Configure your network.
10. Give your EeePC a hostname. This can be whatever you'd like.
11. Specify the domain for your network. This can be whatever you'd like as well.
12. Configure your IP address information. I just chose DHCP.
13. Set the DHCP hostname. I left this blank.
14. Review and confirm your network settings.
15. Choose which services you wish to have running immediately after booting.
16. See if you want to try custom screen fonts. I usually don't bother.
17. Specify whether your hardware clock is set to local time or UTC.
18. Choose your timezone.
19. Select your preferred window manager. I chose XFCE.
20. Set the root password.

At this point Slackware has been installed on your EeePC and you can exit the setup menu and hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot your computer.

First Boot

You should now go back into your BIOS and set "OS Installation" back to "Finished", exit and save changes, and reboot again.

You should then see the Slackware boot screen. By default, it has a 2-minute timeout, which seems absolutely absurd to me, so we'll change that later. Just hit enter for now and watch your new Slackware boot. The first boot will usually take a bit longer than subsequent reboots because all sorts of things need to generate their first configuration file.

When your system is ready, you'll be presented with a login prompt. Just login as root, using the password you specified in the last step of the installation process.

id:3:initdefault:

id:4:initdefault:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "SynapticMouse" "AlwaysCore"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    RgbPath      "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/OTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "GLcore"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "freetype"
    Load  "type1"
    Load  "synaptics"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
    Option       "XkbModel"  "pc104"
    Option       "XkbLayout"  "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver "mouse"
    Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
    Option "Buttons" "5"
    Option "zAxisMapping" "4 5"
    Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "SynapticMouse"
    Driver "synaptics"
    Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName    "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "NoAccel"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "SWcursor"              # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ColorKey"              # <i>
        #Option     "CacheLines"            # <i>
        #Option     "Dac6Bit"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "DRI"                   # [<bool>]
        #Option     "NoDDC"                 # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ShowCache"             # [<bool>]
        #Option     "XvMCSurfaces"          # <i>
        #Option     "PageFlip"              # [<bool>]
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "intel"
    VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
    BoardName   "Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller"
    BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     1
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

options psmouse proto=imps

options psmouse proto=any

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
# Append any additional kernel parameters:
append="hdc=noprobe vt.default_utf8=8"
boot = /dev/sda
compact

lilo -v

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
# Append any additional kernel parameters:
append="hdc=noprobe vt.default_utf8=0"
boot = /dev/sda
compact

# Boot BMP Image.
# Bitmap in BMP format: 640x480x8
bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp
bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0
bmp-table = 60,6,1,16
bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255

prompt
timeout = 50
change-rules
reset
vga = normal
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda1
label = Linux
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

wget http://people.redhat.com/csnook/atl2/atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2
tar jxf atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2
cd atl2-2.0.4
make
cp atl2.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/
depmod -a
modprobe atl2
ifconfig

DHCP_TIMEOUT[0]="5"

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#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/rc.d/rc.local:  Local system initialization script.
#
# Put any local startup commands in here.  Also, if you have
# anything that needs to be run at shutdown time you can
# make an /etc/rc.d/rc.local_shutdown script and put those
# commands in there.

modprobe p4-clockmod
modprobe cpufreq_ondemand
modprobe cpufreq_conservative
modprobe cpufreq_powersave
modprobe cpufreq_performance

cpufreq-set -g ondemand -d 450Mhz -u 900Mhz

mkdir /mnt/sd

ls /dev/disk/by-uuid

UUID=[your SD card's UUID] /mnt/sd ext2 defaults,noatime 1 1

/dev/sda1        /                ext2        defaults,noatime         1   1
UUID=30293ff4-5bee-457a-8528-ec296f099e9a /mnt/sd ext2 defaults,noatime 1 1
#/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,owner,ro  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,owner     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
tmpfs            /dev/shm         tmpfs       defaults         0   0

modprobe -r snd_hda_intel

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#!/bin/sh

IFS=${IFS}/
set $@

#logger "ACPI Event $1, $2, $3, $4, $5"

case "$1" in
    button)
        case "$2" in
            power) /sbin/init 0;;
            sleep) /etc/acpi/actions/lid.sh;;
            lid)
                if grep -q closed /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state
                then
                    /etc/acpi/actions/lid.sh
                fi
                ;;
            *) logger "ACPI action $2 is not defined";;
        esac
        ;;
    hotkey)
        case "$3" in
            # Fn+F2 Wireless/Bluetooth button
            # Fn+F7 Mute button
            00000013) amixer set Master toggle;;
            # Fn+F8 Volume down
            00000014) amixer set Master 10%-;;
            # Fn+F9 Volume up
            00000015) amixer set Master 10%+;;
        esac
        ;;
    *) logger "ACPI group $1 / action $2 is not defined";;
esac

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#!/bin/sh
# script by Fluxx from linuxquestions slackware forum
# discover video card's ID
ID=`/sbin/lspci | grep VGA | awk '{ print $1 }' | sed -e 's@:@/@'`

# securely create a temporary file
TMP_FILE=`mktemp /tmp/video_state.XXXXXX`
trap 'rm -f $TMP_FILE' 0 1 15

# switch to virtual terminal 1 to avoid graphics
# corruption in X
chvt 1

/sbin/hwclock --systohc

# remove the webcam module
rmmod uvcvideo

# write all unwritten data (just in case)
sync

# dump current data from the video card to the
# temporary file
cat /proc/bus/pci/$ID > $TMP_FILE

# suspend-to-ram
# (samwise) not using this it stuffs up the screen brightness
echo -n mem > /sys/power/state

# suspend-to-disk
#echo -n disk > /sys/power/state

# standby
#echo -n standby > /sys/power/state

# force on for now...
xset dpms force on

/sbin/hwclock --hctosys

# restore the webcam module
modprobe uvcvideo

# restore video card data from the temporary file
# on resume
cat $TMP_FILE > /proc/bus/pci/$ID

# switch back to virtual terminal 2 (running X)
chvt 6; sleep 2
chvt 2

# remove temporary file
rm -f $TMP_FILE

chmod +x /etc/acpi/actions/lid.sh

installpkg wicd-1.5.6-noarch-2.tgz

Using Slackware 12.2

I have to give the Linux kernel hackers props--the 2.6.27.7 kernel is amazingly fast! I'm sure the fact that I'm running a fairly stock Slackware installation (as opposed to something like Ubuntu) helps the speed quite a bit too. This past semester I had Linux Mint 5 (XFCE edition) installed on my EeePC, and that seemed fairly responsive. Slackware blew me away though, and I can still do everything I want to do!

The webcam and sound card work out of the box, just like the wireless. I rarely use the webcam, but it's fun to play with, and my mom appreciates seeing me on Skype occasionally. The wireless connection quality exceeds what it was with the madwifi driver I was using with Slackware 12.1 and other distros like Linux Mint. Programs are ultra speedy and responsive, even with the processor clocked at 450Mhz. I love it!!!

Boot times could be better, but I'm not too concerned with it. My setup takes approximately 50 seconds from boot to a useable desktop interface. Not horrible by any means, but perhaps not the best for a netbook when all you want to do is check your e-mail.

I would like to see the Network Manager that so many other distributions offer in Slackware some day. The wicd application is nice, but it's not nearly as intuitive as Network Manager, and it seems to be relatively limited in its capabilities in comparison. I know I'm not alone in my desire to see Network Manager included, or at least available, for Slackware. It would be tremendously beneficial in a world where wireless networking and laptops are more and more pervasive. Using the command line to adjust your wireless connection settings each time you have to hop to a new access point is just annoying.

In the end, I'm excited to have Slackware on my EeePC once again. I think it will be around for quite a while this time.

Please comment with any advice or problems that you have in regards to installing Slackware 12.2 on an EeePC.

I've found myself in many situations where I have several images that need a watermark applied to them. Applying a watermark to more than 5 images at a time is annoying at best, even if you do have macros to do the mundane stuff for you. I don't like to do things that annoy me.

Recently, I found myself yet again confronted with a "please watermark these images" sort of situation, and I decided to take a more logical approach to the problem: program it. The result of my efforts is called django-watermark and is available on Google Code and PyPI. To be perfectly honest, I actually ganked most of the useful code for this application from a generous soul on the Internet.

This seems to be working fine for me. I think the positioning for watermarks might need more work, but there are several options to hold people over for the time being. Please let me know what your thoughts are.

• http://code.google.com/p/django-watermark/
• http://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-watermark/

In case you haven't noticed, this website is a bit different than vcboard.net where all of this content used to be. As stated on the homepage, I am planning on moving all content from vcboard.net over here to codekoala.com, and then putting vcboard.net back to its originally intended purpose. That could take a while.

I am still in the process of moving all data over, but I think I've got most everything that is critical so far. Please be patient with me while I continue transferring data.

Those of you who have ever held any sort of conversation with me have probably heard or have personal experience with my bigotry concerning Linux. I absolutely love Linux, and I make all sorts of excuses for the things it doesn't to as well as Windows and Mac OS to convince people to use Linux. It's just the way I am.

I've been using Linux as my main operating system ever since about 2000, though I did dabble with it a few times before that. I started out with RedHat Linux way back when, and then moved on to Mandrake (now Mandriva) Linux. As time passed, I found out about this particular distribution called "SuSE Linux," which claimed to be able to detect hardware even better than the others I had tried. It even looked really pretty. I began to really want to use this distribution. It got to the point where I almost spent $80 on it, just so I could play around.

Eventually, I got my hands on a free copy by downloading all of the packages from their FTP server or something. I managed to get this installed, and I was even more impressed than I had anticipated. SuSE Linux was amazing. But by this time, I had already become addicted to downloading and trying out any distribution I could get my hands on. That meant that SuSE spent a few days or weeks on my computer before I replaced it with something else.

As I tried more and more distributions of Linux, I began to form opinions about them. I observed what certain distributions did well, and made hard mental notes about what each distribution didn't do so well. It wasn't long before I noticed that basically all of the RPM-based distributions I had tried suffered from two major problems: bloated installation packages and severe system slow-downs as time went on. It seemed that RPM-based distributions always slowed down just as bad as Windows machines. Other types of Linux, such as Slackware, Gentoo, and Debian, didn't seem to suffer from this nearly as bad.

With these opinions in mind, I carefully chose which distributions I elected to actually install with plans for keeping around a long time. It seemed like I would always download the RPM-based distributions, but I would do it "just in case" someone else wanted the CD or DVD. Sometimes I would download the distributions and never even bother to burn the CD image to disc. I would just stuff the image away for future reference.

However, despite my opinions of RPM-based distributions, I did end up installing SUSE Enterprise Linux Desktop/Server and openSUSE a few years ago. Part of it was for a class I had; another part was to find a distribution that would suit the needs of one of my buddies. I noticed several improvements in the distributions as the years passed, but those lingering problems with bloated packages and system slow-downs still plagued each distribution.

Last week, openSUSE 11.0 was finally released. Just like always, I downloaded the CD and DVD images with no plans of actually installing openSUSE anywhere. As the downloads were going, I read some reviews posted by other people. It sounded like this particular release of openSUSE actually addressed the issues of bloat and system slow-downs (finally!!), so that made me happy, but I still didn't quite consider installing it on any of my computers. I did use one of the live CD's at work for a day, though, and it treated me well.

This morning I got the itch to change the distribution I had installed on my main computer. I was going through the list of recent downloads that I had, and it occurred to me that the most recent version I had was openSUSE 11.0. It also occurred to me that it had been at least two years since I had seriously considered installing openSUSE or SLED/SLES on my computer. So I decided that maybe everything I had read was worth looking into on my own and possibly revisiting my biased opinion of RPM-based distributions.

I started the installation early this morning while I took notes and worked from another machine. The installation went very smoothly. Everything was logical and clean. It really was a good experience. The packages really did seem to install considerably faster than any release in the past, so I had high hopes for how the system would perform after installation. After everything was said and done, my computer rebooted into the freshly installed KDE 4.0 desktop of openSUSE 11.0. It looked nice, and it was actually functional--which I cannot honestly say about any other distributions that have a KDE 4.0 remix.

Since up to this morning I hadn't been able to use KDE 4 long enough to figure out what's changed, that's where I started. I explored the new menu, which I have to admit is quite funky, but I guess that's how the industry likes things nowadays. I played around with some of the personal settings that it offers. Things seemed logical enough, but it is quite a change from KDE 3.5, which I've been using for quite a while.

After a couple minutes of tinkering, I noticed a little bubble in the corner that said something about installing some system updates. I clicked it and ran through some sort of wizard, but I guess there were no updates to install. Or maybe I just have super-slow Internet and it was taking forever to download the changes. Whatever the case, I kept on tinkering with some settings while the updater did its thing.

Next thing I know, my screen goes black and flashes a few times. Then all I can see is a white mouse on a black background. That's it. Nothing else. I'm really not sure what the problem was. The settings I was playing with seemed fairly innocent, as I modify those sorts of settings all the time on KDE 3.5. After a few minutes of white-mouse-on-black-screen fun, I decided a reboot might solve the problem.

A couple minutes later, I was presented with my loading screen, followed by the black screen and white mouse. That's it. Nothing else.

Needless to say, despite all of the improvements that I did notice in this release of openSUSE, it left a rather bitter taste in my mouth in other areas. openSUSE is no longer on my computer--it's long been replaced with yet another distribution.

Maybe it's user error. Maybe it's my computer's hardware. Or maybe openSUSE really does suck. Whatever the case, it wouldn't surprise me if I wait another year or two to try out another RPM-based distribution.

I recently decided it would be prudent for me to request permission from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to redistribute a copy of the scriptures with the PyScriptures program that I have been working on recently. I didn't want to be held liable for any copyright infringement or other legal violations. So I decided to contact them a couple of weeks ago. Here is my message requesting permission:

To whom it may concern:

I would like to request permission to redistribute and use a database which contains the LDS standard works (scriptures only, not the bible dictionary, topical guide, or even footnotes). One of my personal projects relies upon a local copy of the scriptures in order to be useful at all, and I would like people to be able to use this program without fear of any sort of copyright infringement charges to any party. The goal of the program is to offer users of platforms other than Microsoft Windows a way to peruse and study the scriptures without requiring an Internet connection. I have tested it on Windows XP, Linux, and MacOS X and it works great. There are still some parts that need some work, and things could probably be optimized a bit, but works well enough considering that I've only been working on it for about a week and a half.

To learn more about this project, please go to http://code.google.com/p/pyscriptures/ where you can even browse the Python source code for my application (though you might want to do so on an empty stomach). The database is called 'scriptures.db' (http://code.google.com/p/pyscriptures/source/browse/trunk/pyscriptures/scriptures.db) and was created using SQLite in case you are interested in examining and verifying its contents. One of my main reasons for creating this database is that I noticed the database that The Mormon Documentation Project offers is missing some things, particularly all of the answers in Section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I didn't want to find out what else was missing or modified. Perhaps the reason those answers are missing is because that's part of the conditions of redistributing the scriptures?

Please notify me as soon as possible if there are any objections to the use and redistribution of this database. If that is the case, I will delete this project immediately. However, if I may be granted permission to redistribute the database containing the unmodified scriptures, I would greatly appreciate a response which states what my rights are in this matter.

Thank you for your time! Have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,

Josh VanderLinden

Developer

I got my reply today:

Dear Josh VanderLinden:

Thank you for your email dated 9 June 2008 requesting permission to use a database containing the LDS Standard works to redistribute.

After reviewing your request we have determined that we must deny your request for the use of this material. Church policy does not allow its intellectual properties to be used as you are requesting.

We appreciate your intentions, but trust you will understand and support the decision of the Church in this matter.

Thank you for checking with us.

Bobbie Reynolds, Paralegal

Intellectual Property Office

Somehow I could see this coming. I was curious, however, to determine if there was a way I could avoid litigation by modifying the way the program operates. So I responded with this message:

Hello Bobbie,

Thank you for your reply. I'm sorry that the verdict was not in my favor, but I do understand completely. Otherwise, I wouldn't have asked in the first place. Before I remove the project from the Internet, I would like to ask one more question. Is there a way I could somehow make the program legal? I've noticed that other some programs for the scriptures don't exactly redistribute the scriptures with the program itself. Instead they seem to download the scriptures from scriptures.lds.org (or elsewhere?) on an individual level, and the individual who runs the program has to specifically tell the program to do so. Would that be a more appropriate route for my project to take? Or would that also violate the rules?

Thanks again,

Josh VanderLinden

After only a few hours, I received the following reply:

If I understand you correctly, this also sounds like a reformatting project, which is restricted. Thank you for requesting further clarification and for your compliance to Church policy.

Bobbie

So it looks like I will have to discontinue this project, or at least not allow other people to use my work and keep it all to myself. In compliance with the message communicated to me by the legal representatives of the Church, I have removed the project from Google Code, and it shall remain a project for my own purposes. My apologies go out to everyone who actually found this program useful and promising. I can't blame the Church for being strict in its policies--neither should you.

So, for those of you who aren't in my immediate vicinity or who aren't on Google Talk all the time, this might well be your first exposure to my latest project. I'm calling it PyScriptures. Py because I wrote it all in Python. Scriptures because it is a program that provides the entire LDS standard works (as far as the actual scriptures are concerned, anyway).

Being a web developer, I'm often presented with questions about what I prefer to use for building websites. I tend to build websites by hand using a plain old text editor. Obviously there are a lot of other tools that I use in the process of creating an entire website, but the fact that I use a text editor is sufficient information for the time being. Some of the people who ask me about my preferences often ask why I don't use Flash or similar technologies when they learn of my archaic habits. I have my personal reasons, but I recently read an article that presented many interesting thoughts concerning the potential future of Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight that make me feel all the better about my decision to not use either one.

Many website owners do not feel that they can have a truly "professional" website without having at least one thing done with Flash or Silverlight. Developers often feel that technologies such as these save them massive amounts of time and offer increased functionality. I cannot argue with either of those points in a general sense (I actually used Flash a lot, long before Adobe bought Macromedia). Tristan Nitot, founder of Mozilla Europe, discussed the possibility of these two technologies becoming a problem for web developers in the future. As it stands right now, both companies freely release their respective plug-ins for use all over the world. But what happens if the companies decide to start charging for the plug-ins? Developers already have to fork out an arm and a leg just to be able to create Flash and Silverlight content. When will the consumers be forced to pay as well?

Nitot also feels that such technologies are limiting to the open nature of the Internet. He suggests that the next version of HTML will be capable of presenting video and audio files natively, requiring the user to download no plug-ins at all. This idea in and of itself reduces the usefulness of both Flash and Silverlight tremendously, as many websites simply use Flash applications for audio or video playback (think YouTube).

If you're a web monkey like myself, this article is worth a read. It definitely opened my mind to a few of the potential problems in the future of the Internet.

The Linux kernel is the core component in any Linux distribution. Without a kernel, your computer would be essentially useless. It is the piece of software which allows interaction between you, your computer's applications, and your computer's hardware. With such a powerful role in your computing experience, it is important to keep your kernel up-to-date. Each new release provides more hardware support and many performance enhancements. It is also important to keep your kernel up-to-date for security purposes.

Let's upgrade our Linux kernels together. I will walk you through each of the steps I take, from beginning to end, to upgrade my kernel. Just as a warning, I prefer to do the whole process on the command line, so you might want to pull up a terminal, konsole, xterm or whatever you prefer to use for your command line operations.

First you need to download the kernel source code. Many Linux distributions provide specialized editions of the Linux kernel. Typically, you don't want to manually compile and install a custom kernel for these distributions. This does not mean that you can't, it simply means that you might be better off using the "official" kernels for your distribution, which can usually be obtained through your distribution's package manager. You can get the official, 100% free, and complete Linux kernel source code from http://www.kernel.org/. Look for "The latest stable version of the Linux kernel is:" and click the link on the F on the same line. Currently, the latest stable version is 2.6.20, and that's what I'll be using for this tutorial. Please note that commands which begin with a dollar sign ($) are executed as a regular user and commands beginning with a pound sign (#) are executed as a superuser.

$ cd /home/user/download
$ wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.20.tar.bz2

Now login as the superuser, and navigate to the /usr/src directory. Then extract the kernel source into that directory.

$ su -
# cd /usr/src
# tar jxf /home/user/download/linux-2.6.20.tar.bz2

You probably already have a symlink or shortcut called linux which points to your most recent kernel. If you do, delete the link and create another link to the new source tree. Then go into your kernel source tree.

# rm /usr/src/linux
# ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.20 /usr/src/linux
# cd /usr/src/linux

I like to identify each compile of my kernel uniquely, to make sure that I'm using the right one. To do that, you have to modify your Makefile

# vi Makefile

You will see the following lines, or something similar, at the very top of the file:

VERSION = 2
PATCHLEVEL = 6
SUBLEVEL = 20
EXTRAVERSION =
NAME = Homicidal Dwarf Hamster

Change the EXTRAVERSION property to something you want to use to identify this kernel. I will use -jcv1

EXTRAVERSION = -jcv1

The rest of the Makefile should be fine. In fact, I discourage editing Makefiles unless you know what you're doing. This next step is totally optional, but I like to do it to save some time. You can copy your existing kernel's configuration file in order to have a very similar kernel configuration. My previous kernel version was 2.6.19.1, so this is the command I use:

# cp /usr/src/linux-2.6.19.1/.config /usr/src/linux/

Then I run make oldconfig or make silentoldconfig to update my older kernel configuration file to be able to handle newer features. If you use oldconfig you are required to specify whether or not you want the new features included in your kernel, whereas silentoldconfig will use the defaults determined by kernel developers (they usually know best), asking for minimal input. Let's update our configuration file and then customize it by running make menuconfig (there are several options here, such as make xconfig and make gconfig, but I prefer the text-based menuconfig; there is another you can run by using make config, which runs through each and every option available--it's scary).

# make silentoldconfig
# make menuconfig

menuconfig is a graphical command line application which lets you navigate the features offered by the kernel. Each computer is considerably different from the next, so it really does no good to provide a list of things that I tweak. However, it is important to note what some of the symbols are in the menuconfig utility:

• M = Module. Modules are loaded when they are required and can contribute to the speed of your system
• * = built into the kernel. These are typically things which are necessary for your machine to function properly, such as support for your root file system.
• X = exclusively selected. You'll see this when you select what type of processor you have, for example.

One thing to note before we go further is MAKE SURE YOU KERNEL HAS BUILT-IN SUPPORT FOR YOUR ROOT FILE SYSTEM!!!! My root file system is reiserfs. In my configuration, I made sure that reiserfs was marked with a star. If you don't do this, your kernel won't boot and you will be very frustrated. Trust me.

Your computer is probably quite different than mine, so you might want to just poke around and see if you recognize things that deal with your computer's hardware. Once you are done tweaking your kernel configuration, exit the configuration utility and make sure the configuration is stored in /usr/src/linux/.config

Next we get to build and install the kernel. After that, we have to add an entry to our boot manager so that we can try out our new kernel. The compilation part usually takes just about a half hour on my 2.2Ghz Turion64 processor with 1.25GB of RAM. It takes about 6 hours on my 300Mhz Pentium 2 with 32MB of RAM. Let's find out how long it takes for you to compile your kernel!

# time make
...
real    27m29.663s
user    23m34.476s
sys     2m56.575s

Now let's install the modules and install the appropriate files in the boot area:

# make modules_install
# make install

This is the part that always used to mess me up. I use Slackware Linux, which is more UNIX-ish than most distributions. It's actually the oldest surviving Linux distribution to date, but that's another story. For some reason, the make install command doesn't always work with Slackware. There is a process I use to setup my boot directory when I compile a new kernel. I wrote a simple shell script called fixkernelinstall to take care of it for me:

#!/bin/bash
# Configure my computer for a new kernel
# Author: Josh VanderLinden
# Assisted By: Dan Purcell

# if the user didn't supply a kernel number, ask for it
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    echo -n "Kernel: "
    read kernel
else
    kernel=$1
fi

# determine root partition
echo "Determining root partition..."
rootpart=`mount -l | grep ' / ' | cut -f 1 -d\ `
echo "Root partition is $rootpart"

# copy kernel configuration file
cp /usr/src/linux/.config ./config-$kernel

# now rename everything
echo "Renaming files..."
mv System.map System.map-$kernel
mv vmlinuz vmlinuz-$kernel

# if the config file exists and it's a symlink, remove it
if [ -f 'config' -a `stat config | grep -c 'symbolic link'` = '1' ]; then
    echo "Removing link to configuration file"
    rm config
else
    # otherwise it might be important
    echo "Renaming configuration file"
    mv config config.bak
fi

# Link files
echo "Creating symlinks..."
ln -s System.map-$kernel System.map
ln -s config-$kernel config
ln -s vmlinuz-$kernel vmlinuz

# Update lilo
echo "Adding entry to /etc/lilo.conf for $kernel"
echo "image = /boot/vmlinuz-$kernel" >> /etc/lilo.conf
echo "  root = $rootpart" >> /etc/lilo.conf
echo "  label = $kernel" >> /etc/lilo.conf
echo "  read-only" >> /etc/lilo.conf
echo "Linux kernel $kernel has been configured."
echo "Please check your lilo configuration and run lilo before rebooting"

I'm not an expert on shell scripts, so please feel free to offer suggestions for doing things better if you know how. This script uses the kernel version (given by the user) to setup by /boot directory properly. In my case, I run the script as such

# cd /boot
# fixkernelinstall 2.6.20-jcv1

And the output is something like:

Determining root partition...
Root partition is /dev/hda5
Renaming files...
Renaming configuration file
Creating symlinks...
Adding entry to /etc/lilo.conf for 2.6.20-jcv1
Linux kernel 2.6.20-jcv1 has been configured.
Please check your lilo configuration and run lilo before rebooting

As you can see from the script, I use LILO instead of the arguably more popular GRUB. Either one works for me, but LILO is sufficient for my needs. If you want to use the same kind of script for a GRUB installation, just change the LILO part at the end to something like:

echo 'Adding entry to /boot/grub/menu.lst for $kernel'
echo '  title Linux on ($rootpart)' >> /boot/grub/menu.lst
echo '  root (hd0,4)' >> /boot/grub/menu.lst
echo '  kernel /boot/vmlinuz-$kernel root=$rootpart ro vga=normal' >> /boot/grub/menu.lst

Make sure you change the line with root (hd0,4) to fit your setup. With GRUB, you don't have to worry about applying changes to see the menu entry at boot. It's automatically there. With LILO, however, you have to actually apply changes each time you make them. You do this by running the lilo command as the superuser:

# lilo
Added Windows
Added Linux
Added 2.6.20-jcv1 *

The star (*) signifies the default kernel to boot. Make sure that your root partition is correctly specified in your boot loader configuration. My root partition is on /dev/hda5, but yours may be (and probably is) on a different partition. If you fail to specify the correct root partition, your system will not boot that kernel until the configuration is fixed. GRUB makes this a lot easier than LILO.

And this is the point when you start to cross your figures and hope that your computer doesn't blow up... We get to reboot our computer and hope that our configuration file plays well with our computer. So, let's do that! See you in a few minutes (hopefully).

# shutdown -r now

So here I am, back on Linux on my freshly-rolled kernel. I hope you are as successful as I have been this time around. Keep in mind that you have to reinstall custom kernel modules if you installed others while you were on your other kernel. For example, I use ndiswrapper to access wireless Internet. I have to recompile and reinstall the ndiswrapper module and device drivers before I can use wireless. Likewise, I have VMWare Server on my laptop, which installed special modules. I have to run vmware-config.pl to reconfigure VMWare Server for my new kernel before I can run any virtual machines.

To summarize, here are the commands that I used in this tutorial. Remember that lines beginning with a dollar sign ($) are executed as a non-privileged user, while lines beginning with the pound sign (#) are executed as the superuser (root).

$ cd /home/user/download
$ wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.20.tar.bz2
$ su -
# cd /usr/src
# tar jxf /home/user/download/linux-2.6.20.tar.bz2
# rm /usr/src/linux
# ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.20 /usr/src/linux
# cd /usr/src/linux
# make clean
# vi Makefile (to change EXTRAVERSION to -jcv1)
# cp ../linux-2.6.19.1/.config .
# make silentoldconfig
# make menuconfig (just to ensure settings were good)
# time make
# make modules_install
# make install
# cd /boot
# fixkernelinstall 2.6.20-jcv1
# vi /etc/lilo.conf (to make sure things were good)
# lilo
# shutdown -r now

I hope that you are able to use this tutorial to successfully install or upgrade your kernel. Good luck! Any comments or suggestions are welcome!

This will be the second time for me putting SLED 10 on my laptop, but I've also put SLES 10, SuSE Linux 10.1, and various others on this laptop several times before. It _has_ been a few months since I last installed Linux on this laptop, so we'll see how well I remember how to do it. I will be installing the 64-bit DVD version, so as to take better advantage of the 64-bit capabilities of my processor. This shouldn't have a drastic effect on the overall procedure, compared to that of installing the 32-bit CD/DVD version.

Here are some specs of my laptop:

• Make/Model: HP Pavilion dv8000
• CPU: AMD Turion 64 ML-40 (2.2Ghz)
• RAM: 1.25GB PC2700 DDR333 SODIMM
• HDD: 5400RPM 80GB
• Video: ATI Radeon Xpress 200M (128MB dedicated RAM, up to an additional 128MB shared RAM)

Note: I make a few assumptions in the writing of this article. One is that you are on a machine running Windows XP. If your computer can't handle Windows XP, you probably don't want to be running SLED 10. Another assumption is that you don't yet have your hard drive partitioned into more than one partition. I also assume that you already have the installation media in good working condition. For those of you in the BYU-I Linux Users Group (LUG), I am willing to make copies of the discs if you provide the media or discuss some sort of compensation if you want me to provide the media.

In this tutorial, I assume that you have access to a Linux machine on which you plan to create the repository. I have never tried to create a repository on Windows or Mac, but perhaps in the future I will. I am doing this on a Slackware 10.2 machine with subversion 1.3.2. Version differences shouldn't have a great effect on the validity of the steps outlined here.