First of all, I have to tell everyone how great of a distribution Slackware is. I have personally sampled (meaning that I downloaded, installed, and ran for a trial period) at least 50 different distributions. It seems that, no matter how fancy a new distribution is, I always find myself returning to Slackware. I have to admit, it doesn't have a lot of the eyecandy and user-friendly features of other mainstream distributions right off the bat, but you could add them if you wanted to. Among my reasons for liking Slackware so much are:

• It's the fastest (by default) I've used
• Stability
• Security
• Educational value

Now that we have a little background as to why I like Slackware so much, let's move on to the installation, shall we? To make it a little more simple, I'm just including the notes that I took while installing.

• Insert disc 1

• Boot Menu: Hit enter to boot with default options

• Select keyboard map: Enter for default US

• Login as root

• Check partition scheme: # fdisk /dev/hda

  Here are some useful commands to get around in fdisk:

  • p to print partition table
  • d to delete, followed by parition number
  • c to create; primary/extended; start sector; end sector
  • a to toggle bootable flag
  • w to write parition table
  • q to quit

• # setup

• ADDSWAP to activate swap partition

  • select your swap partition and hit ok
  • choose whether you wish to check for bad blocks while preparing the swap partition [no]
  • hit ok when your swap partition has been configured

• Choose your root (/) parition

  • Select the proper partition from the list and hit select
  • Choose your formatting type
    • Format: Quick format with no bad block checking
    • Check: Slow format that checks for bad blocks
    • No: No, do not format this partition
    • [ FORMAT ]
  • Choose filesystem
    • ext2: Standard Linux Ext2 Filesystem
    • ext3: Ext3 Journaling Filesystem
    • reiserfs: ReiserFS Journaling Filesystem
    • [ REISERFS ]
  • Add other paritions and follow the same process as above, specifying the mount point
  • Hit ok when the partitions have been setup successfully

• Specify whether you'd like any existing FAT or NTFS partitions to be mounted in Linux

  • [ YES ]
  • Select the partition
  • Specify the mount point

• Hit ok when the FAT and NTFS partitions have been setup

• Choose your installation source

  • Install from a Slackware CD or DVD
  • Install from a hard drive partition
  • Install from NFS (Network File System)
  • Install from a pre-mounted directory
  • [ CD or DVD ]

• Choose the CD/DVD device

  • auto: Scan for the CD or DVD drive (recommended)
  • manual: Manually specify CD or DVD by device name
  • [ AUTO ]

• Select the package sets you'd like to install and hit ok

• Select prompting mode

  • full Install everything (3+ GB of software, recommended)
  • expert Choose individual packages from interactive menus
  • menu Choose groups of packages from interactive menus
  • newbie Use verbose prompting (and follow tagfiles)
  • custom Use custom tagfiles in the package directories
  • tagpath Use tagfiles in the subdirectories of a custom path
  • [ FULL ]

• Specify your kernel

  • bootdisk Use the kernel from the installation bootdisk
  • cdrom Use a kernel from the Slackware CD or NFS mount
  • floppy Install a zimage or bzimage from a DOS floppy
  • skip Skip this menu (use the default /boot/vmlinuz)
  • [ CDROM ]

• Re-insert disc 1

  • Select your kernel
  • [ /cdrom/kernels/sata.i/bzImage ]

• Make a bootdisk

  • Create Make a Linux bootdisk in /dev/fd0
  • Skip Skip making a bootdisk
  • [ SKIP ]

• Modem configuration [ NO MODEM ]

• Specify whether you'd like to start hotplug/udev at boot [ YES ]

• Install the bootloader, LILO

  • simple Try to install LILO automatically
  • expert Use expert lilo.conf setup menu
  • skip Do not install LILO
  • [ SIMPLE ]

• Choose your frame buffer mode for LILO [ standard ]

• Pass the kernel a parameter if you have an IDE CD/DVD-RW drive

  • [ hdc=ide-scsi ]

• Select LILO destination

  • Root Install to superblock (not for use with XFS)
  • Floppy Install to a formatted floppy in /dev/fd0 (A:)
  • MBR Install to Master Boot Record (possibly unsafe)
  • [ MBR ]

• Select your mouse type [ IMPS2 ]

• Specify whether you'd like to start GPM at boot [ NO ]

• Specify whether you'd like to configure your network

  • [ YES ]
  • Enter your hostname
  • Enter your domain name
  • Specify IP setup
    • static IP Use a static IP address to configure ethernet
    • DHCP Use a DHCP server to configure ethernet
    • loopback Set up a loopback connection (modem or no net)
    • [ DHCP ]
  • Specify DHCP parameters
  • Verify and accept network configuration

• Specify services to start at boot time

  • rc.cups
  • rc.httpd
  • rc.mysqld
  • rc.pcmcia
  • rc.samba
  • rc.scanluns
  • rc.sendmail
  • rc.syslog
  • rc.sshd

• Specify whether you'd like to try out some screen fonts [ NO ]

• Specify whether your machine's clock is set to local time or UTC/GMT [ NO ]

• Select timezone

• Select your default desktop [ KDE ]

• Set a root password

• Reboot

• Login as root

• Add a new (normal) user: # adduser

• Configure XWindows

  • # xorgcfg
  • save the configuration to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

• Logout and back in as the new user

• Bring up the GUI

  • $ startx

Begin using your system!!

Ok, just so everyone knows, I will not go into much depth about how to get your scroll button working, but I will cover the basics:

• Open your xorg.conf file (it's likely to be hanging around /etc/X11/xorg.conf)
• Find the section related to your mouse (search for the text "mouse" or "pointer")
• Set your protocol to IMPS/2
• Add the line below the protocol: Option "Buttons" "5"
• Add the line below the buttons option: Option "zAxisMapping" "4 5"
• Save the xorg.conf
• Restart the X windowing system. If you did you editing from within X (using KDE, GNOME, or other environment) you should be able to hit CTRL-ALT-Backspace to restart X.

These instructions will likely vary depending on your distribution. Some distributions (like Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, etc) don't seem to play well with manually-edited files and prefer that you use their graphical interfaces to change settings like this. But you should also not have issues using the scroll button on your mouse with the distributions listed above.

Good luck!