I installed Slackware15 on my Dell Inspiron 530 today!! Why Slackware15? This Dell PC is running a Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT and Slackware will still install the 5.15.193 kernel, that works well with the default Nouveau driver!! It is running KDE Plasma and Firefox well!!
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This Dell PC is running a Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT
Just being curious
- What software you are using where is mandatory to use the Nvidia card?
Some video game? Photo, video editor tool?
I am doing this question because I have a Lenovo with a Nvidia card and I am not sure if its drivers where installed or not by default. The point is, if was not installed, the normal use in the OS is normal as other laptops with integrated video card
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Does Slackware have a reasonable repository? I dont imagine it is as large as Debian or Gentoo, but is it adequate?
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More than adequate for what I need !! This Dell just will not run any linux kernel over 5.15 and Slackware has the LTS 5.15 and Slackware does not update kernels, like other Distros!! So it is perfect for this old Dell Inspiron 530!! May install Waterfox later on!!
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I dual boot with XP, which has no issue with the Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT and XP is for playing games, that I bought, years ago!!
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I dual boot with XP, which has no issue with the Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT and XP is for playing games, that I bought, years ago!!
I did do the same around 2008 to 2012 with Windows XP to play something … I remember had installed (perhaps configured) drivers for a ATI video card to play Quake 4 in Linux … it run faster than Windows LOL
My point was: I thought you had installed specific drivers in Linux to take full capacity of your video card. But if is OK the default drivers for the common use of video in the OS … ok is fine
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I have been down that road, all I really need from Slackware15 is a 5.15.19 kernel that will run the nouveau graphics driver and Firefox for internet access!! No, game playing with Linux!!
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So if you do a kind of upgrade (even by mistake) of the kernel you would get a problem … Am I correct?
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There are no linux kernel updates, for this old Dell Inspirion 530 machine!! Like I said, XP has no issues with the Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT, the linux kernel is the issue!! It is getting, next to impossible to get some of these old machines online, Slackware is a jewel in disguise!!!
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So, after several days of working with slackware-5.15.19 and the LILO boot, finally figured out how to skip LILO and use Grub for Slackware boot!! I have now updated Slackware to 5.15.193, at which this old Dell Inspirion 530 will be locked down too, as long as Slackware, keeps the 5.15 LTS kernel patched!!
Next step is to plugin my XP disk and add it to the Slackware boot menu!!
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AntiX offers the 5.10 kernel, as well as a modern 6.x kernel.
They do that specifically to support older machines.
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So does Slackware but without all the unnecessary bloat that AntX has!! With Slackware I can now take my old machine back online!!
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That sounds interesting. I like to start with nothing and add things.
Kernel + utilities, like BSD, is a good starting point
Gentoo does it the wrong way around … stage 3 tarball first then kernel.
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Slackware would be right down your alley, it is old school, one of the oldest surviving Distro’s, but it still works, especially if one has Nvidia graphics that require the 390 or 340 driver!!
To me it is a lot like LFS, without systemd, strictly init and rc.d!!
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Well that sounds encouraging. Can you build it from source code?
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Not quite sure about that, Slackware has a Ncurses menu installer, most just use the full install, but one has to read carefully, the menus, especially the LILO boot that is default for Slackware!!
Google says it can be built from source!!
The Slackware Linux Project: Get Slack and https://packages.slackware.com/ Take a look !!!
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I think I had better try a binary install first and learn something.
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Use the ncurses menu to build slackware and slackbuild to build other packages!!!
I am using my Dell PC, with KDE, and Slackware now!! Runs just as well as Gentoo or LFS!!
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Slackware (3.x) was my intro to Linux… on a spare 386-DX I had at home (8 MB RAM)
Way back in 1995 - if you wanted things like ethernet on an ISA NIC, or Soundblaster support, or CD-ROM support (my CD-ROM drive had a proprietary connector to the soundblaster card, it was sorta like IDE, but not IDE) - you had to compile a new kernel… And because this was ISA bus stuff - you needed to know the IRQ and DMA the ISA card was configured for and enter those values during the kernel build. That was kernel 1.2.13 - and it was massively monolithic - i.e. drivers had to be compiled in - it wasn’t till Kernel 2.x that there were separate “kernel modules”… The kernel is still “monolithic” but you can run kernel modules alongside it…
I printed Patrick Volkerding’s Slackware manual at work and pretty much read the whole thing…
I even deployed a Slackware 3 server at work in 1996 - at a hospital - the old mainframe “netmail” system was going to be decom’d so they needed a quick “stopgap” email solution, while they found the budget to deploy MS Exchange… Basically POP/SMTP - with Eudora on Windows 3.11 as the mail client… it was a bit of a nightmare to support - as there was always one user (several in fact) who’d send the same SPAM email with some lame video attached to 20 people and fill up the /var/spool filesystem… Pentium 133 with 8 MB RAM and a 3 GB HDD…
Interesting Slackware’s still defaulting to LILO boot manager…
I got Slackware from AARNET - and they’re still hosting way back to Slackware 3.3 :
And still arranged in floppy disk images - e.g. the “net” series of disks started with “n”…
I’m too lazy these days to re-indulge in Slackware for nostalgia purposes…
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I remember that with FreeBSD. A simple thing like changing the graphics card meant recompile the kernel.
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