Slackware 12 upgrade

OK, I’ve done it. I’ve started the upgrade from Slackware 10.2.0 to Slackware 12.

I’ve been avoiding this for a while, but my backup hard drives don’t have room for all my work stuff anymore, so I decided I needed a new drive. Ordered up a Seagate ST3500320AS, 500GB and 32MB of cache from New Egg last week.

Slackware 12 installed easily enough on the new drive, but I’ve had a few difficulties. Here is a summary of my status and the problems I’ve had.

Done

  • Installed Slackware 12 on new drive
  • Configured network connections
  • Configured firewall
  • Configured Sound

To Do

  • Configure CUPS for printer
  • Move existing files from current drive (did this once, but I keep having to roll back to my current drive for work)
  • Configure SSH server
  • Install latest versions of software (Opera, Firefox, anything else I use)
  • Configure camera software to download photos
  • Configure X to run in 1680×1050

Problems

lilo – When I attempted to install lilo through the slackware setup it just didn’t take. Tried both the root superblock and the mbr, but no success. Finally just went back to a command line from the boot disk, chrooted and ran lilo manually. Works fine now.

X11 – Every time I start X it crashes. It will run for two or three minutes, and then the whole machine will just lockup. I have been running my current configuration with a 2.6.15 kernel for some time without any problems at all. Slackware 12 defaults to the 2.6.21.5 kernel build. It defaults to the generic-smp kernel and my system is running a single core Athlon 64 processor, not sure if it’s that, some incompatibility with the video hardware when running Xorg, or what. I can’t find any error messages in the system log or any kind of record of a kernel panic, so I’m at a loss.

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten for now. I think Slackware is a great distro, but some of these things could definitely be easier. I might go out and see what’s in Slackware current and pull down the latest stuff. Wish Slackware 12.0.1 was available.