
These are the most frequently asked questions about ZipSlack:

Q1: How do I add X to this?
Q2: I get "unable to open virtual console" when I boot!
Q3: Why does the boot process stop with this "Kernel panic" error?
Q4: I can't unzip the file -- it says I don't have enough memory!
Q5: All I have is DOS!  Do you know of an unzipper that works with 
    zipslack.zip for DOS or Windows 3.1?
Q6: How can zipslack.zip be split into floppy sized chunks?
Q7: Can my ZipSlack installation be moved onto a real Linux partition?
Q8: Will ZipSlack work on machines using IBM's Microchannel bus?
    (many IBM PS/2's use this, including the PS/2 Thinkpad 700)
Q9: How do I get ZipSlack to recognize the Iomega Zip Zoom SCSI card?
Q10: The kernel freezes during the boot process!

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Q1: How do I add X to this?

A:  Assuming you've got the space to install it, download the X packages
    (the files ending in .tgz) from this directory:

    ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/slackware/x/

    Once you've collected the packages you plan to install into a
    directory, run this to install them:

    installpkg *.tgz

    Before running X, you'll need to set it up with 'xf86config'.

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Q2: I get "unable to open virtual console" when I boot!

A:  You're probably not giving LINUX.BAT the correct partition name.  If
    you really have no idea which one to use, you can try each of these.
    If it's on an IDE partition, it will almost definately be one of them:

    /dev/hda1 /dev/hda2 /dev/hda3 /dev/hda4 /dev/hda5 /dev/hda6
    /dev/hdb1 /dev/hdb2 /dev/hdb3 /dev/hdb4 /dev/hdb5 /dev/hdb6
    /dev/hdc1 /dev/hdc2 /dev/hdc3 /dev/hdc4 /dev/hdc5 /dev/hdc6
    /dev/hdd1 /dev/hdd2 /dev/hdd3 /dev/hdd4 /dev/hdd5 /dev/hdd6

    If you know which hard drive (not C:, D:, etc, but which number
    drive, 1, 2, 3, or 4) the partition is on, then you can narrow the
    list down quite a bit.  The first IDE drive's partitions all start
    with /dev/hda, the second hard drive's partitions begin with /dev/hdb,
    and so on.

    This can also be caused by unzipping zipslack.zip in the wrong place
    on a partition.  It must be unzipped in the top directory on the partition
    (such as in the C:\ directory) or the kernel won't be able to find the
    installation when it boots.  The unzipping process will create a new
    directory for the files automatically (C:\LINUX).


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Q3: Why does the boot process stop with this "Kernel panic" error?

      VFS: Cannot open root device 08:04
      Kernel panic: VFS : Unable to mount root fs on 08:04

A:  Well, you see, device 08:04 is the fourth partition on a SCSI drive
    (/dev/sda4).  In most machines these days, there are no SCSI devices,
    only IDE ones.  (NOTE: the parallel-port version of the Zip drive
                           *is* treated as a SCSI device by Linux)

    What you need to do is edit the LINUX.BAT file and change the
    uncommented loadlin line (without the 'rem') to boot the partition
    where you installed Linux.  This is probably something like /dev/hda1
    if you used your C: drive.

    If you have no idea what the partition is, look right before it stops
    and you'll see something like:
       hda: hda1 hda2 hda3

    In this case, the partition must be one of: /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2,
    /dev/hda3.


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Q4: I can't unzip the file -- it says I don't have enough memory!

A:  This happens if you use a 16-bit unzipper.  You must use a 32-bit version
    such as WinZip or PKZIP for Windows95 or NT. (of course, unzip for Linux
    also works fine :)

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Q5: All I have is DOS!  Do you know of an unzipper that works with zipslack.zip
    for DOS or Windows 3.1?

A:  Yes, (for Win 3.x) I hear there's something called Zip Navigator.

    If you can't find that, here's how to unzip it under Linux.

    First, grab a bootdisk that works with your system.

     For an average IDE system:
      ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/bootdisks/bare.i
     For a SCSI system:
      ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/bootdisks/adaptec.s
      ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/bootdisks/scsi.s
      ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/bootdisks/scsi2.s
     For an IBM PS/2 microchannel bus machine:
      ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/bootdisks/ibmmca.s
     If you're unzipping the file to a parallel port Zip drive:
      ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/zipslack/bootdisk.img

    Then, you'll need the rescue disk.  This is a small Linux system on a
    floppy disk.  One of the utilities it includes is unzip.  Here's where
    you can get the rescue disk image:

    ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/rootdisks/bootdisk.img

    Boot the first disk (the bootdisk), and hit enter at the 'boot:' prompt.
    When prompted, insert the rootdisk (rescue.gz) and hit enter to load it.

    Log in as root.

    Now, you'll need to mount the DOS partition where the zipslack.zip file
    resides.  If the final destination is a Zip disk, you might still just
    want to go ahead and unzip the file on your DOS partition, and then move
    the directory tree onto the Zip disk under DOS with XCOPY or a similar
    tool.  If you're not sure what the name of your DOS partition is under
    Linux, use this command:

        fdisk -l | more

    The partition name will be something like /dev/hda1.  To mount the
    partition, use a command like this:

         mount /dev/hda1 /mnt -t msdos

    Switch to the /mnt directory, and unzip the file:

         cd /mnt
         unzip zipslack.zip

    That should unzip the file.  Now you're ready to hit crtl-alt-delete and
    reboot your machine.  From there, follow the directions in README.1st to
    boot the Linux OS.


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Q6: How can zipslack.zip be split into floppy sized chunks?

A:  NOTE:  zipslack.zip is available pre-split in the split directory!

    Splitting up the file is another way to handle the problem of 16-bit
    unzippers failing to unzip ZIPSLACK.ZIP.

    Here's a report from one of our users about how to do this:

    I had trouble unzipping - I don't have a win95 machine, and pkunzip
    for DOS croaked horribly. Info-zip unzip did a much better job, but
    died after about 3/4 of the unzip process (out of memory). So, I used
    a "zip splitter" to split the zipslack.zip into floppy sized bites
    (from Simtel, filename zc300.zip), then extracted each of the 26
    zips to the Zip disk. Booted like a champ, runs nice but slow on a 486/66
    with 12Mb ram.

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Q7: Can my ZipSlack installation be moved onto a real Linux partition?

A:  Yes, it can.  Here are the steps you'll need to follow to migrate your
    installation onto a Linux ext2 partition:

    1.  Define a Linux partition using fdisk or cfdisk.  If you find it
        easier, you can use DOS or Windows tools to create the partition and
        then use Linux fdisk to change the partition type to 83 (Linux native).

    2.  Format this partition with 'mke2fs'.  For example, if your new Linux
        partition is /dev/hdb1 you'd use the following command:

        mke2fs /dev/hdb1

        Formatting destroys the existing filesystem on the partition, so make
        sure to format the correct partition!

    3.  Mount the new partition on /mnt.  In the case of the example above,
        this command will do it:

        mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt

    4.  Make a few directories on the new partition:

        mkdir /mnt/mnt
        mkdir /mnt/proc

    5.  Now it's time to actually move the data.  First you'll need to set your
        'umask' to 000 to correctly preserve all file permissions, and then
        you'll copy the top-level directories (other than cdrom, mnt, and proc)
        and the kernel file (vmlinuz) onto the new Linux partition:

        umask 000
        cp -a /bin /mnt
        cp -a /boot /mnt
        cp -a /dev /mnt
        cp -a /etc /mnt
        cp -a /home /mnt
        cp -a /lib /mnt
        cp -a /root /mnt
        cp -a /sbin /mnt
        cp -a /tmp /mnt
        cp -a /usr /mnt
        cp -a /var /mnt
        cp -a vmlinuz /mnt

        If you've made any new top-level directories that you want to save,
        copy them over to the new partition in the same way.

    6.  Edit the /mnt/etc/fstab.  Change the device listed for the '/'
        partition to the new Linux partition's device.

    7.  That's it!  Your system should be ready to boot on the new partition.
        To do that, you can use loadlin (if it's installed on your DOS or
        Windows partition), or a bootdisk.  Once you've booted the new
        partition you can proceed to set up LILO if you like.  Note that when
        you boot a native Linux partition you should boot it in read-only
        mode (unlike UMSDOS).  This allows it to do automatic filesystem
        checking periodically, or if the machine is ever shut down improperly.
        To boot a partition in read-only mode, add 'ro' instead of 'rw' to the
        bootdisk or loadlin command line.

    Since this operation must be done as root and involves dangerous operations
    like using fdisk, you need to be careful to avoid losing data.  But, if you
    can migrate your installation successfully, you've earned your intermediate
    Linux sysadmin merit badge.  :^)

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Q8: Will ZipSlack work on machines using IBM's Microchannel bus?
    (many IBM PS/2's use this, including the PS/2 Thinkpad 700)

A:  Yes, but you'll need to use a Linux kernel especially designed for
    the Microchannel bus.  A suitable kernel may be found here:

    ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/kernels/ibmmca.s/bzImage
    
    Copy this kernel over ZipSlack's default Linux kernel:

    COPY BZIMAGE \LINUX\VMLINUZ

    Edit the LINUX.BAT, and you should be able to boot your machine.

    If your machine uses ESDI hard drives (rather than IDE or SCSI), you
    may need to specify booting to an ESDI device such as /dev/eda1 in your
    LINUX.BAT.  This example would be for the first partition (1) on the
    first ESDI drive (/dev/eda) in LINUX.BAT:

    rem \linux\loadlin  \linux\vmlinuz  root=/dev/eda1 rw

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Q9: How do I get ZipSlack to recognize the Iomega Zip Zoom SCSI card?

A:  The Iomega Zoom SCSI card is a little tricky to use with Linux, since
    Linux cannot automatically detect it.  To use it, you will need to add
    a command line in the LINUX.BAT telling the kernel where to look for the
    card.  You put this on the end of the uncommented loadlin line, right
    after the 'rw'.  Here's an example:

    rem \linux\loadlin  \linux\vmlinuz  root=/dev/sdb4 rw aha152x=0x340,11,7

    This is for a card at I/O address 0x340, IRQ 11.  Your card may report the
    numbers it uses at boot time, or you can look them up under windows in
    My Computer -> Properties -> Device Manager, then look up the SCSI adapter
    and look at the properties -> resources for that.

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Q10: The kernel freezes during the boot process!

A:   The default Linux kernel included with ZipSlack contains drivers for
     many of the most common SCSI cards.  While these don't cause problems
     on most systems, sometimes the hardware probing process can cause a
     machine to hang at boot time.  The solution for this is to obtain a
     different kernel and install it in place of the default \linux\vmlinuz.

     If your machine doesn't contain SCSI devices, you can use this kernel:

     ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/kernels/bare.i/bzImage

     After downloading, copy it over the existing kernel:

     COPY BZIMAGE \LINUX\VMLINUZ

     There are many other kernels in the directory
     ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/kernels/ -- you
     should be able to find one to suit just about any machine.  As as
     example, if your machine has very low memory (4MB), you might have to
     boot using the kernel in the slackware/kernels/lowmem.i directory.
     
     For more information on the drivers included in the kernels,i
     see the file:

     ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/bootdisks/README.TXT

     (this file is about the bootdisks used with a traditional Slackware
     installation, but it's also a good source of information about what the
     kernels in the ./kernels directory support)

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