newbie to Slackware: can't startx

[Haines Brown]

I installed Oracle VirtualBox on my Debian machine and downloaded the
Slackware 14.1 ISO to install into a virtual hard disk (I have the
Slackware DVD, but when I tried to install it into a 6Gb virtual disk,
it filled 100%).

After installation I saved the setup and booted the virtual system.
When the boot process completed I found myself at a :/# prompt. I would
have expected a login prompt. From :/# I can list the files in / with ls.
So am I logged in or not? I try :/# startx and get:

/mnt/usr/bin/startx: line 181: /usr/bin/cookie: No such file or
directory. Couldn't create cookie.

I find that /usr/bin holds a strange (to me) set of files such as as
compress*, dlist_test*, get_device*. None of the commands I expected.

I issue the login command: :/# and at the login prompt enter root. This
takes me to :~# without a password prompt. I can list the files in /
with ls. I do:

~# startx
-bash: startx: command not found

I have X and fluxbox installed.

Haines Brown

[Lew Pitcher]

On Thursday May 14 2015 20:56, in alt.os.linux.slackware, "Haines Brown"

<hai...@engels.histomat.net> wrote:

> I installed Oracle VirtualBox on my Debian machine and downloaded the
> Slackware 14.1 ISO to install into a virtual hard disk (I have the
> Slackware DVD, but when I tried to install it into a 6Gb virtual disk,
> it filled 100%).
>
> After installation I saved the setup and booted the virtual system.
> When the boot process completed I found myself at a :/# prompt. I would
> have expected a login prompt.

It sounds like your virtual system booted into the install DVD, and not the
installed system

> From :/# I can list the files in / with ls.
> So am I logged in or not? I try :/# startx and get:
>
> /mnt/usr/bin/startx:

Suspicious. If this were a properly installed Slackware system, that would
be /usr/bin/startx . The /mnt/usr/bin/startx path suggests that you are still
in the install DVD's live system, and not in the installed Slackware system.

> line 181: /usr/bin/cookie: No such file or
> directory. Couldn't create cookie.

Are you certain that you got the error message right? The error message more
likely complained that /usr/bin/mcookie could not be found. /usr/bin/cookie
is part of the Slackware util-linux package.

> I find that /usr/bin holds a strange (to me) set of files such as as
> compress*, dlist_test*, get_device*. None of the commands I expected.

The commands you name (compress, dlist_test, get_device) seem appropriate for
Slackware's /usr/bin directory

> I issue the login command: :/# and at the login prompt enter root. This
> takes me to :~# without a password prompt.

Suggesting that either you didn't set up a password for root, or you are still
in the install environment.

> I can list the files in /
> with ls. I do:
>
> ~# startx
> -bash: startx: command not found

startx doesn't seem to be in a directory in your PATH

> I have X and fluxbox installed.

The evidence so far indicates that your virtual environment is running the
install DVD, and not the installed Slackware system.

Without extensive debugging, the best bet (in my opinion) is to scrap the
environment, and try again.


--
Lew Pitcher
"In Skills, We Trust"
PGP public key available upon request

[Rich]

Haines Brown <hai...@engels.histomat.net> wrote:
> I installed Oracle VirtualBox on my Debian machine and downloaded the
> Slackware 14.1 ISO to install into a virtual hard disk (I have the
> Slackware DVD, but when I tried to install it into a 6Gb virtual disk,
> it filled 100%).

> After installation I saved the setup and booted the virtual system.

What you did not say is whether you reinstalled after filling the 6G
virtual disk 100%. If it really did fill 100%, then your next step
should have been to increase the virtual disk size and reinstall.

> When the boot process completed I found myself at a :/# prompt. I would
> have expected a login prompt. From :/# I can list the files in / with ls.
> So am I logged in or not? I try :/# startx and get:

> /mnt/usr/bin/startx: line 181: /usr/bin/cookie: No such file or
> directory. Couldn't create cookie.

> I find that /usr/bin holds a strange (to me) set of files such as as
> compress*, dlist_test*, get_device*. None of the commands I expected.

The remainder of your posting implies as the other poster has surmised.
You left the ISO mounted in the virtual DVD drive and booted of the
install ISO rather than the virtual disk (assuming you did reinstall).

If you did not reinstall, then your next step must be to do a reinstall
with enough disk to not fill 100%.

[Ars Ivci]

Haines Brown wrote:
> I installed Oracle VirtualBox on my Debian machine and downloaded the
> Slackware 14.1 ISO to install into a virtual hard disk (I have the
> Slackware DVD, but when I tried to install it into a 6Gb virtual disk,
> it filled 100%).
>

You need a space of 13 Gb for root and some for home partition for a
default Slackware install (i.e. installing all preselected packages.

t.
--
On earth: A magician puts his hand in his hat.

In the rabbit realm: The Hand emerges. It is time. The rabbit council
must choose a sacrifice.

[Haines Brown]

Lew Pitcher <lew.p...@digitalfreehold.ca> writes:

> On Thursday May 14 2015 20:56, in alt.os.linux.slackware, "Haines Brown"
> <hai...@engels.histomat.net> wrote:
>
>> I installed Oracle VirtualBox on my Debian machine and downloaded the
>> Slackware 14.1 ISO to install into a virtual hard disk (I have the
>> Slackware DVD, but when I tried to install it into a 6Gb virtual disk,
>> it filled 100%).

Lew, thanks.

By accident I did I succeed booting the virtual system rather than the
install ISO.

I accepted the default packages to install. This now is taking up
what seems to be 700 Mb. I don't understand why an installation from DVD
should be any different and require more than 5 Gb space for an
installation.

>> After installation I saved the setup and booted the virtual system.
>> When the boot process completed I found myself at a :/# prompt. I would
>> have expected a login prompt.
>
> It sounds like your virtual system booted into the install DVD, and not the
> installed system

Yes, that was it. I resolved the problem by accident. When I closed and
reopened the virtual box, it booted the virtual system rather than the
installation ISO. I suspect that to boot the system without having
closed the VM I should have gone to its Settings to select the proper
source.

I'll have some fun playing with Slackware. So far things are going
well. I'm looking at Slackware because I'm a refugee fleeing systemd on
Debian.

[Ed Wilson]

Haines Brown wrote:


> I accepted the default packages to install. This now is taking up
> what seems to be 700 Mb. I don't understand why an installation from DVD
> should be any different and require more than 5 Gb space for an
> installation.
>

When I install Slackware I normally see a screen for each package being
installed. Instead of installing slackware again I decided to see what
information could be found in /var/log/packages.

ed@ewilson:/var/log/packages$ head -n3 kernel-*
==> kernel-firmware-20131008git-noarch-1 <==
PACKAGE NAME: kernel-firmware-20131008git-noarch-1
COMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 20.6M
UNCOMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 54M

==> kernel-generic-3.10.17-x86_64-2 <==
PACKAGE NAME: kernel-generic-3.10.17-x86_64-2
COMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 3.7M
UNCOMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 5.5M

==> kernel-headers-3.10.17-x86-2 <==
PACKAGE NAME: kernel-headers-3.10.17-x86-2
COMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 640K
UNCOMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 3.3M

==> kernel-huge-3.10.17-x86_64-2 <==
PACKAGE NAME: kernel-huge-3.10.17-x86_64-2
COMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 6.7M
UNCOMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 9.5M

==> kernel-modules-3.10.17-x86_64-2 <==
PACKAGE NAME: kernel-modules-3.10.17-x86_64-2
COMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 24M
UNCOMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 121M

==> kernel-source-3.10.17-noarch-2 <==
PACKAGE NAME: kernel-source-3.10.17-noarch-2
COMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 74M
UNCOMPRESSED PACKAGE SIZE: 502M

--
Ed Wilson

[Chick Tower]

On 2015-05-15, Haines Brown wrote:
> I accepted the default packages to install. This now is taking up
> what seems to be 700 Mb. I don't understand why an installation from DVD
> should be any different and require more than 5 Gb space for an
> installation.

Well, it does. I know there are a lot of distros that come on one CD,
but they don't have as much as Slackware does. Slackware includes KDE,
a lot of KDE applications, and everything you need to compile source
packages written in C. It comes with Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey,
and MariaDB. Those things all take up space, and on the DVD they're
compressed. Once installed, every single file in each package takes up
at least one cluster (4KB minimum, depending on your hard drive size).

I used to plan on 10GB for a Slackware installation, but that got too
tight, so now I use a 12GB partition, with /home on a separate
partition. I also include a fair number of programs from
slackbuilds.org, and sometimes the Java Runtime Environment. I usually
store the patches and packages built from SlackBuilds in /root, and they
accumulate.
--
Chick Tower

For e-mail: aols2 DOT sent DOT towerboy AT xoxy DOT net

[Haines Brown]

Chick,

Thanks. I'm not used to installing Linuces from CD/DVD (normally do cross
or net installations), and so didn't realize that more than a basic
system would be installed.

[Rich]

If you answered "install everything" to the install prompt, without
first deselecting any options, then you get what you asked for, a full,
everything, install, KDE and all.

If you don't need or want KDE, you can turn it off, and save the
required disk space. My slack installs fit into somewhere between 4
and 6 gig, but I skip installing KDE and the other desktop environment
(forget what it is named now) and just go with the Fvwm2 window manager
for X.

[Eef Hartman]

Rich <ri...@example.invalid> wrote:
> If you don't need or want KDE, you can turn it off, and save the
> required disk space. My slack installs fit into somewhere between 4
> and 6 gig, but I skip installing KDE and the other desktop environment
> (forget what it is named now) and just go with the Fvwm2 window manager

Xfce. It's what I use, although I _do_ have KDE installed as some of
its utils are useful.
Still, my root fs is about 6.5 GB, of which some 1.5 G are the kernel
sources (I run the NVidia driver, which need those sources, VirtualBox
hasn't been installed _yet_, but it will need them too).
OK, I got more then 5 GB in /opt (which is a separate fs in my system)
like Office, Intel compilers (C + Fortran) etc, so the total system is
some 11.5 G in size (but with a lot of non-slackware stuff).

[JohnF]

Eef Hartman <E.J.M....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rich <ri...@example.invalid> wrote:
>> If you don't need or want KDE, you can turn it off, and save the
>> required disk space. My slack installs fit into somewhere between 4
>> and 6 gig, but I skip installing KDE and the other desktop environment
>> (forget what it is named now) and just go with the Fvwm2 window manager
>

> Xfce. It's what I use, although I do have KDE installed as some of

> its utils are useful.
> Still, my root fs is about 6.5 GB, of which some 1.5 G are the kernel
> sources (I run the NVidia driver, which need those sources, VirtualBox

> hasn't been installed yet, but it will need them too).

> OK, I got more then 5 GB in /opt (which is a separate fs in my system)
> like Office, Intel compilers (C + Fortran) etc, so the total system is
> some 11.5 G in size (but with a lot of non-slackware stuff).

I also use fvwm2, though with an .fvwm/ and .fvwm/.fvwm2rc,etc, from
somewheres on the net, that makes it look like the old fvwm95.
Nevertheless, I always just do a full install. And that even includes
tetex, though I then take it off my path (chmod 644 /etc/profile.d/tetex.sh
and .csh), install texlive, and add that to my path instead (with a 755'ed
texlive.sh in /etc/profile.d/).
Why worry about a few GB disk nowadays??? My first slackware install
was around 1994 from floppies, and I worried a lot about disk space,
carefully installing only what I needed. But nowadays a few GB is just
a drop in the multi-TB bucket. Just install everything: nothing actually
"hurts", you don't have to worry about any weird dependencies you
may have overlooked, you might want to try out, say, konqueror from kde
even though you're running fvwm2, etc.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

[Chick Tower]

Yeah, since you said your a Debian "refugee", I thought you might think
that. I forgot that you can turn packages off, and it can be pretty
find-grained. However, if you want to review every package during
installation, it will take forever because it will pause on every
package and ask if you want it. You can also just choose major
categories of software, like KDE as Rich suggested, to leave out.
That's what I do on laptops, since I don't run KDE. But leaving out KDE
and it's internationalization packages will save some space. Of course,
if you want to run KDE, you can't do that.

[Unknown]

On Thu, 14 May 2015 21:47:30 -0400, Lew Pitcher wrote:

> On Thursday May 14 2015 20:56, in alt.os.linux.slackware, "Haines Brown"
> <hai...@engels.histomat.net> wrote:
>
>> I installed Oracle VirtualBox on my Debian machine and downloaded the
>> Slackware 14.1 ISO to install into a virtual hard disk (I have the
>> Slackware DVD, but when I tried to install it into a 6Gb virtual disk,
>> it filled 100%).
>>
>> After installation I saved the setup and booted the virtual system.
>> When the boot process completed I found myself at a :/# prompt. I would
>> have expected a login prompt.
>
> It sounds like your virtual system booted into the install DVD, and not
> the installed system
>
>> From :/# I can list the files in / with ls. So am I logged in or not?
>> I try :/# startx and get:
>>
>> /mnt/usr/bin/startx:
>
> Suspicious. If this were a properly installed Slackware system, that
> would be /usr/bin/startx . The /mnt/usr/bin/startx path suggests that
> you are still in the install DVD's live system, and not in the installed
> Slackware system.
>
>> line 181: /usr/bin/cookie: No such file or directory. Couldn't create
>> cookie.

Don't mess with startx. Get the basics right first.
I do a lot of `chroot <older installation` -ing, and the first step for
the confusion, eg. when <native> `mc` looks just like <chrooted> `mc`
is `rdev`. <-- this shows your <running root>.

[Haines Brown]

Lew, thanks for the advice. When I realized I was trying to startx from
the installation prompt, things went much better. So I then installed
Slackware onto a secondary disk on a junk machine, and everything so far
looks good. I'll have to see if I can install and get running some basic
applications (AUCTeX, emacs, JabRef). If I'm successful and if I find
that Slackware will avoid systemd in the foreseeable future, I'll
probably migrate to it

[Chick Tower]

On 2015-05-30, Haines Brown wrote:
> I'll have to see if I can install and get running some basic
> applications (AUCTeX, emacs, JabRef).

I don't know what those other two are, but emacs is part of the basic
installation of Slackware, unless you chose to not install it.

[Jim Diamond]

On 2015-06-02 at 00:34 ADT, Chick Tower <c.t...@deadspam.com> wrote:
> On 2015-05-30, Haines Brown wrote:
>> I'll have to see if I can install and get running some basic
>> applications (AUCTeX, emacs, JabRef).
>
> I don't know what those other two are, but emacs is part of the basic
> installation of Slackware, unless you chose to not install it.

Haines,

as Chick said, emacs is part of a complete Slackware installation.

If you know emacs, you probably want to install auctex via elpa, which
is quite straightforward.

Finally, there is a slackbuild
(http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.1/office/JabRef/?search=jabref)
for jabref. Installing a slackbuild takes a bit more work than the
other two, but it isn't a a big deal.

Jim