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Yes. Most of the bootdisks included with Slackware include support for putting the system console on a serial port. To do this, you need to use console=ttyS0 or console=ttyS1 (these examples would be for COM1: and COM2:) as extra parameters on the bootdisk's boot prompt.

For example, to install using a serial console, you would boot a bootdisk such as bare.i and wait for it to stop at the boot prompt. Then enter this to boot the kernel using COM1 as the console:

ramdisk console=ttyS0

With loopback of course! You can mount the ISO9660 image on the kernel loopback device from another filesystem.

For example, say you download the ISO9660 image under Windows. Boot the Slackware boot and root disks for your system. Assuming your Windows partition is /dev/hda1 and you downloaded the ISO9660 image to C:, issue these commands:

mkdir -p /dos
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /dos
cd /dos
mknod /dev/loop0 b 7 0
mkdir /INSTALL
mount -o loop /dos/install.iso /INSTALL

You can then tell the Slackware setup program to install from a premounted directory and pass it /INSTALL/slakware. This trick can also be used if you cannot make a valid CD with your burner.

Have fun!

Look around in /var/adm/packages.
Similarly, you can find installation scripts for each package in /var/adm/scripts.

You'll need to enter your drive parameters at the bootdisk prompt. You can even specify the geometry for your second IDE drive by supplying a second hd= parameter right after the first one.

When you boot the bootdisk, you'll see more information about the format used to pass your drive parameters to the kernel at the LILO prompt and allow your drive to be recognized.

You'll have to edit your lilo.conf file to add a similar hd= flag if you want LILO to work. Add this as the TOP line in the file:

append="hd=cyl,hds,secs"

Where "cyl", "hds", and "secs" are the number of cylinders, sectors, and heads on the drive.

If you have two IDE drives, specify both drives (like this):

append="hd=967,13,31 hd=944,14,40"

This problem is rare and I still don't know what causes it.

[ Note that this is not the same problem that usually affects the IBM PS/1, Thinkpad, and similar machines that do not detect the harddrive. If you've got one of these machines, and fdisk is giving you problems, your answer is still ahead :^) ]

Here's a workaround you can use to install anyway:

1. Start text.gz using one of the bootdisks.
2. Make and format partitions for Linux.
3. Mount the target partitions under /mnt.
4. Type "setup -target_mounted"
5. Follow the rest of the instructions to install.
6. Type "vi /mnt/etc/fstab" and enter an appropriate fstab. As an example, here's what mine contains:

   /dev/hdb2 swap swap defaults /dev/hda2 / ext2 defaults /dev/hda3 /usr xiafs defaults /dev/hda1 /dos msdos defaults /dev/hdb1 /os2 msdos defaults none /proc proc defaults

   To give you some more info about this file, the first field is the partition to be mounted, the second is where it should be mounted, the third is the filesystem type, and the last field is the options to use. Unless you're a Linux wizard, just set this to "defaults".

   Other things to remember about this file:

   
   - Make sure that you list the root partition before any other partitions that are mounted beneath it.
   - Add the /proc line, or "ps", "w", etc, won't work.
   - It's a good idea to put a blank line at the end of the file, as I've had reports that partitions listed on the last line might not be mounted.

7. Once you've made and saved this file you can reboot with ctrl-alt-delete.

Slackware uses stripped down kernels to do the actual installation -- in other words, the kernels don't have any more drivers than needed to control only the device needed to complete the installation. If you don't install the bootdisk kernel, it's possible to install with (for example) the bare.i IDE bootdisk, but install the SCSI kernel from the A series onto your hard drive. Since this kernel is has many SCSI drivers built-in, this can lead to hangs at boot time if the kernel misidentifies a piece of hardware that's unusual or at a non-standard port/IRQ.

When this happens, you need to try a different kernel. First, use the bootdisk that worked during installation to get your system started. To do this, boot the disk and enter something like this at the LILO prompt:

mount root=/dev/sda2

(if /dev/sda2 is your root Linux partition, otherwise use the appropriate device name for your system)

Once you've got the system running, install or compile a different kernel. Try to include only the device drivers you need for your hardware.

Instructions on compiling the kernel can be found in your kernel source directory (if you installed the kernel source, that is). The kernel source is usually found in /usr/src/linux.

Briefly, this is the method for building a new kernel:

cd /usr/src/linux
make config (then answer the questions about what you need) make dep ; make clean ; make zImage

If the zImage is successfully built, see an answer below which explains how to install it with LILO or Loadlin, or make a new bootdisk from it. Once you've done that, you might want to clean up /usr/src/linux by cd'ing into it and doing another 'make clean'.

Good luck! If you can handle this, you're well on your way to becoming a Linux guru.

Once your Linux machine is listed in the hosts /etc/exports (if the whole network is not already), you might need to do these things before running setup. This is usually only needed if the NFS server is on a different subnet than your Linux machine:

# Setup the loopback device:
ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1
route add -net 127.0.0.0
# Setup the network:

ifconfig eth0 1.2.3.4	# 1.2.3.4 is the ip number of my machine.
route add -net 1.2.3.0
route add default gw 1.2.3.1	# in this example, the ip address of our NFS # server is 1.2.31.4 and belongs to a different # network.

The disk-changed sensor on some older Thinkpads works a little differently. This can be worked around -- just specify "floppy=thinkpad" when booting:

boot: ramdisk floppy=thinkpad

... on the bootdisk's LILO prompt.

There isn't one. If you're asked for one, it usually means that you don't have enough memory to install.

To help work around this, look in your CMOS settings and make sure you don't have any ROM shadowing enabled. ROM shadowing wastes memory and won't improve the performance of Linux. Also, make sure you're using the smallest bootdisk you can. For example, you don't need to use "scsinet" if you're not installing to a SCSI drive via NFS. Use something small -- the "bare" disk if you can get away with it. Some people mistakenly think they need to use a bootdisk with network drivers if they plan to use networking after installation. Not so! The drivers on the bootdisk have no impact on what you can use *after* installation -- in almost all cases you won't be running the same kernel on your installed system as you used to install it.