These are the most frequently asked questions about ZipSlack:

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.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/slakware/x1/

You might also grab the diskx1 file, which describes each of the
packages. You can save disk space if you don't install all of the X
servers (you only need the one for your video card), and you might
also leave out extra fonts, old X shared libraries (oldlibs*.tgz),
and possibly development tools if you're not planning to compile X
software yourself. 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.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/bootdsks.144/bare.i
For a SCSI system:
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/bootdsks.144/scsi.s
For an IBM PS/2 microchannel bus machine:
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/bootdsks.144/ibmmca.s
If you're unzipping the file to a parallel port Zip drive:
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/bootdsks.144/iomega.s

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.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/rootdsks/rescue.gz

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: 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/cdrom
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.cdrom.com/pub/linux/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.cdrom.com/pub/linux/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.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/kernels/ -- you should be able
to find one to suit just about any machine. For more information on
the drivers included in the kernels, see the file:

ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/bootdsks.144/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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