DDG Tech Notes

It’s been a bit since I talked about - or played with - Slackware. I’ve been busy, playing with other distros, etc. However, I’ve got a little X41 sitting here just waiting for an operating system…
In this article, I’ll walk through getting a base Slackware instance up and running on an IBM X41. In subsequent articles, we’ll get into some more interesting tweaks to make this on helluva little laptop.

Things have been a little crazy for me lately - changing jobs, forced *wink wink* to learn those crazy debian distros, etc. However, I’ve got an IBM X41 sitting around that is just dying to be used for something. In fact, as far as computers go, I’m down to only 3 machines. There’s the machine I use for work (it’s owned by the company, and I of course don’t do my own stuff on it), my Mac mini, and this cute little laptop. Now I’m itching to revive the Redeye project (more on that to come) but I need a place to work on it. IBM to the rescue!

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Hey - I lost the G41. There goes the article series….
Well, the G41 I was working on - and basing the series on - was owned by my employer. Now I’ve gone and change jobs - so there goes the G41, and all of the information I intended to continue to write about.

What’s worse? The new hardware I got (A Dell Latitude D620) I basically received on teh first day of my new job, pre-installed with windows. Unfortunately (but as it is true in so many work environments) there are some windows needs. In an effort to get "up to speed" in my new job, I fumbled along with the default XP install for the first day. When I got home (or rather, to the hotel room - more to come on that point) that night, I had a tough choice. I knew I didn’t want to continue with WinXP as the primary OS, but I needed to get up an running as quickly as possible. So, my solution?

Ubuntu. Yup - that’s right - ol’ Ross jumped ship from the Slackware bandwagon in an effort to take the easy road. I’ve not got my Dell running Ubuntu, with a WinXP install running on VMWare server.

Actually, not a bad setup. But, being that it is not slackware, I’ve still got my gripes….

However, the other laptop that I left behind at my last job was my 17 Inch PowerBook. Yup, Ross is a Mac fan too. That being said, I’m thinking of embarking on a new adventure. I plan to pick up one of the MacBook or MacBook Pros within the next week. Who knows - maybe Slackware on a MacBook?

Sounds promising. Until then…

- Ross

OK. So you’ve gone through all of the trouble of setting up your encrypted file systems. How do you make sure they are available the next time the machine reboots?
Well, there are two ways. OK, there are actually a bunch of different ways, but I’m going to focus on two basic ways. The first way, which will be the focus of this article, involves the least amount of modification to the standard Slackware boot process. In fact, other then adding the appropriate entries to /etc/fstab, you only have to modify one file. The other way, which will be addressed in a later entry, involves the creation of completely new configuration files for your encrypted filesystems, and the addition of another script to you rc.local file, but is a more robust solution.

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Setting up encrypted filesystems to mount at boot time did take a little hacking on the startup scripts, but is still reasonably straight forward.
Being a paranoid penguin, there were a couple of areas of the filesystem that I wanted to make sure were encrypted. Specifically, I was interested in the swap space, /tmp directory, and /home directory.

The basic, high-level steps for each filesystem were:

1. Create a file to house the filesystem
2. Set up the file as a loop-back device
3. Make filesystem on the loop-back device
4. Mount and test
5. Add to /etc/fstab
6. Add loop-back setup to startup scripts prior to mount commands

I run through the details of setting up swap, as it covers all of the steps.

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Building a new kernel from source that worked was pretty straight forward
First, I downloaded the 2.6.20.6 kernel source from ftp://ftp.kernel.org. I stuck the bzipped tarball into /usr/src, and expanded it. I removed the existing /usr/src/linux symlink, and recreated it pointing to my new kernel source directory.

I ran through and change a couple of options in the default kernel config:

1. Removed the ipw2200 driver stuff - I and (incorrectly) assumed that this IBM had the same wireless hardware as others I’ve used. I knew that I wanted to compile these drivers from the latest source available at http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net, and wanted to ensure I didn’t have to remove to remove it later.
2. Removed the ieee80211 driver stuff - same reason as above.
3. Ensured that crypto, cryptofs and loopback support is build into the kernel. I’m going to set up some encrypted filesystems.

I know there were some other things I changed, but I honestly can’t recall what they were right now. At any rate, you can see the resultant .config file in http://delducagroup.com/slackware_details/2.6.20.6-ibmG41-config.gz

Just the standard:
# make menuconfig
# make
# make modules
# make modules_install

I then copied /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage to /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20.6
Finally, I updated the /etc/lilo.conf file as follows:

# LILO configuration file
# generated by ‘liloconfig’
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 30
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024×768x256
vga = 773
# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024×768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024×768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024×768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800×600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800×600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800×600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640×480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640×480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640×480x256
# vga=769
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20.6
root = /dev/hda1
label = Linux-2.6.20.6
read-only
image = /boot/vmlinuz-ide-2.4.33.3
root = /dev/hda1
label = Linux-2.4.33.3
read-only

then execute ‘lilo’, reboot and all is good!

Up next - Setting up encrypted filesystems

Starting to get Slackware to act how I want on an IBM G41
Out of the box, the base install was pretty straight forward. I used Slackware 11, with the standard options - including the bare.i 2.4.33.3 kernel from the CD I used. I chose a complete install, but intentionally left out X and KDE, as I had other ideas in mind for the desktop environment (more to come.)

This whole effort started on the work front. Prior to this work, I was carting around 2 other IBM laptops - a T42 and a T43. The T42 was running SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9, and the T43 was running WindowsXP pro. In my work, there are some times when the Windows install is necessary, thus the two machines.

When I got my hands on the G41, I immediately had the idea of running Windows inside a virtual machine with VMWare ESX server. My thinking was that, at least on the G41, there would be enough horse power for this. I crammed 2GB in the box, and started up the install process. A short time later, I had a base running slackware install.

For those interested, here’s the /proc/cpuinfo from my running G41:

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 4
model name : Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.06GHz
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 3054.083
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 3
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl est tm2 cid xtpr
bogomips : 6112.99
clflush size : 64

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 4
model name : Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.06GHz
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 3054.083
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 3
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl est tm2 cid xtpr
bogomips : 6107.91
clflush size : 64

Note that this is not a two proc box, but is does support HyperThreading.

Next time around -
[code] installing the 2.6.20.6 kernel from source.

For those of you who want to get as far away from Windows as possible - Slackware is the distro for you!

Slackware, by href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slackwaremost”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slackware]most accounts[/link], is the oldest Linux distribution that is still actively maintained. It is based on a philosophy that is decidedly minimalist in nature. Some may argue that it is not for the faint of heart, and definitely not for your grandma. Unless, of course, your grandma is a seasoned Linux admin!

In this series, I’ll try to document some of my efforts to cram slackware onto just about everything that I can. Hopefully, some of this will assist others in the same effort.

Coming from a background of administering Linux systems in a corporate environment, I’ve definitely faced the internal ‘moral’ dilemma of not being able to justify my favorite Linux distribution in the work environment. However, while I was not willing to take that fight up in the work place, I’m definitely making an effort to pick it up again here. What are some of the arguments I’ve heard <i>against</i> using Slack in the corporate environment?

1. Linux = RedHat, doesn’t it?
2. There is no administrative GUI to help me configure the system
3. Startup scripts don’t follow the standard /etc/rc.d/rc.1-/etc/rc.d/rc.6 format that I am used to
4. Why the hell would I want to have to compile everything? The IT manager wants results NOW!
5. There is no automated deployment strategy

Some of these comments are completely wrong, and some may have some validity. However, through this forum, I hope to be able to demonstrate why there are other considerations that may make these concerns insignificant.