Slackware and manual laptop screen off

Sometime you may have large compilation (kernel?) / download, yea and you are bored to do anything else on your laptop, if so you may have puzzled about how to manually switchoff the laptop screen. heh, if you haven't i have ;-).

We make use of 'xset' and 'dpms' to handle this, i have assigned a keyboard shortcut for my KDE.I have also anticipated about the security so i use 'xlock' too.

xlock &  xset dpms 1200 1800 2100 ; sleep 2 ; xset dpms force off; 

Assign the above command sequence to a keyboard short cut, your DE will have such a feature, KDE and xfce do.

Slackware 13.37 root and xapplications

In slackware, we have few applications like pkgtool, sbopkg etc that has to run as root, however always using the console to punching in sudo is difficult, one way to over come is to execute them with a desktop link, however since the apps are executed in a auxiliary terminal emulator like xterm/konsole running in non-privileged user's xsession we have an issue, root can't connect to the xserver unless we allow. This might be the error you might see

sudo /usr/bin/firefox
No protocol specified
No protocol specified
Error: cannot open display: :0

Do the following to authorise unrestricted remote connection to x

xhost + 

Consider the security implications of running xhost + read 'man 1 xhost'

Now you can enjoy running

sudo /usr/bin/konsole -e /usr/sbin/sbokpg

Slackware 13.37 and BroadComm [14e4:4727] wireless Marriage

I have a Broadcom Wireless card, which was obvious enough not to work just like that.

root@noor:/home/althaf# lspci -vnn | grep 14e4
12:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313
02.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4727] (rev 01)

Follow these procedures to make it work

Kernel configuration for (2.6.37 slackware 13.37 default)

Make sure you have enabled

Location: -> Device Drivers
-> Staging drivers
  -> Exclude Staging drivers from being built
      -> Broadcom IEEE802.11n WLAN drivers
          -> Broadcom IEEE802.11n driver style

Download the firmware

I was luck enough to have this card, well the broadcom guys had the mercy to open up their driver code, any way as usual it required firmware to be loaded.

[Firmware link]

We just need *bcm43xx-0.fw* and *bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw*, when downloaded make sure you have the same file name as given, the drivers have hard coded the path and firmware name in them, so it should be the same to work.

Copy them to /lib/firmware/brcm

Reboot

I highly recommend rebooting the system, though theoretically we could load the firmware on the go, however it didn't work for me.Once rebooted you will find wlan0 or similar interface.

References
[Brcm80211]

Slackware 13.37 hibernation

Slackware doesn't provide a out of the box configuration to hibernate even though stock kernel is capable.

Few modifications to your lilo configuration could enable hibernation.

To do so edit your /etc/lilo.conf with the following, assuming that your are using the default configuration from slackware.

image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda1
label = Slackware(Res)  
#for resuming /dev/sda6 is the my swap
append = "resume=/dev/sda6" 
read-only

After saving the file re-run lilo to apply the changes.

Slackware - simplicity is fun

Well as far my exposure to various Linux distros is concerned, Slackware resonated with my frequency. I felt intimidate connection between me a the philosophy of Slackware. 

“ Slack, which generally stands for the sense of freedom, independence, and original thinking that comes when you achieve your personal goals ”.

So the meaning Slackware is obvious , till now revealed that its no easy for a newbie. Though my intention of using is to learn Linux from its raw form.It does provide an environment for learning Linux. Learning Linux means not the kernel alone but the utilities as well.  

Choose Slackware

•  to learn Linux from scratch.
•  to tweak each and every settings.
•  to be a fan of simplicity.
•  if you have killer instinct to solve issues.

Slackware isn't a difficult to conquer once you have understood the UNIX philosophy. It is the best one I have come across for the purpose of learning Linux .Of course it is still powerful for other purposes. 

For support /join IRC freenode ##slackware channel.