New to Vector Linux

[jpuhalski]

Hi all, I've been a big fan of Slackware for many years, started with it actually around 1996 with floppies on a 486.  I found Vector Linux by reading about other distro's at DistroWatch.  I've used others as well, Mandrake, Redhat/Fedora, and lately KUbuntu but wanted the slackware based one.

I downloaded and installed the free version which worked well but I wanted KDE 4 and thought it would be good to support Vector so I purchased the Deluxe download.  Well, the installation went well but I had to figure out how to install the additional packages and then ran into problems.  I had used gslapt to update the system first but when I put KDE 4 on I could not find gslapt so I used installpkg instead to find and install updates.  Then something broke and it would not boot correctly.  I just reinstalled the first disk and am starting over, it's running xfce now. 

I'm going to look through the forum to find where I should be posting my questions but if anyone can point me in the right direction I would appreciate it.  I couldnt find much documentation for how to get the Deluxe packages up and running.

My questions are:
1.)  now that I have a clean install, do I run gslapt to update the system? or should I add all the additional applications first?
2.)  what is the best way to update/upgrade once I get KDE 4 installed and running?

thanks
john

[retired1af]

There's a much easier way. Head down to the Distro Development forum and download the RC for SOHO6. It will have everything you need including KDE 4. 

http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=11737.0

Welcome to the zoo. 

[jpuhalski]

ok, thanks.  I'm downloading the test version 2.8 now.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Any documentation I might need to know about for that?

thanks
john

[retired1af]

If you're like the rest of us? Nope. Slap 'er in and let 'er rip. LOL

[jpuhalski]

retired1af, thanks...i'm all set, installed without a hitch.  should i still run updates with this since it's a test version.  or do I just wait until it becomes stable?

thanks again
john

[retired1af]

There are a few things you may wish to install (hardinfo and a newer vcpufreq), but all in all, you should be good to go.

[jpuhalski]

got it, sorry to  bother you with one more question but this computer is dual-boot and I have a shared partition, it's NTFS that usually linux always picks up and I can access it from a file manager.  It's not showing here or when I go to network.  Do you know how to get it to access those partitions?

thanks
john

[retired1af]

Easy... Go to your menu, select Applications, System, and then VASMCC. You'll give it the root password and then get the utility. Go to Filesystem and you'll find the option to mount partitions. This will let you add your NTFS partition to /etc/fstab. Bear in mind, you'll need to reboot in order for those settings to kick in, or you can manually mount it in Terminal.

[jpuhalski]

Nice!!!  it's all working just fine now...thanks for the help