The Slackware Linux operating system is a powerful platform for Intel-based computers. It is designed to be stable, secure, and functional as both a high-end server and powerful workstation.
This book is designed to get you started with the Slackware Linux operating system. It's not meant to cover every single aspect of the distribution, but rather to show what it's capable of and give you a basic working knowledge of the system.
As you gain experience with Slackware Linux, we hope you find this book to be a handy reference. We also hope you'll lend it to all of your friends when they come asking about “that cool Slackware Linux operating system you're running”.
While this book may not an edge-of-your-seat novel, we certainly tried to make it as entertaining as possible. With any luck, we'll get a movie deal. Of course, we also hope you are able to learn from it and find it useful.
And now, on with the show.
This book is written in SGML using the DocBook 4.0 DTD. As such, we used the builtin DocBook elements for filename reference, command reference, and file contents reference. This provides consistent typefaces for all aspects of the book. You'll need to be familiar with a few of our conventions before you continue.
Whenever we mention a command that you are to run, it will look like this:
command |
On rare occasion, a command might be longer than the space on one row of this book. When that happens, we'll wrap the command onto the next line and use a backslash to indicate that the command continues. Here's an example from later in the book:
ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.10 broadcast 192.168.1.255 \ netmask 255.255.255.0 |
Filenames and directories are referred to throughout the book. They will look like this:
filename |
directory |
Screens of command output and the contents of configuration files are also used in the book. They will appear in this typeface:
command output |
Sometimes when we list commands that you're to run, we will display them as being run from a sample prompt. When a command is meant to be run as a regular user, we will display it on a prompt that is a dollar sign ($). When a command is meant to be run as root, we will display it on a prompt that is a hash mark (#).