Newbie to Slackware...what does .iso.asc , .iso.md5 and iso.txt mean??

[Grand666]

hey guys.

okay. i googled my a s s off and I can't find someone or a website that explains what these files mean when you download the dvd for slackware? I want to make a quadruple boot external hard drive with Ubuntu, Fedora, Slackware and CentOs on it. Basicaly I just want to learn linux and also the server side. Im new to Linux and managed to Install ubuntu, but what do all these files mean in the dvd iso?

The exact names of all these files are:

slackware-13.0-install-dvd.iso
slackware-13.0-install-dvd.iso.asc
slackware-13.0-install-dvd.iso.md5
slackware-13.0-install-dvd.iso.txt

So...if I burn the .iso file to a dvd and boot up, will I be presented with a fairly easy installation procedure? I read online that they say you should partition your drive and create all these partitions for swap and the /root and /home directories. Do you have different partitions for all the directories? This is so confusing. I want to format my external hard drive in Ubuntu and then boot into slack and just choose the next partition to install it to. Is it that easy?

I have no clue what these people mean with all these partitions and stuff. Sorry if my question is a bit dumb or confusing.

[pogson]

To avoid confusion and to make it easier, you can put all directories in one partition. There are reasons of efficiency/security in operation for various partitioning strategies but none are essential for a newbie.

The .iso files are the data files containing the disc image. The .iso is short for ISO 9960, an international standard format for CDs.

The .md5 file is an MD5 hash code for the .iso. It is essentially a calculation based on the whole file which is almost unique. If the file you download has the same md5sum when you check it, the chances are very good that it is correct/identical to what the source intended. The .asc is a signature file from the gnupg or pgp programmes that can verify that the file was sent by the signer. GNU/Linux distros usually contain md5sum and gnupg/kgpg/or some variant. You can also use these for verifying files you send to people over the web. They add security. In the old days when the Internet was not very reliable, it was not unusual to have to try several transmissions before a file could be received intact. Nowadays, it is more usually used to verify that the file has not been tampered or malware added. How times change.

Many installation CDs have a start menu which includes file-by-file verification of md5 sums which are included on the CD. This does not detect tampering but could detect file-transmission problems.

[Grand666]

To avoid confusion and to make it easier, you can put all directories in one partition. There are reasons of efficiency/security in operation for various partitioning strategies but none are essential for a newbie.

The .iso files are the data files containing the disc image. The .iso is short for ISO 9960, an international standard format for CDs.

The .md5 file is an MD5 hash code for the .iso. It is essentially a calculation based on the whole file which is almost unique. If the file you download has the same md5sum when you check it, the chances are very good that it is correct/identical to what the source intended. The .asc is a signature file from the gnupg or pgp programmes that can verify that the file was sent by the signer. GNU/Linux distros usually contain md5sum and gnupg/kgpg/or some variant. You can also use these for verifying files you send to people over the web. They add security. In the old days when the Internet was not very reliable, it was not unusual to have to try several transmissions before a file could be received intact. Nowadays, it is more usually used to verify that the file has not been tampered or malware added. How times change.

Many installation CDs have a start menu which includes file-by-file verification of md5 sums which are included on the CD. This does not detect tampering but could detect file-transmission problems.

so...how do i test to see if the iso image is good using the md5 files? how do you check it?

so then i just burn the actual .iso file to a dvd and boot up? do they give you options on where to install slackware?which partition you want to use? and also how do you tell it to just use one partition for the installation?
thanks for your help. this is soooo confusing.

[pogson]

If this is confusing to you, just skip the verification step unless you know you have equipment problems. On a GNU/Linux system, you can find the md5sum of the whole .iso by

md5sum whatever.iso

It reads the file and displays the checksum/hash.

If you have a file of individual files on the CD, such as md5sum.txt usually is, you can mount the file system and run this command:

md5sum -c md5sum.txt

There could be problems for a newbie knowing how to mount the filesystem and what directory to change to so I would stick with the menu on the installation CD. It may have it on the main screen or by pushing some function key to open up options.

Again, I expect there is a 99% chance your download is good, so just use it to burn and run the installation. You will see an error message if there are bad files encountered.

The Slack partitioner is apparently fdisk: see http://www.slackbook.org/html/installation-partitioning.html

If you are uncomfortable partitioning, you may prefer a distro with a GUI partitioner, e.g. Debian or Ubuntu.

The checksums for Slack 13 are available at http://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/slackware-13.0/

To check the .iso on a download on a GNU/Linux system:

• cd
• mkdir t
• mount whatever.iso t -o loop,ro
• cd t
• md5sum -c CHECKSUMS.md5

If you do not have a GNU/Linux system running, you may be able to do it from the booted installation CD. Find where the CD is mounted with "mount" command.

[Firewolf]

Just a small addition about the disk layout.

As pogson already mentioned, you can put all the directories into one partition, so no separate partition for /home, /var, /root, ...

The installers of Ubuntu & Fedora (I don't know about Slackware) do however the partitioning for you. You can select a standard setup. On Fedora you will then get LVM (Logical Volumes), but that's no problem.

If you want to create your partitions manually, you need at least 3 partitions on a Linux system:

• swap
• boot (/boot)
• the rest (/)

[Elektrikz]

Slackware is a bit hard to install (if you are not expirienced Linux user).
But, I can highly recommend it to you. If you use Ubuntu - you'll learn Ubuntu, if you use Fedora - you'll learn Fedora. But if you use Slackware - you will learn Linux. It has a steep learning curve (as some people say), there can be frustrations while trying to make things work, but it pays off in the end.

If you wanna know more about Slackware, read the Slack book ( check www.slackbook.org ).

p.s. sorry if I was offtopic but I wanted to encourage you to stick with Slack. :)

Elektrikz

[Grand666]

first of all thanks guys for replying. i really do appreciate it.

1. now, why is it a security risk if all you files are on one partition? you guys mention that it's not very secure. meaning hackers or what? my mind still works in windows mode so i'm having trouble understanding why you need different partitions for your boot, swap and the rest.

2. if i have an external hard drive and a dual boot with ubuntu. i have grub but i don't think its the new one. should i upgrade Grub first before trying to install the different OS's or what? i think someone said that Slackware 13 will hae trouble with booting up with the old grub.

3. i have an 80GB hard drive now that i can use for my linux experimentations at home, should i uninstall ubuntu from my laptop hard drive and use the external for all the distrobutions? if so, how do you uninstall ubuntu 9.04 successfully without messing up the mbr? i did this about a year ago and in windows i deleted the partition where my ubuntu was on and then when i rebooted my windows did't want to load.

if you guys would'nt mind looking at my other post too, im trying to learn the sever side of linux and how to administer and manage a system like that. if you have any thoughts on that, plz drop me a comment.

thanks so much for your replies, im a newbie but trying to read as much as i can.

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread250268.html

[iamthwee]

I'm confused, you want to set up a server/client model in linux, yet it seems you don't have any basic understanding of a typical linux distro.

Trust me, if this is your first encounter with linux be prepared to be blown out the water.

I think you're jumping the gun waaaaaaaaay too fast. Just get to know the principals of linux first. Go get ubuntu iso and put it up on vmware.