SETUP(8)

NAME
setup - Slackware system setup tool.

SYNOPSIS
setup

DESCRIPTION
setup is the system installation and setup tool provided with the Slackware Linux distribution. There are two main versions of it: /sbin/setup.tty (the text output version), and /usr/lib/setup/hdsetup (the full screen color version). One or the other of these is likely linked to /sbin/setup, depending on which one you used to install in the first place. You can change this, or use the full path of the version you wish to run.

setup is usually used to install software packages from your hard drive, a CD, NFS, or floppy disks. It is also a frontend for pkgtool and many configuration scripts that come with various packages, such as the scripts which allow you to install LILO, configure your timezone, set your keyboard fonts, make bootdisks, and many other tasks.

OPTIONS

HELP
    Read the setup help file.

KEYMAP
    Change your keyboard map to one of many international and specialized keymaps available. NOTE: This change will not become permanent unless you go through the CONFIGURE option.

QUICK
    Select between QUICK and VERBOSE installation modes. In QUICK mode, you get a menu at the beginning of each disk set that you can select the packages you want from. You won't get much of a description of what each package does, though. In VERBOSE mode (the default), you are prompted on whether to install any recommended or optional package and will be given a full description of the package. VERBOSE mode is recommended for beginners.

MAKE TAGS
    This allows you to write out custom tagfiles. A tagfile is a list of package names followed by one of these tags: ADD (required), SKP (skip), REC (recommended) or, OPT (optional). These allow you to completely automate your software installation. You can either put these files on the first disk of each disk series (optionally using a custom 3 character extension), or in a custom location altogether, such as on a floppy disk in ./a1, ./ap1, ./d1, ..., directories. The format of a line in a tagfile is like this:

package: TAG

SOURCE
    Select your source media, such as hard disk, NFS, CD, or floppy. You should select installation from a directory if your CD or NFS directory has already been mounted, as it probably is if you're using setup on your hard drive.

TARGET
    Select your target directory. For testing purposes, you may install the packages to a directory other than '/'. Don't expect them to run from there, though.

DISK SETS
    Select the disk sets you want to install. You can also install custom disk sets by tagging the CUS selection. The disk sets must be Slackware-like: they require the diskxxx? index on each disk, such as diskxyz1 for the first disk of the XYZ series. On the last disk there must be a file called install.end to signal the end of the disk series.

INSTALL
    Once you've gone through SOURCE and DISK SETS ( and possibly TARGET ), then you select this choice to go on with the software installation. You'll be asked what type of tagfiles you want to use and then pkgtool will be called to install the software.

CONFIGURE
    This option runs through several scripts that configure various aspects of your Linux system. These might include LILO installation, timezone configuration, and other things.

PKGTOOL
    This option calls the pkgtool(8) utility for you.

EXIT
    Exit the setup program.

AUTHOR
Patrick J. Volkerding <volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu>

SEE ALSO
makepkg(8), installpkg(8), explodepkg(8), removepkg(8), pkgtool(8)