Slack 9 problems!!!

[Adam Myrow]

Yes, Redhat is very automated when it comes to detecting hardware and
loading it up.  This process also added about 10 seconds to the startup
time for me.  It's good and bad.  Going from Redhat to Slackware is a
great way to discover how vastly different two Linux distributions can be.
Slackware is very much a distribution for somebody who wants to learn how
to set up things manually and how things actually work.  I've found that
most Slackware users detest Redhat and vise versa.  They are, IMHO, really
designed for different types of people.  I am the type who likes to
tinker, so Slackware appeals to me.

What sort of modem do you have?  Is it PCI or ISA?  If it's ISA, you may
need to run a Plug 'N Play utility to get it working.  You may also need
setserial to configure it.  You can edit /etc/serial.conf to give the
right parameters to set serial, and then remove the "#" in front of the
line in /etc/rc.d/rc.S to call on the rc.serial script.  It is disabled
by default because I guess it can hang the computer if it tries to
configure a nonexistent port.  The scripts in the /etc/rc.d directory
are good to look at because they explain fairly well what they are
doing.  /etc/rc.d/rc.local is a good place for customized stuff like
setting up Speakup the way you like it.

For ISA Plug 'n Play, there is a kernel module called isa-pnp.  Try
running "modprobe isa-pnp" by hand and type dmesg and read the last few
lines to see if it found and configured anything.  If it did, add a
"/sbin/modprobe isa-pnp" to the bottom of /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.  For the
network, run netconfig.  It lets you choose either DHCP or static IP.