PROMPT MODE HELP

Software packages are about to be transfered onto your
hard drive.  Several options exist for selecting which
packages you wish to install.

If you select "full", the install program will just go
ahead and install everything from the disk sets
you have selected.  If you're got enough disk space, this
should work fine.  You'll have some packages you don't
need on your hard drive, though, like fairly large X
servers for display hardware you don't own.  Not a problem,
if you run short of space, go into /var/log/packages and
read any or all of the files with 'less' to see what
packages you have installed, and remove and unnecessary
ones using 'removepkg'.

For people who know what they want to install and would
like to select the packages from menus instead of 
individually, there are two menu installation modes:
"menu" and "expert".

"menu" mode puts up a menu at the start of each series of
packages, from which you can install systems such as
the GNU C/C++ compiler, or the Linux source code.  It's
easy to use, and makes installation go much faster than 
"newbie" mode.

"expert" mode is similar, but allows the toggling of every
individual package.  This offers the greatest control over
what gets installed on the machine, but can be tricky for
beginners.  

If this is your first time installing Linux, you might
want to use "newbie" mode (even though it takes some 
extra time).  This will follow a defaults file in the
first directory of each series you install that will
ensure that required packages are installed automatically.
You will be prompted for the installation of other packages.

These defaults are user definable -- you may set any package
to be added or skipped automatically by editing your choices
into a file called TAGFILE that will be found on the first
disk of each series. There will also be a copy of the
original tagfile called TAGFILE.ORG available in case you
want to restore the default settings. The tagfile contains
all the instructions needed to completely automate your
installation. 

NOTE: Software may be added to your system after the
initial installation. Just type 'setup' to add software
to your system. Another script, 'pkgtool', may be used to
add software packages from the current directory, or to 
cleanly remove packages that you want uninstalled.  Also,
command line utilities (installpkg, removepkg, makepkg,
etc) are available.  These are what I use.

If you use tagfiles, you might want to use a custom 
tagfile that you have created yourself instead of the
default ones that come with Slackware (the ones named
'tagfile'). For instance, I use custom tagfiles called
'tagfile.pat' that you might see on your disks. :^) You
make a custom tagfile by copying the 'tagfile' on the
first disk of a series to a file named 'tagfile.???'
where .??? is a custom extension of your choosing. (I use
'.pat') Once you've done this, you can edit the defaults
any way you like. (but be careful about changing stuff
that was installed by default) 

To use a custom tagfile, just choose "custom" on the
prompt mode menu, and enter your custom extension. Any
tagfiles with this extension will then be used for the
duration of the installation. If at any point a tagfile
with that extension cannot be found, the default tagfile
will be used instead.

You may also use "tagpath" to provide a path to where your
custom tagfiles are located. In this case, you do not use
a custom extension - all your tagfiles will be named
'tagfile'. You'll provide a directory path such as
/my/tagfile/path. In this directory will be
subdirectories for each disk you wish to provide a
tagfile for. You do not have to provide a
subdirectory and tagfile for each disk you plan to
install - if a tagfile is not found at your custom
tagfile location then the default one in the
package directory will be used.

-- End of prompt mode help text