Slackware reviews

2015-03-16
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slackware-logo 2

Slackware >

My various thoughts at different times I played with it.

Anything currently-useful will be kept in Slackware or some other appropriate page.

See also:



Table of Contents [hide]

2016-11-12 – 14.2 32bit / 64bit and dm-crypt ∞

(dm-crypt)

.. another pass

  • Is it the latest Linux kernel that’s freezing on start?
  • Redo Porteus from scratch, beginning with the dd of SG2

  • bare.i root=/dev/sdc0 noapic (didn’t work)

Brocade BFA FC/FCOE SCSI driver - version: 3.2.23.0

  • New hard drive must be powered off? .. no:

clocksource: Switched to clocksource tsc
  • Is this a freeze on warm booting? .. no

  • Yellow-top USB (back) = Brocade

Triggering udev events: /sbin/udevadm trigger -- action=add
  • .. waiting, tapping power, it worked..

  • Upon a success, I checked dmesg and what’s after Brocade is:

Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card!
  • After install, I freeze on Brocade

  • removed card:

Hardware name: (my motherboard info)
(lots of junk)
Call trace
(stuff)
Kernel Offset: disabled
end kernel panic - not syncing: No working init found

  • Reboot to the setup USB, freezes on

MX-protecting the kernel data: 6088k

  • Rebooting worked. After the above is

loop: module loaded
random: (stuff)
> udevd [373]: (stuff)

— side 2

  • re-checked mkinitrd and /etc/lilo.conf, it all looks good, and /boot/initrd.gz exists.
  • re-did mkinitrd to add missing bits

  • reboot, hangs on btrfs loaded

    • (doesn’t ask for my password)
  • TODO – get the original docs and redo mkinitrd
  • TODO – execute -r / check / append

  • removed my USB 3.1 card, still freezes on [ 1 ] 14.1 

microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.00 <tigran at aivazion REMOVE fsnet dot co dot uk>, Peter Oruba
  • (tapping power progresses)

  • system_config_display for changing the font size

    • (it turns out this doesn’t exist with the Slackware install usb)

  • hugesmp.s vga=773

    • X 790? (not valid)
    • vga=ask
    • 318 = 1024x768x32
    • X 361 = 1280x1024x32
    • X 31B
    • 34C = 1920x1080x16 (small)
    • 34D = 1920x1080x32 (small)
    • 361 = 1280x800x32 (not bad)

  • froze on Brocade without the card!

— page 2

  • froze on

Triggering udev events: /sbin/udevadm trigger --action=add
  • (tapping power a few times worked)

  • Did the process again (no reformat), froze on

usbhid: USB HID core driver
  • TODO – try again –the next step is the password prompt
  • frozen

  • redo mkinitrd

2016-03-23 – 14.1 32bit ∞

  • Released 2013-11-04

Summary of my success ∞

  • Get the ISO

  • Prepare the ISO

  • Copy the ISO to a USB stick (dd)
    \dd bs=1M count=1024 of=/dev/sdx if=./slackware-14.1-install-dvd.iso
  • Boot into the USB stick
    (This is supported by every contemporary BIOS)
  • Install Slackware to my hard drive
    \install

  • Fix the bootloader (optional)

    • I used boot-repair to make sure I could get back to my earlier Lubuntu installation. Every other boot option (the new Slackware, and Windows 10) worked fine with Slackware’s LILO installation.
  • Update Slackware
  • Used Slackware native package management to remove accidentally-installed things, like KDE.
  • Get slpkg working

  • Install essential software using slpkg

  • Use alien to install eCryptfs

  • Change my window manager with \xwmconfig to change it to xinitrc.openbox-ssession

  • Edit ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh and append lxpanel &

  • Boot into X. Edit /etc/inittab

id:3:initdefault:
=>
id:4:initdefault:

Note that this will have XDM launched to prompt for a username/password.

username=user
\sudo  \useradd  -m  -g users  -G wheel,floppy,audio,video,cdrom,plugdev,power,netdev,lp,scanner  -s /bin/bash  $username
  • Post-user settings were done with \chsh and \xwmconfig

  • Removed stuff to save space, because I ended up installing this on a smaller partition half by mistake.

\slackpkg  remove  kde
\slackpkg  remove  kdei
\slackpkg  remove  xfce
\slackpkg  remove  y

  • make /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc with the contents:

#!/bin/sh
 
exec /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp

  • Disable unwanted services

\chmod  a-x  /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless

  • Set up sudo
    append changes to, or edit, /etc/sudoers

# Enable 'sudo' for all commands, for user "username"
username ALL=(ALL) ALL
# Enable passwordless 'sudo', for user "username", for a particular command:
username ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/pm-suspend

Testing under VirtualBox ∞

Testing under VirtualBox 4.3.36_Ubuntu r105129 under Lubuntu.

VirtualBox settings:

  • 2048 MB memory

  • Using VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image)

    • Dynamically allocated
    • 8.00 GB

  • General > Advanced

    • Shared Clipboard [Bidirectional]
  • The rest are defaults.

  • Booting directly from the DVD ISO.

Initial Slackware experience:

  • Pressing enter at the initial boot: prompt

    • This uses hugesmp.s
      Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU.

  • Trying huge.s

    • Works
  • Default keyboard map (pressed enter)

  • The pre-login screen tips include:

    • Linux swap to prepare a swap partition.
    • setup to begin installation
    • Optional swap partition with mkswap /dev/sdxy ; swapon /dev/sdxy

  • logged in as root

    • No password was prompted-for.

  • The login screen gives some tips

    • Remove old software before upgrading using a new ISO, or old files may be left laying around. This must have been an issue I was facing back in the day, and just didn’t realise it. I don’t think it was a problem though, but would have been nice to realise. I guess I didn’t read everything back then, or perhaps this login text didn’t exist.
    • (for upgrading an existing installation) Mount Linux partitions under /mnt and type pkgtool. Or just use pkgtool for instructions.
    • Partition (MBR systems) with cfdisk or fdisk
    • Partition (GPT systems) with cgdisk or gdisk
    • Start installation with setup

  • cgdisk /dev/sda

    • Ignoring the initial warning, since this virtual hard drive is empty.
    • new and pressed enter a bunch. I’m keeping it simple for testing purposes.
    • Back in my Slackware days I did use the various separate partitions, it was never clear to me why I really needed to, and I did end up using one big one. Thereafter I switched to one home/user partition (mounted as /home), one root partition (mounted as /), and the swap parition.
  • pkgtool suggested I mount things under /mnt, so I did mount /dev/sda1 /mnt, and it exploded with a verbose error message instead of just giving me the simple ending.
    mount: you must specify the filesystem type

  • apparently I can’t easily copy-paste in/out of a VirtualBox window.

    • Edited my VirtualBox settings to include Bidirectional copy-paste, but Slackware’s initial bootup doesn’t have the console copy-paste mouse software, gpm. I guess this is expected because of Slackware’s intentional simplicity, but it sure would have been useful.

  • mkfs /dev/sda1
    sh: mkfs: command not found

    • fuck my life.

  • Directly running setup

    • Doing nothing special for the setup.
    • omgomgomgomg, it has Btrfs support! Selecting that and letting it do the formatting.
    • Full installation, no change to package selection
    • .. although I may run out of disk space with the container size I chose.
    • Holy shit this takes forever to install.
    • .. I guess this is because it’s uncompressing everything, but it’s not like I have a slow computer or anything. I guess it’s slower because it’s not taking advantage of multiple cores, if it even can, or because it’s 32bit.. but none of this should make much of a difference.
    • I ran out of local disk space. VirtualBox paused automatically to tell me, and I was able to free up some space and resume. Now it’s going quite quickly. I’m using Btrfs, and I’d bet it goes a little bonkers when it starts to run out of space. So maybe that explains the earlier speed issue.
  • No USB boot stick.
  • Lilo simple install
  • 1024x768x64k
  • Since I could not use hugesmp.s to boot the install DVD, I’ll choose the same huge.s that worked for me.
  • No UTF-8

  • Lilo destination: MBR – Install to Master Boot Record

Fatal: Trying to map files from unnamed device 0x0010 (NFS/RAID mirror down ?)

Sorry, but the attempt to install LILO has returned an error, so LILO has
not been correctly installed.  You'll have to use a bootdisk to start your
machine instead.  It should still be possible to get LILO working by
editing the /etc/lilo.conf and reinstalling LILO manually.  See the LILO
man page and documentation in /mnt/usr/doc/lilo-24.0 for more help.  The
error message may be seen above.
  • Mouse configuration: ps2
  • Load gpm at boot time.

  • Configure my network automatically.

    • using junk names for the next two screens.
    • DHCP

  • startup services

    • [_] rc.fuse
    • [_] rc.sshd
    • Why do this all need to begin with rc. ?
  • ARGH – alt-tab while in the Slackware installer will fuck things up. I see no way to go back.

  • Screen font – since I can’t preview, I guess I’ll pick the default.

    • Oh god that default is horrible.
    • Oh, I can preview after selecting one.
    • default 8x16.psfu.gz
    • Why do these all need to end with .psfu.gz ?

  • Hardware clock: Yes, UTC

    • Probably.
    • (on reconfigure, it didn’t remember my past choice)
  • There’s no Openbox window manager selection. I guess I’ll try fluxbox and manually change later.

  • I went back to configure things and fix some choices.

    • Sigh, the fontconfig update should be skipable. It’s so slow.

Now since I don’t have anything bootable, it won’t work. Still, I’m confident that if I did a proper install everything would work out properly, and I would have the choice to make a boot USB stick.

  • I rebooted, and I wanted to create a bootable USB stick, but I have to jump through hoops to get there.

    • Have to select my target partition.
    • Go into “setup” and wade through all the non-LILO stuff, including that slow fontconfig update.
  • I had to fix an issue with VirtualBox so it could detect a USB stick.
  • Booting back into the Slackware install DVD, I could proceed into Lilo, but it wouldn’t detect my USB stick. The installer suggests the solution, which I followed, which is to remove the device (which I un-selected from VirtualBox) and select ‘restart’. By ‘restart’, Slackware’s installer means ‘retry’. I “re-inserted” the stick via Openbox, and it was then detected properly.

  • However, as this was not good enough to boot from a USB stick, I had to do some more VirtualBox fiddling.

—

What I ended up doing is

  1. Put SystemRescueCD on a USB stick
  2. Make a virtual drive for VirtualBox which actually points to that USB stick
  3. From within my Slackware-VirtualBox, boot from that ‘USB stick virtual drive’

  4. Select “boot existing linux distribution”

—

  • Booting spits out a whole lot of warnings, and even an error. It still boots up correctly.

  • startx works as expected. Fluxbox is a simple environment to use. I can’t remember the command to switch my preferred window manager, but it doesn’t matter since I’d be using Openbox.

    • Fucked if I’m going back to Blackbox. It was last updated ten years ago. Literally.
  • It’s just embarrassing when a distributions’ install disk has a pretty Bash, but an installed distribution isn’t pretty.
  • Comes with htop

  • I’m generally happy. I think I could make the switch to it without much effort, assuming I can get eCryptfs working on it.

—

  • Trying to get LILO working at all seems to be a lost cause.

    • I’m going to try reinstalling as ext4 to see if that makes a difference.
    • I could continue to boot from a USB stick, which isn’t that difficult, but I don’t want to have to do this.

—

  • Confirmed that the install requires ext4.

    • Perhaps only /boot needs to be ext4 and the rest can be Btrfs. I remember facing this issue in the past.

Installing to a hard drive ∞

  • Getting the install ISO on a USB stick.

    • Checking Slackware’s installation documents some more, I learned that I can use isohybrid and just dd the modified ISO image to my USB stick:
_file=slackware-14.1-install-dvd.iso
\isohybrid     "$file"
\dd  bs=4M  if="$file"  of=/dev/sdx

  • Booting with the USB stick worked as expected.

    • I wish I knew about isohybrid before. It’s magic.

  • Selecting the default hugesmp.s.

  • When selecting the installation target partition, the first choice is automatically assigned as /

  • / is forced to be ext4.

    • This was annoying. I can see why /boot needs to be not-Btrfs (ext2/3/4 only?) though.
  • I made /home Btrfs.

  • Slackware boots as expected

    • I had LILO ask for the text mode. Trying ‘x’ worked, but it was a tiny size that ended up auto-adjusting to a beautiful/normal one.
    • It appears that every text mode gets adjusted. I’m happy with that.
    • My Btrfs /home works as expected.
  • Windows 10 boots as expected.

  • Lubuntu does not boot.

    • I’m not going to bother trying to write down and convey the error message I got.

—

Fixing my bootloader:

  • Tried farting around with LILO.

    • I couldn’t remember how to use chroot, but I fiddled around to no avail.
    • I ended up doing a \lilo -P ignore, but that didn’t end up helping.
    • I was hopeful for the expert LILO install, but that didn’t work out.

  • Tried SystemRescueCD to fix my boot loader.

    • “Boot an existing linux” just gives Slackware.
    • I see no way to try to boot from my Lubuntu installation.
    • Booting into the full systemrescuecd, I see no way to .. rescue my system. It has no tools I can discern.

  • I wanted to re-create my MBR/bootloader so I include my new Slackware install. However, I could have:

    • Copied my original MBR from a backup.
    • Used the USB install stick for Lubuntu, I think.
    • Created the Slackware boot stick offered during its installation.

  • boot-repair fixed my problem perfectly.

    • Had boot-repair only fixed Lubuntu and Windows 10, but Slackware broke, I could have used the same slackware install ISO to manually boot into Slackware that way.

—

Trying Slackware:

  • Earlier, LILO complained that 1024x768x64k textmode wasn’t supported by my hardware.

    • I miss my ancient setup.
    • I guess this doesn’t matter since the textmode gets automagically-fixed on bootup.

  • KDE sucks.

    • It’s slow as hell to start.
    • Everything is animated.
    • I’d have to fix everything, it has a massive amount of dependencies, it has many many programs all of which have their own dependencies, and it’s generally bothersome to my philosophy of lightness.
  • xwmconfig lets me choose another window manager.
  • xfce is decent enough.

  • I’ll probably end up with some really terribad simple window manager, and then installing Openbox.

    • Note to self to use xwmconfig to set startx to use openbox.

—

I am now left with a minimal Slackware installation for which I have to install some basic tools to be able to bootstrap into use it full-time.

I think I can settle with:

Once I’m bootstrapped into things, and I can rebuild things into something resembling my usual setup, taking notes all the while. Afterward, I need to figure out how to thin things out.

Either I will be uninstalling things, or I may reinstall with less things selected.

—

Notes:

  • Either thin down the install, or figure out what to uninstall.

    • Make copious notes.
    • The leftover “Slackware-light” might be worth posting on.

  • Kernel source (k) is 500 MB!

    • I think this is important for my building things from source.
  • I shouldn’t have installed KDE.

  • Was Gnome installed? I thought I saw some of its junk.

    • No, it must have been GTK+ stuff.

  • I need to figure out just what I want to install.

    • TODO – every single tool I end up including with “Slackware-light” should have at least a placeholder post.

2015-05-15 ∞

  • Todo – UNetbootin/Windows prep of the USB stick.
  • Ugh, it’s only available as a DVD? I’ll have to use a larger and shittier stick.
  • I didn’t want to bother with a slow ISO download, so I decided to use DownThemAll and use multiple mirrors with multiple segments. Now it’s quite a bit faster.

  • The result was not bootable. I give up.

2015-05-08 ∞

Salix failed hard with its LILO installation.

I think this will be the exact same issue Slackware would face, so I’m not going to test Slackware.

~2010-11 – ~v12 ∞

Probably from around v12 / 2010-11

https://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:midori

  • set up hotkeys

  • wtf, it can’t do ftp?!

unusually slow surfing.. I reset my router and it helped a bit, but it’s still pretty shitty.

Installing Gobby:

Sticking to 0.4.12 so I’m still compatible with the windows version.

gobby says it also needs:

  • libxml++-2.6

  • gtksourceview-2.0

I see gtkmm 2.18.2 in the repo but no -devel.
Hell, I can’t find the development stuff anywhere!

I can’t for the life of me figure out how to have a coloured ls. It only works at the raw console. Boo!

fuck that.. even working with slackbuilds was a pain.

mount.ntfs-3g for ntfs r/w.. odd

brasero is a great burning program.. maybe better than graveman!

Resources ∞

2009-07-16 – 12.2 ∞

Great, but needed help to get X working properly. I used the Unity Linux build 3.7 xorg.conf after rebuilding it there.

Very fast, very nice.

2009-04-19 – 12.2 under VirtualBox 2.2.0 r45846 ∞

  • Simple and boring.
  • The install was slow, but that’s expected.
  • Like other multi-disk distribution, Slackware doesn’t talk about which disk you should get or if you need them all. As it turns out, only the first disk is needed.

  • console font: default8x16.psfu.gz

    • I’d rather have none. I want the ‘ to be a downward stroke. =/
    • setconsolefont to change it.
    • or edit /etc/rc.d/rc.font
  • Ooh, a semi-fancy bootup screen. Nice.

  • slackpkg

    • Automated Tool for Management of Slackware Linux Packages
    • Oops, I didn’t know about install-new, I hope it doesn’t muck things up. I did it again and caught a few straggling packages.

  • Basic annoyances are not solved through sane default settings.

    • cannot type, then page-up to get a partial match.
    • cp and mv overwrite without prompting
  • omfg, there are no kernel headers for what’s currently installed!
  • did some slackpkg update. It works well enough.

  • had to install xorg. Hrmph.

slackpkg install xorg-server libXfont libXau libfontenc pixman libXdmcp xf86 libxkbfile-1.0.5-i486-1 libdrm font x11-skel libX11

  • ..

    • I was lazy, and did all the xf86 and font stuff.
    • I don’t know why libxkbfile-1.0.5-i486-1 needs to be specified by name. Lame.
    • I installed x11-skel, it seemed like a good idea to have some config files.
    • xorgsetup – needs libX11,
    • Still won’t work, says it can’t find ‘fixed’. This is true, it’s not there. fonts.alias has an alias, I guess that’s not there either.

Sick of the package manager, trying slapt-get. I love it already.

Magic:

slapt-get --install-set x xap
xwmconfig

Or edit ~/.xinitrc (.xinitrc) for your startx startup preferences.

Works just fine.

installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions on Slackware 12.2
su
slapt-get --install kernel-source
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
cd /mnt
./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

.. then restart.

  • The .inputrc is completely opaque. This will be my primary reason to abandon Bash and go with Zsh.

(date not recorded) – 12.0 ∞

I tried it.. and it’s the same old same old. no actual improvements in the user experience. None of the annoyances were taken care of in a graceful way. It would leave me with zero free time because I’d be running around trying to set up basic things like history completion at the commandline, proper colour, even auto-mounting didn’t seem to do anything. Strange.

Cool additions:

  • updated kernel
  • hal and udev – for hardware plug-and-play

  • xorg

I was impressed enough that I ordered the CD set and some other goodies. =) (2016-12-14 – shortly after, they released another update which would have another set of CDs, this outraged me to no end..)

notes ∞

  • http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/17899

    • Note that Slackware’s set up so that, by default, you can only switch to text console “tty6” if you want to go back to a text console in runlevel 4. This can cause some confusion. You can edit /etc/inittab to change this behavior.
  • might have to enable some modules by editing /etc/rc.d/rc.modules

  • I wonder if I’ll need ndiswrapper

to check out ∞

First:

  • [http://www.userlocal.com/articles/raid1-slackware-12.php RAID-1 setup]
  • run CheckInstall instead of make install

  • check out some of the package managers for dependency-checking and being able to update software.

Next:

Last:

  • slacktrack — creating your own packages

  • kmod – automatic module loading. See /usr/src/linux/Documentation/kmod.txt

Later:

2005-04-10 – 10.0 ∞

I might want to:

ln -s /usr/X11/lib /lib/X11

To Do ∞

old notes which I’ll never bother with:

  • Remove the fancy fuzzy X fonts (or gut them from firefox — i.e. with a rebuild from source)

    • Previous build attempts bombed badly.

  • Get non-english fonts working / working with Firefox.

Issues and Questions ∞

  • See Linux for the scroll wheel note. This should be enabled by default, or otherwise made clear for user-selectability.
  • When installing, be able to specify only certain partitions as swap partitions.
  • mysqld doesn’t stay started
  • installpkg should be able to act on *.tar.gz files! morons!

  • /var/log/packages should be sorted into categories just like it is on the cdrom.

  • 12-hour time with “date”

  • Can I use multiple exec statements with “find”?
  • Research the maximum number of mounts.

  • can “hdparm” be used to wake a hd?

    • flush the cache or some such?

Unconfirmed issues ∞

  • v8.0: netconfig resets a user’s hosts file.
  • page up shouldn’t hop back down on the next output!
  • if a drive is in standby, don’t wake it up to unmount / reboot / halt.

  • cannot do md /s equivalent

v8.1:

  • cannot change my mind when selecting partitions
  • after install, ask to set the time/date?
  • be able to read more info during install
  • displaying info screens during install is not useful
  • tell me how much space my installs will take

  • gracefully handle installing and running out of space

Ideas ∞

  • add a new mount flag(s) to allow things like “unmount /code1/” to unmount all partitions with that code.

Shell notes ∞

See also: Zsh

  • edit default aliases
  • edit default environment variables
  • Can I change LS-COLORS for just one app?
  • double-tab (filename completion) should be in colour!
  • cannot home/end
  • cannot partial type then to scroll through history which has a partial match. (I should customize Zsh)
  • logout should clear the screen!

  • Have symbolically-linked directories displayed from ls have an ending / like regular dirs.

Pipe dreams:

  • It would be cool to have directory listings with a regexp ability in sorting.

    • like * appears on top if found in a filename
    • same with file content.

Cool packages to check out ∞

  • xgamma
  • fuser
  • ldconfig – run it after installing libraries
  • hdparm – deals with devices directly

  • Logrotate

8.1:

  • at – schedule commands to execute later
  • lsof – list open files
  • mpg321
  • sox – sound utils (convertor)
  • workbone – cd audio player — works
  • gdb – GNU debugger
  • strace – traces program execution
  • latex – check out later
  • Xpdf – PDF viewer
  • GIMP / ImageMagick
  • xgames
  • xxgdb – GNU debugger frontend
  • xfm – file manager — i think i’ve tested this

  • freetype – font engine library for TT — should i care?

  • Links – explore GPM support

    • “smooth cursor patch” – how?
    • cut & paste?

  • acpid, apmd, pciutils, floppy (or better), smartsuite, dcron

8.0:

Other Notes ∞

dhcpcd = DNS/gateway…

dhcpcd -L /tmp/dhcpdc

the /ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 is weird.

ReiserFS only?

if a “typical” install has the dependencies figured out, then grey out the “Fill up Dependencies” button. (same with “Full”)

Boot theme preview?

The finish message appears twice.

X’s screen size is different between a liveboot and install. Make a post-install setup helper?

ctrl-alt-del puts the HDDs to sleep! (doesn’t unmount?)

Preferences:

  • Blackbox / alternative setup

  • XMMS default

    • another skin
  • Movie playing
  • my other prefs/apps
  • shell/font -> X
  • shell font, prompt..
  • Zsh?
  • X – screen size
  • power saving / screen saver
  • locking
  • scrollwheel
  • num lock

  • gMPlayer association

(date not recorded) – 9.0 ∞

I have no idea what this is (as of 10.0):

touch /var/log/pacct
accton /var/log/pacct

(date not recorded) – 8.0 ∞

  • My first real distro. Very fast. Good, but technical. Not updated. Has a benevolent dictator.

  • One of the cds is live, and the main installer has been a live rescue disk for a long time.

install problems
  • does not handle running out of disk space during package installation
  • setup misreports how much space stuff will take. when i do a ‘full’ it
  • says ‘almost 2GB’, which is wrong (runs out of space after filling 2.5
  • should set up a primary user during install
  • should point the user towards manuals, faqs set after install
  • what is a decent swap size. explain this during install
  • install doesn’t autodetect a sound card, must manually edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules after the setup and first login.
  • install doesn’t properly setup a mouse, must manually edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules

  • install should set up a gamepad/joystick

Ancient ∞

Slackware was my first distribution many years ago.

I don’t think I have notes from that era. If I do, they’re buried in deep archives.

Footnotes

^ 1 14.1

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