Update Slackware now?

[Martha Adams]

Is now a good time to update my Slackware64 14.1, or is it
perhaps a really really bad time to mess with any of that?

Because, Slackware has been around enough decades that it's
definitely not news, processes and procedures are well worked
out, and there ought to be no need for adventurous testers
and checkers.

*But* now there is this news about apparently serious money
problems, which flings wide open doors to all sorts of other
things. For anyone thinking about stability because they
have other things and works to do, well, *where is* that
stability now? I can't see it from here.

And for me it gets my attention because I'm asking myself,
update my Slackware install today, or not?

Seems to me, *any* Slackware change or update works, wants
to wait resolution of what's going on here, and convincing
detailed news of it. Until that happens, there's no trust
there.

And where is Alien in this? Who is maybe one of the very
best people among Slackware suppliers? What does *he* say?

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2018 Jly 29]

[Chris Elvidge]

Post by Martha Adams
Is now a good time to update my Slackware64 14.1, or is it
perhaps a really really bad time to mess with any of that?
Because, Slackware has been around enough decades that it's
definitely not news, processes and procedures are well worked
out, and there ought to be no need for adventurous testers
and checkers.
*But* now there is this news about apparently serious money
problems, which flings wide open doors to all sorts of other
things. For anyone thinking about stability because they
have other things and works to do, well, *where is* that
stability now? I can't see it from here.
And for me it gets my attention because I'm asking myself,
update my Slackware install today, or not?
Seems to me, *any* Slackware change or update works, wants
to wait resolution of what's going on here, and convincing
detailed news of it. Until that happens, there's no trust
there.
And where is Alien in this? Who is maybe one of the very
best people among Slackware suppliers? What does *he* say?
Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2018 Jly 29]

Is 14.1 doing it for you? Are you keeping patches up to date? If so, no
real reason to upgrade to 14.2/current - escept for interest. Alien Bob
is a contributor, not a "Slackware supplier."

From Alien Bob's homepage:
Hi! I am Eric Hameleers, or Alien BOB as I am called on various
Slackware forums & channels. I am a long time Slackware user, part of
the Slackware team, but I am not a Slackware employee. You'll find
scripts I wrote here, lots of Slackware packages, their build scripts,
and several articles I wrote for my Wiki of course.
All of what I make available here is not official Slackware-released
software. Do not bug Pat about what you download from my homepage (other
than to tell him he should include my packages in the official Slackware
distribution if you like them :-)

[notbob]

Post by Martha Adams
Is now a good time to update my Slackware64 14.1, or is it
perhaps a really really bad time to mess with any of that?

There are so many 'personal' issues, only you can make that decision.

Fer instance, in my case, I've been running Slack fer about 15 yrs. Yet
I am now running a new W10 box (graphics are quite quick!) w/ my super
slow (only .5G RAM) P4 is kept around to communicate with my bank.
Should I upgrade my new W10 box (64-bit) to 14.2?

I'm also 70 yrs old, jes wanna read my newsgroups and email and surf the
web and not hafta spend a month configurating my machine to work with
today's hi-res web, Yes, I'm getting old and forgetful and it's been a
year since the last upgrade. You think I can remember all these
Slackware tip/tricks? Well, it's getting harder and W10 is all there
....if still a wee bit nosey...... (actually, a lot!)

Heck, even Pat say's he jes got his first EUFI box. If he doesn't have
it worked out, how am I gonna show? I'll wait fer 15. ;)

nb

[alistair]

Post by notbob

Is now a good time to update my Slackware64 14.1, or is it perhaps a
really really bad time to mess with any of that?

There are so many 'personal' issues, only you can make that decision.
Fer instance, in my case, I've been running Slack fer about 15 yrs. Yet
I am now running a new W10 box (graphics are quite quick!) w/ my super
slow (only .5G RAM) P4 is kept around to communicate with my bank.
Should I upgrade my new W10 box (64-bit) to 14.2?
nb

Yes, you should change your W10 box to 14.2, or any version of
Slackware ;-)

[notbob]

Post by alistair
Yes, you should change your W10 box to 14.2, or any version of
Slackware ;-)

Easier sed than done!

You got all the steps to do an end-run around the UEFI?

I gotta 7th generation 64-bit i3 box. It's got 8G RAM, a 1T HDD, and
the back up Windoze is on a separate partition I don't know how
to access. Oh, plus it's got UEFI. I'm listening. ;)

nb

[alistair]

Post by notbob

Post by alistair
Yes, you should change your W10 box to 14.2, or any version of
Slackware ;-)

Easier sed than done!
You got all the steps to do an end-run around the UEFI?
I gotta 7th generation 64-bit i3 box. It's got 8G RAM, a 1T HDD, and
the back up Windoze is on a separate partition I don't know how to
access. Oh, plus it's got UEFI. I'm listening. ;)
nb

Luckily I don't have UEFI on my computers, and will avoid it if I can.
However, there is the Legacy Boot option, accessed by going into the
BIOS, or at least that is what I understand:

http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware64/README_UEFI.TXT

I use Slackware and OpenBSD interchangeably and found that OpenBSD makes
things very easy indeed, including UEFI, and I always walk away
understanding more for both systems:

https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/6.2/amd64/INSTALL.amd64

Leaving MS software running from the same hard disk seems to be very
messy. Just for the bling effect?

[notbob]

Post by alistair
Just for the bling effect?

Actually, I'm jes lazy.

If I was gonna kick Slackware to the proverbial curb, I'd go with
OpenBSD, also. I've used it before, and am somewhat familiar with basic
Unix. I learned about computers on a MSDOS machine I hadda load code
on, so am more than familiar with the keyboard and CLI. But, I hadda
use W98 on my last job, so am also somewhat familiar with Windoze.

I think I jes am getting too lazy and bored with configuring a
Slackware box to care, anymore. My brother bought me a new box (i3,
W10) and he's still employed as a db coder on Windoze. The thing has
such great graphics, I hate to intrude on the whole MS thing. I'll
prolly do it next Winter ....when I'm really bored! ;)

nb

[Robert Komar]

Post by notbob

Post by alistair
Just for the bling effect?

Actually, I'm jes lazy.
If I was gonna kick Slackware to the proverbial curb, I'd go with
OpenBSD, also. I've used it before, and am somewhat familiar with basic
Unix. I learned about computers on a MSDOS machine I hadda load code
on, so am more than familiar with the keyboard and CLI. But, I hadda
use W98 on my last job, so am also somewhat familiar with Windoze.
I think I jes am getting too lazy and bored with configuring a
Slackware box to care, anymore. My brother bought me a new box (i3,
W10) and he's still employed as a db coder on Windoze. The thing has
such great graphics, I hate to intrude on the whole MS thing. I'll
prolly do it next Winter ....when I'm really bored! ;)
nb

I got tired of reconfiguring a box after each install a long time ago.
I just update against slackware-current now. I have to check updated
files in /etc, but I never have to start from scratch anymore. That
to me is the main advantage of keeping up with current.

Cheers,
Rob Komar

[Henrik Carlqvist]

Post by notbob
You got all the steps to do an end-run around the UEFI?

I was once asked to install Slackware on an UP2 machine
( http://www.up-board.org/upsquared/ ). It is supposed to be some kind of
embedded do-it-yourself computer, but unfortunately it turned out that it
was not able to boot in legacy mode, UEFI was required.

Unfortunately, I do not have the machine here, so this post will not be a
real step by step guide to do a Slackware UEFI install, but if I remember
right the key to my success was:

1) Use a GPT partition table instead of MBR partition table (create the
partitions with parted)

2) Create a FAT32 partition which will be used for booting. For
convenience I edited fstab to mount that partition at /boot/efi

3) Install x86_64 syslinux.efi on the FAT32 partition. Maybe I had to
rename that file or some other file for the system to boot automagically.
I also had to copy the kernel file to the FAT32 partition, it was not
enough to have it in /boot.

Another tricky part was to reach this goal as I was not able to boot the
Slackware installation DVD on the UEFI machine even though the DVD
appeared to be prepared for UEFI booting. My workaround for this was to
create a temporary installation HD again UEFI-bootable using a FAT32
partition and syslinux as described above. This installation HD was
booted by USB using a USB-to-SATA-converter.

Even though syslinux can be used to UEFI boot a HD it can unfortunately
not be used to create UEFI bootable CD/DVDs. Isolinux does not support
UEFI and syslinux.efi seems to only work with FAT32 partitions. However,
I haven't tried to see what happens if you put a GPT partition table on
your DVD...

regards Henrik

[Clark Smith]

Post by notbob
You got all the steps to do an end-run around the UEFI?

I was once asked to install Slackware on an UP2 machine (
http://www.up-board.org/upsquared/ ). It is supposed to be some kind of
embedded do-it-yourself computer, but unfortunately it turned out that
it was not able to boot in legacy mode, UEFI was required.
Unfortunately, I do not have the machine here, so this post will not be
a real step by step guide to do a Slackware UEFI install, but if I

This thread is a bit distressing. I have never tried to install
Slackware in a UEFI system but, since UEFI has been around for a few
years now, I assumed that that was a solved problem (once Secure Boot is
disabled.)

Based on this thread, it would seem, however, that installing
Slackware in such hardware is one of those things that might require
waving the chicken and praying for the best. Is that the case? Looking
into the READEM_UEFI.txt file in Slackware current is, quite frankly, not
all that reassuring.

[Doug713705]

Le 2018-07-31, Clark Smith nous expliquait dans
alt.os.linux.slackware

Post by Clark Smith

Post by notbob
You got all the steps to do an end-run around the UEFI?

I was once asked to install Slackware on an UP2 machine (
http://www.up-board.org/upsquared/ ). It is supposed to be some kind of
embedded do-it-yourself computer, but unfortunately it turned out that
it was not able to boot in legacy mode, UEFI was required.
Unfortunately, I do not have the machine here, so this post will not be
a real step by step guide to do a Slackware UEFI install, but if I

This thread is a bit distressing. I have never tried to install
Slackware in a UEFI system but, since UEFI has been around for a few
years now, I assumed that that was a solved problem (once Secure Boot is
disabled.)
Based on this thread, it would seem, however, that installing
Slackware in such hardware is one of those things that might require
waving the chicken and praying for the best. Is that the case? Looking
into the READEM_UEFI.txt file in Slackware current is, quite frankly, not
all that reassuring.

No, installing Slackware with UEFI is not that difficult.
But, it needs to forget what you are used to when dealing with
bootloader and that part is the hardest.

[Henrik Carlqvist]

Post by Clark Smith
This thread is a bit distressing. I have never tried to install
Slackware in a UEFI system but, since UEFI has been around for a few
years now, I assumed that that was a solved problem (once Secure Boot is
disabled.)
Based on this thread, it would seem, however, that installing
Slackware in such hardware is one of those things that might require
waving the chicken and praying for the best. Is that the case? Looking
into the READEM_UEFI.txt file in Slackware current is, quite frankly,
not all that reassuring.

When I do a standard Slackware installation I allways use LILO and set
the CMOS setup to legacy boot. There are other boot loaders tnan LILO
like GRUB, ELILO and syslinux. My main reason for prefering LILO is that
I have used it for more than 20 years. However, LILO does not work for
everything and my second choice is syslinux.

I have also used syslinux for many years, mostly to create bootable CDs
and DVDs. However syslinux is also capable of doing PXE booting over
network and it has also proven useful when LILO comes short:

LILO is unable to boot from M.2 SSDs, syslinux makes them bootable using
extlinux.

And, as mentioned in this thread, syslinux can do UEFI.

The Slackware READEM_UEFI.txt mentions ELILO but I did choose not to go
that path as ELILO is no longar maintained. Even though it might sound
convenient to migrate from LILO to ELILO I am also familiar enough with
syslinux.

I have never used GRUB as other alternatives allways has worked good
enough for me and I don't like the idea of having a special boot
partition and a naming scheme of its own of disks and partitions.

regards Henrik

[root]

Post by Henrik Carlqvist
LILO is unable to boot from M.2 SSDs, syslinux makes them bootable using
extlinux.

Since I wanted to use an M2 SSD I chose to use GRUB.

Post by Henrik Carlqvist
I have never used GRUB as other alternatives allways has worked good
enough for me and I don't like the idea of having a special boot
partition and a naming scheme of its own of disks and partitions.

Some time ago I posted here a c program that reads /etc/lilo.conf and
generates a grub.cfg. For me that makes using GRUB as easy as
using LILO. You can still keep your lilo.conf around.

You do not need any special partitions to use grub.

Henrik if you want I will repost the lilo2cfg program.

Post by Henrik Carlqvist
regards Henrik

[Henrik Carlqvist]

Post by root
Henrik if you want I will repost the lilo2cfg program.

Thaks for your offer! But there is no need for that now. For those few
machines were lilo hasn't worked I have already installed syslinux and if
I need it in the future I think that I will be able to find it with
google:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.os.linux.slackware/JsfNT7F03QU

regards Henrik

[Chris Vine]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 14:01:42 +0000 (UTC)

Post by Clark Smith

Post by notbob
You got all the steps to do an end-run around the UEFI?

I was once asked to install Slackware on an UP2 machine (
http://www.up-board.org/upsquared/ ). It is supposed to be some kind of
embedded do-it-yourself computer, but unfortunately it turned out that
it was not able to boot in legacy mode, UEFI was required.
Unfortunately, I do not have the machine here, so this post will not be
a real step by step guide to do a Slackware UEFI install, but if I

This thread is a bit distressing. I have never tried to install
Slackware in a UEFI system but, since UEFI has been around for a few
years now, I assumed that that was a solved problem (once Secure Boot is
disabled.)
Based on this thread, it would seem, however, that installing
Slackware in such hardware is one of those things that might require
waving the chicken and praying for the best. Is that the case? Looking
into the READEM_UEFI.txt file in Slackware current is, quite frankly, not
all that reassuring.

"Based on this thread" you might think so, but slackware-14.2 installs
out of the box on a UEFI system. It is no more difficult to do than a
BIOS/MBR install, but it is different. Those averse to things being
different might not like that.

When I installed on a UEFI computer for the first time I read the
README_UEFI.TXT file that comes with Slackware. I cannot remember
having any problems with following it (it was some time ago), although
as the computer already had Windows installed on it I did not need to
make an EFI system partition - there already was one. Instead, I had to
defrag and shrink the Windows partition using Windows' own disk
management application in order to make room for Slackware. (I imagine
I could also have used GNU parted to shrink the Windows partition, but
that's not what I did.)

Upon installation, slackware will set up elilo. However, once you have
slackware up and running with this and you can play around, you may
find that grub provides you with a more user-friendly boot interface,
and one which can also boot up Windows without you having to call up the
EFI internal boot manager. Having said that, I find rEFInd to be the
best boot manager for UEFI - it will automatically find other OSes on
the system such as Windows and present you with a nice boot manager
interface.

[notbob]

I find rEFInd to be the best boot manager for UEFI - it will
automatically find other OSes on the system such as Windows and
present you with a nice boot manager interface.

Thnx, Chris. I have rEFind's website bookmarked.

This has been a very revealing thread. Again, thanks to all. ;)

nb

[John Forkosh]

Post by notbob
I am now running a new W10 box (graphics are quite quick!) w/ my super
slow (only .5G RAM) P4 is kept around to communicate with my bank.
Should I upgrade my new W10 box (64-bit) to 14.2?
nb

No. Dual-boot it with 14.2. De-frag the win partition, use gparted
to shrink that partition, and to make some new one(s) for linux
(plus a small fat partition which both can r/w in case you want to
easily move files between linux and win). Then install 14.2.

I knew nothing about gpt/uefi (and still know next-to-nothing),
but got that done pretty easily on two new w10 boxes. You also
have to mess with the bios stuff, which has some security setting
whose default only permits win to boot, unless you reset it.

But then the slack install recognizes the uefi boot stuff, and asks
if you just want to add 14.2 as another uefi boot menu option.
Once you get comfortable with that, it's actually a bit easier than
the usual /etc/lilo.conf stuff. Moreover, the bios then lets you
choose which uefi boot option is default, so you can choose linux.
And pressing f8 (or some other f-key) during post brings up the
uefi boot menu, and you can boot windows when you want. lilo.conf's
no longer involved (the install uses elilo, anyway).

[John McCue]

Post by Martha Adams
Is now a good time to update my Slackware64 14.1, or is it
perhaps a really really bad time to mess with any of that?

Hard to say, if 14.1 works fine for you no need to
update, but --

The kernel with 14.2 (4.4.x) has been selected for
"Super Long Term Support". See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel

That tells me Slackware 14.2 has a rather large window
for support where kernel 3.10 reached EOL in Nov 2017.

This means with 14.2 you can at least "easily" keep
up with the Intel bug of the day :)

<snip>

John

[Jimmy Johnson]

Post by Martha Adams
Is now a good time to update my Slackware64 14.1, or is it
perhaps a really really bad time to mess with any of that?
Because, Slackware has been around enough decades that it's
definitely not news, processes and procedures are well worked
out, and there ought to be no need for adventurous testers
and checkers.

Hi Martha, I'm the Linux Tester, Slackware is not new to me but I am a
new Slackware user. :)

I've been installing 14.2 on all my machines and they love it, I saved
my i386 machine for last, it's a single core Intel processor with 1GB
RAM and I wanted to start out with a lite system and started with 13.37
but it was to old, so I changed the sources to 14.0 and upgraded, I was
nervous, this was my first slack upgrade. I ran slackpkg update,
slackpkg install-new, slackpkg upgrade-all and slackpkg clean-system, it
was easy and it worked. But 14.0 still seemed old, so I repeated the
steps using the 14.1 repos, but this time the system was to heavy and
decided to downgrade back to 14.0, and I changed to sources back to 14.0.

The nice thing about Slackware is that it treats all versions the same,
if it's a different version slackpkg is going to install it as a upgrade
so the steps are the same even if it's a older version, slackpkg update,
slackpkg install-new, slackpkg upgrade-all and slackpkg clean-system and
it was easy.

I've also ran the recent updates on my 14.2 systems. Really for me and
my 5 computers that I use for testing there are no problems that I can
see. If you can run 14.1 without problems then 14.2 will only be
better, certainly more up to date packages.

Post by Martha Adams
*But* now there is this news about apparently serious money
problems, which flings wide open doors to all sorts of other
things.  For anyone thinking about stability because they
have other things and works to do, well, *where is* that
stability now?  I can't see it from here.
And for me it gets my attention because I'm asking  myself,
update my Slackware install today, or not?
Seems to me, *any* Slackware change or update works, wants
to wait resolution of what's going on here, and convincing
detailed news of it.  Until that happens, there's no trust
there.
And where is Alien in this?  Who is maybe one of the very
best people among Slackware suppliers?  What does *he* say?
Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2018 Jly 29]

Patrick's friends where quick to come to his aid, I believe the idea
that Patrick still has so many friends and people who care about
Slackware, was a big comfort and Patrick is feeling much better now.

Cheers!