If so, how is it?

So it's kind of a long story. But a few years ago I bought a laptop from walmart. It's nothing special, just some gateway laptop with pretty basic stats. And I've been running Slackware current on it for a couple of years.

I leave this laptop in the living room attached to a TV and it's used by the whole family. Basically used as a TV and occasionally for projects/games.

Around five or six months ago, I noticed that the battery became "spicy." So I removed the battery due to safety/fire concerns. This laptop just sits in the living room most of the time anyway.

Now the actual problem is that this computer does not have a CMOS battery, so if the power cable is ever disconnected the date resets to Dec/2019. And because that date is so far off, the vast majority of web services do not allow connection. The date can simply be reset using ntpdate, but I'd like it to automatically set the date on startup.

What I've tried:

I've tried checking the "get date and time automatically" box in KDE's settings manger. It tells me "unable to execute"

More recently I tried to make a simple /etc/rc.d/rc.local script to just run

ntpdate pool.ntp.org

If I execute the script (as root) after boot/login, it works.

Am I misusing /etc/rc.d/rc.local?

Is there a better way to accomplish my goal?

Should I just get a new battery?

Edit: the actual script

#!/bin/sh

#enable logging
set -x

/usr/bin/ntpdate -s pool.ntp.org

exit 0

Final edit:

Turns out I'm a dope and forgot to un-comment a server in ntp.conf

Now after a few minutes of logging into KDE the time updates.

Thank you everyone for helping. Probably going to follow u/Illusion's suggestion and get a new battery.

I'm using Pop right now, but I'm about to try Slackware on my home media server using Jellyfin and an old EMC SAS enclosure. I think it's LVM or whatever the newer distros use that's making things hard for me.

Hello! I wrote a package manager for SlackBuilds.org called sbozyp. I have been working on it for quite a while and it is finally ready to be shared with you guys. I would really appreciate any feedback I can get on it. Even if you don't want to try it, it would be helpful if you could read the manual and let me know if anything is unclear. All information about sbozyp can be found on its GitHub page. Thanks!

(cross-posted on linuxquestions.org)

So I've been using slackware on one of my devices for a little bit and I'm learning about the init system.
It is pretty intuitive and I've written a simple service to make sure my wireguard interfaces to get setup at boot and added it to rc.local.

Of course, rc.local gets executed when slackware executes the run level script for multi-user mode, i.e. before any user actually logs in.
However, I have some background services, syncthing that I would want to start only when some specific user logs in.

On a systemd system I would usually be able to run a command like systemctl --user enable syncthing which would enable the service upon login for my user, so I'm basically trying to recreate that behavior.

So I'm wondering how you guys handle this, and what the slackware way to do this would be?

I have been working on getting my EMC SAS enclosure working correctly for the past few months. I should have asked for help here. Anyway, all but 5 drives have blue lights above them. Those 5 work fine, but no blue light. Not sure why. But what FS would you recommend? I was thinking of going with ext4 or btrfs.

Hello, I decided to go 15.0 from 14.2, everything ok but printing.
I have been unable to make my old HP laser jet CP1025nw print (CUPS).
On 14.2 I used
Driver: HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw Foomatic/foo2zjs-z3 (recommended) (color)
Connection: hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_CP_1025nw?serial=0W245ZGZPR1a
But now, if I understand it correctly, I need ghostscript-printer?
Did somebody solve this before, and willing to help?
TY

SOLVED
correct driver (there are 4) is:
HP LaserJet cp1025nw, hpcups 3.20.5, requires proprietary plugin (color)(edit: formatting)

also (not sure if needed) printer up at boot time

Cups-browsed security issue patched in the October 1, 2024 changelog.

ap/cups-2.4.11-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
ap/cups-browsed-2.0.1-x86_64-2.txz:  Rebuilt.
  Mitigate security issue that could lead to a denial of service or
  the execution of arbitrary code.
  Rebuilt with --with-browseremoteprotocols=none to disable incoming
  connections, since this daemon has been shown to be insecure. If you
  actually use cups-browsed, be sure to install the new
  /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf.new containing this line:
  BrowseRemoteProtocols none
  For more information, see:
    https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-47176
  (* Security fix *)ap/cups-2.4.11-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
ap/cups-browsed-2.0.1-x86_64-2.txz:  Rebuilt.
  Mitigate security issue that could lead to a denial of service or
  the execution of arbitrary code.
  Rebuilt with --with-browseremoteprotocols=none to disable incoming
  connections, since this daemon has been shown to be insecure. If you
  actually use cups-browsed, be sure to install the new
  /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf.new containing this line:
  BrowseRemoteProtocols none
  For more information, see:
    https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-47176
  (* Security fix *)

So I was having trouble installing/booting this distro for days and couldn't understand why. And I ultimately found out it was because when Slack scans/sets up the EFI partition during the installer, it's automatically using the USB key I used to boot the installer instead of the partition I made in gdisk that's CLEARLY set as EF00.

If I pull out the USB stick while after setting up partitions - it finds /dev/nvme0n1p1 (what I set it as) automatically and formats it as vfat -f32 and hums right along.

This fact escaped me because - who actually looks what drive it sets up as EFI? At least I didn't. So what gives? Is it just the naming convention? /dev/sda as far as I remember used to be physical drives (the spin kind). They got repurposed at some point for USB devices. Maybe that's what is happening? It sees SDA and assumes that's where I want it?

Also - why when using LUKS does it always set the /dev/mapper/<name> as luks<drivename>

example:

no matter what I mount it as, it just automatically names it /dev/mapper/luksnvme0n1p3 (or whichever number it is)

I've been running Slackware 15.0 on my Ryzen 3 3200U laptop for about a year. Mostly for my own learning, I decided to go multilib and try to get World of Warcraft to work. I'm happy to report success there (although performance is abysmal, but it's not really a normal use case for this machine).

When I installed Lutris via sboui, it took nearly 6 hours. I know the APU in this laptop is no monster but I thought it with 20GB ddr4 and a pcie 3.0 nvme would perform a little better.

So, if I wanted to build a machine that would handle package installation (from sbo, alien Bob, and slackpkg), what components have the largest impact? To be honest, this machine won't likely be doing much heavy lifting - just more day-to-day stuff, but I'd like packages to not take hours to install.

I was thinking something like a mini itx build with 5700g, 32GB ddr4 3600 cl 16 and a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 tb.

Thanks in advance!

Wed Sep 18 21:23:19 UTC 2024
a/btrfs-progs-6.11-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
a/dracut-103-x86_64-1.txz:  Added.
  This is Red Hat's tool to generate an initramfs (aka initrd). Around here,
  we try not to suffer from Not Invented Here Syndrome (some might say the
  less we invent, the better ;-). It never hurts to have additional options,
  and it even looks like our old friend David Cantrell is on the AUTHORS list.
  I've had good luck here with:
    dracut --hostonly --force /boot/initrd-6.10.11-generic.img
  Thanks to Didier Spaier for convincing me to try it out.
a/gawk-5.3.1-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
a/kernel-generic-6.10.11-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
a/upower-1.90.6-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
d/kernel-headers-6.10.11-x86-1.txz:  Upgraded.
k/kernel-source-6.10.11-noarch-1.txz:  Upgraded.
l/libtiff-4.7.0-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
n/curl-8.10.1-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
x/mesa-24.2.3-x86_64-1.txz:  Upgraded.
isolinux/initrd.img:  Rebuilt.
kernels/*:  Upgraded.
usb-and-pxe-installers/usbboot.img:  Rebuilt.

New to Slackware dracut.  Cool.  :)

a/kernel-huge-6.10.9-x86_64-1.txz: Removed.

So long, we won't miss you.

If you were actually using kernel-huge with one of the SCSI/SAS drivers that

were built in, you'll need to use kernel-generic and an initrd that contains the needed drivers. Otherwise, just switch to kernel-generic. It'll be fine. If unsure, make an initrd with geninitrd and have your bootloader use it.

Wow

I just upgrade my slackware 15 with slackpkg upgrade-all and rebooted it without updating ELILO, it stuck at boot. As I duckduckgo it I realized I had to update a bootloader cause it might have upgraded my kernel too. So as other users suggests in this subreddit I quickly chroot into my slackware and did geninitrd and copied vmlinuz-generic and initrd.gz to /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware and rebooted the machine. No changes, it stuck at

loading kernel vmlinuz... done
loading file initrd.gz...done 

Any help will be greatly appreciated 🙏

[Edited] never forget to upgrade bootloader in slackware with eliloconfig otherwise will be clown like me

Hello All,
We’re excited to invite you to a special online event on September 12th at 4 PM UTC! 🚀

Dasharo User Group (DUG) is your go-to forum for Dasharo enthusiasts—whether you’re a seasoned user or just curious! This is your chance to dive deep into the latest developments, new features, and exciting updates in the Dasharo ecosystem. It’s the perfect opportunity to connect, share knowledge, and learn about new features and updates that are coming to Dasharo.💡

But that’s not all! We’ll also be hosting Developers vPub 0xC, a more laid-back, open-format session where the conversation flows freely. Grab your favourite beverage 🍻, and join in as we chat about anything and everything related to open-source firmware and hardware.

Expect some fascinating talks from industry experts: Regalis, Philipp Deppenwiese from Binarly, Stuart Yoder from Arm, and last but not least, Michał Żygowski from 3mdeb, who will present an exciting demo of Dasharo on Odroid H4+! There will also be plenty of time for an open, relaxed discussion where everyone can contribute. 🙌

Mark your calendars—you won’t want to miss it! ✨

Join links & full schedule are available here:
https://vpub.dasharo.com/e/14/dasharo-user-group-7

Register for free at:
https://vpub.dasharo.com/e/14/dasharo-user-group-7/#tickets

Good day, friends.

The story of Slackware is quite something considering the fact it's (as far as I know) one of the oldest active distros out there with Debian. On the other hand I think I dont have to point out Debian and the family of Debian based distributions are way much popular than Slackware family. Why is that?

I mean I only started with Linux like 3 years ago and my daily driver is openSUSE Tumbleweed these days (and I fricking love it :) ) but I was always very curious about Slackware as well! One think about Linux based operating system is the fact there is so much diversity when it comes to all the flavours and distributions and all that stuff.

I also personally love the fact that even if all of us are using something different we still are very friendly with each other and all of us contribute as best as we can to Linux from our perspective. You use Debian? Cool with me! You use Arch? Nice! You use Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL,...? Hey dude, way to go! :) or at least that's my perspective. That's why I hope Slackware has a positive fortune ahead of itself. Maybe it won't become the most popular distro ever but I would certainly love if Slackware could stick around and keep contributing to the whole Linux world in years to come.

TL;DR : Could you tell me what's your opinion on the Slackware's future please?

Many thanks! Wish you a nice day everyone!

Hi Team,

I'm working on a configuration script to run after liveslak install. The script should take care of updating config files like groups, sudoers, install optional packages, and the like. Anyone think the script is a good or bad idea? Or does anyone else use a script to wrap up a liveslak install?

So I'm up to install slackware in a laptop with no working USB ports, so my guess is that i could use the SD Card to install the distro. As I'm using slack like 10 years from now I've never figured it out how to mount the setupdir (sdcard) and the root dir in the proper locations in this situation.

How can I mount the sd card during the setup to install the OS on the disk?

Hi,

as in the title, what do you think about new gen fs like Btrfs, ZFS and bcache fs.

In what way they changed your life and is it worth using them versus normal fs like Ext4 or XFS?

Actually I'm using ZFS on a backup server for work purpose and it reduced managment of several layers (mdadm, LVM plus FS) and added some key feature like file compression and integrity check.

Never used Btrfs really on production due to "horror story telling". Have you any experiences of BTRFS?

Thank you in advance

I’m trying to install Slackware 15 on an old Poweredge server and when it gets to the part where it wants me to set the root password it fails with: chroot cannot execute /usr/bin/passwd input/output error

So I just hit no, and then it says Installation Complete. But it doesn’t ask to install Lilo. Install just ends early. I did some searching but didn’t find much.

Tried Slackware 14.2 and it installs and works just fine. Is there something I’m missing or is 15 just not going to install on this server? Thanks,

Hey everyone, I'm on Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Ryzen 5700U with slackware15 installed. I'm kinda new to slackware and I'm trying to update it by using slackpkg update. I also delete /root/.gnupg and did slackpkg update gpg before slackpkg update as other forum suggest but it didn't work. I also changed the mirror to others 4, 5 times and currently I'm on http://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/slackware/slackware64-15.0/, any help would be really really appreciated... 'cause It's my only machine and I can't do anything.

Hi,

as in the title, is it worth learning Slaclware for work purpose like server and workstation?

Thank you in advance

Just updated to 5.9.6 -> 5.9.12 and now my grub is just fast blinking once with something like

• grub can't find font
• no video module found
• can't read this one

?
Yeah I have run the grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Any chance to get the system working or am I to reinstall from scratch?

I've been using Linux for over a year now mostly running the systemd based distros like Debian (my favorite), Arch, NixOS, and Fedora. I've only ran slackware once and ended up borking the system on trying to update the kernel manually. I always seem to get that part wrong. Ive been aiming to run slackware in a VM to practice more using it in order to get the hang of it more with sys v init, LILO (yes you can use grub), and trying to maually fix broken slackbuilds. My hope is this run i can become really good at using slackware to a point of more bare metal runs. With that being said, any tips on packages, tools, and other things that can help make this system really stable, work well, and make some things easier to do if normally difficult? I for some reason keep coming back to this distro like I really want to learn it and embrace it. The only issue I have is just linux skills are still new, so many mistakes are made. Any advice would be great!

I'd also like know suggestions on getting other DE's since im not a fan of KDE or XFCE. I mostly run cinnamon and mate. Thanks in advance!

Hello, after looking for a while for a non-systemd distro I have came across slackware. I have successfully installed Slackware into a VM and know how to install it. But the problem is the bootloader. I have no experience with ELILO and would perfer to use grub. I also want to becareful and use the current EFI partition that Windows 10 is using. Could someone tell me how to install grub to the existing EFI partition or a new one and how to create a new EFI entry from efibootmgr since my motherboard does NOT support adding boot entries. My laptop is a HP x360 pavillion and currently runs Windows 10 LTSC 2019

Good evening everyone and sorry for the long post. So I'm new to Slackware and Linux in general. I installed Slackware successfully the other day and it went great, but I had problems after updating/upgrading packages with slackpkg. The kernel "upgraded" from 5.15.19 to 5.15.161 and I saw the warning that I would have to update the bootloader as well. I ran eliloconfig thinking that was all I had to do.

So I ended up with a system that wouldn't boot. I did some searching and found that I could use the USB install media to boot into the huge kernel, after which I ran these commands, which I found by searching this subreddit:

geninitrd

cp /boot/vmlinuz-generic /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/vmlinuz

cp /boot/initrd.gz /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/initrd.gz

Very gladly, this worked, but I'm hoping someone can help me wrap my head around why it worked. After doing some reading, here is what I think is happening:

When the system boots, elilo loads the kernel and the initial ramdisk from /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/vmlinuz and /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/initrd.gz respectively. After upgrading, the new kernel is located at /boot/vmlinuz-generic and it has to be copied to the location listed above in order for elilo to load it. Then, I have to manually create a new ramdisk for the new kernel (geninitrd) which is created at the location /boot/initrd.gz, which also has to be copied to the location listed above in order for elilo to load it.

Do I have this correct? Is there an easier way to do it? Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi,

I'm using a script that build packages from SBo. I have a question about SBo releases, for release I mean 14.2, 15.0....

It's common that deps for a given software changes inside an SBo release? It should not remain in a "stable" state to avoid problems?

For example, I noticed that ansible got its deps changed and added ansible-core.

1. This is a common behaviour for SBo? This not break compatibility with older version of installed software?

2. How to detect if a software got new deps other than read on SBo? In the update message sent in sbo mailing list there is not a changelog (something like what changed, why upgraded, wjy fixed...like an advisory published by the slackbuild maintainer)

3. In case I found a new deps for a specified software, I should recompile it completely (the software and all deps) or I need build only the new deps and the software itself?

4. What is the main distribution policy of SBo: stability, security, always updating (something bleeding edge) or simple release slackbuilds?

Thank you in advance and sorry for this strange question.

Hi, this is my first time trying slackware and I installed it but it fails to detect any network interface other then 'lo' if anyone could give me a hand I would really appreciate it as I have no clue what Im doing, thanks

wifi card is a RTL8852CE

website:https://stuffbymax.me/unofficial-slackware/

source: https://github.com/stuffbymax/unofficial-slackware

I've seen a lot of posts in recent years questioning the relevance of Slackware in the current Linux landscape. My contention is that Slackware is now more than ever something that is very much needed in a world of increasingly encroaching AI as well as other technologies. The emergence of these "advanced" technologies has really caused me to sit back and reconsider what's truly important to me both as a user and for preserving the more basic tenets (and dare I say humanity) of computing and has led me back to using Slackware after more than 10 years away. I have to say that I'm somewhat thankful for this kick in the conscience by the likes of ChatGPT and Copilot for forcing me to get back to getting my hands dirty and doing more things for myself. I think this time I may be here to stay. I believe the work being done on this distro going forward is more important than it ever was, and I'm here for it.

https://preview.redd.it/9je7bhlsqq9d1.png?width=1366&format=png&auto=webp&s=79d48d7f8e49c88d07f9101445304eab2bba1c07