Quick Review of Slackware 15.0 Live

[mhbell]

This is just a quick review of Slack 15.0 live which is the latest cueewnt version. First My computer configuration. my computer has a AMD Ryzen CPU with built in graphics. My computer also has 6 SSD disks (drives) that are in a SSD Dock with 6 ports of which 3 are active. I multi boot several different Linux Distro's on different SSD's. I like to download and try most of the latest Linux Distro's. I always install them on one of the SSD's. It is also important to note that I use GPT Partitioning with all partitions being Primary. No extended partitions on all SSD's I use a ESP 512 MB Fat 32 Partition for booting all OS's No MBR. I also use Secure Boot Enabled. Now on to the install. To prevent conflicts I disabled all SSD's except the one to install Slack on. I also disabled my External 3 TB hard drive. With the Live Slack 15.0 on a USB key I booted into the live cd and played around with it. It recognized my hardware and was fairly snappy. Everything appeared to work. IO then preceded to install it to the SSD that I chose to install it on. I note that slack still used a Text installer rather than a Graphic installer such as Calimares. Ugg I hate text installers. Next was the archic Partitioner which in my case I had to use CFDisk to partition. They gave a choice of Fdick which would not work for me. Probably because of GPT partitioning on my disks. I had previously partitioned using Gparted. But still had to partition using the CFDisk. What a chore and time consuming. I finally got it to install after the 3rd try. I don't know what I was doing wrong if anything. Next was my pass word and login. For some reason I had to play with the password several times before it would take it during the configuration. I finally got it to work and the install was complete. Next I booted up and it worked. So I enambled all of my SSD's and the USB External 3TB hard drive. Logged into my Mint distro and ran update-grub It found the Slack disto and made 3 entrys in grub. Slack entry 1 was Elilo entry 2 was slack /dev/sdc and the 3rd entry was slack advanced. Don't know why they are still using Lilo Ugg what a drag. When I tried to boot using the Elilo entry it would not work, even though that is the entry for the ESP. Instead I had to use the 2nd entry to boot. after booting with grub Iwas able to log in and play with the distro. When I discovered that when I clicked on the home icon it opened the home directory on another distro on a different SSD. so it looks like I will reinstall using a different login so that the home directory will have a different name. Also My USB lazer printer will not work without installing a driver. all of my other distro's find my printer and install drivers for it. I did manage to install my network HP Printer. I am using the KDE DE which was on the ISO as default. I will list the things I don't like in Slack in another post after a new install.

Eric Slacker are you there? 

Mel

[securitybreach]

I am sure that Eric will have some pointers for you soon enough

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I really don't have any pointers because much of the newer tech he's using I'm just not familiar with. I have mechanical drives and no UEFI/Secure Boot baloney like that on my system. I've never actually installed anything on SSD w/ UEFI-Secure Boot.

 

Also, I always prepare my installation disks via CLI prior to installing anything. I use partd/fdisk, for this. I don't rely on the distribution's interface to prepare disks.

 

Just a note of clarification regarding:

 

> I note that slack still used a Text installer rather than a Graphic installer such as Calimares. Ugg I hate text installers.

 

Technically, that is NOT a "text" installer. It is a graphic Ncurses installer. Like this...

 

 

A "real" text installer (CLI ONLY) would be something like Arch's installer, at least from back in the days when I still had an Arch installation on my system.

 

Anyway, I've never had issues installing Slackware, probably because I've done it so many times. I can almost do it with my eyes closed.

 

As for the GRUB/LILO debate, I think both are great boot loaders, I just happen to prefer LILO because I've used it much more than I have GRUB. "Familiarity breeds happiness.

 

As with anything, your mileage may vary.

[abarbarian]

2 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

As for the GRUB/LILO debate,

 

Grub is so so old fashioned and hard to use and really only useful if you are using a non UEFI system.

 

Quote

REFInd is a UEFI bootloader. It’s much more aesthetically pleasing than the default Grub bootloader on Linux. It is highly customizable, and can be configured to boot just about any operating system alongside Linux with ease! Better yet, it can allow users to more easily manage multiple operating systems for dual-boot purposes. It even works well on Macs! The process of setting up he rEFInd bootloader on Linux isn’t overly complicated. It starts by simply installing the app from the terminal on your Linux system.

 

How to set up the rEFInd bootloader on Linux systems

 

 

[mhbell]

Well Eric I use SSD disks because they are much faster, no moving parts to wear out, Never had a failure with one but have had many failures with mechanical hard drives. SSD disks are lighter and smaller. I use GPT partitioning because I can have unlimited  Primary partitions and don't have to mess with extended partitions. as far as secure boot goes I can use it or disable it in my Firmware. (Bios) Modern day motherboards use firmware instead of Bios. Bios and MBR are old Old Hat and Antique. LoL! I've had to many problems using Lilo and ELilo. It does not work well with my systems and seems to break alot. Probably because I don't use the old MBR partitioning system.

 

Abarbarian

as far as grub2 goes it works for me with a minimun of hassel. I've used RFfind when I ran Windows. I Multi Boot and Grub works fine for me on all of my distros.  What could be simpler from the CLI type update-grub and it will search all of the SSDs and Add all Distro's that it finds to the Grub Menu. If I want a different distro to be first in line I log into it and at the CLI type grub-install /dev/sda1 which is the 512 mb ESP partition for booting all of my SSDs and Distro's

Mel

 

 

[securitybreach]

1 hour ago, abarbarian said:

 

Grub is so so old fashioned and hard to use and really only useful if you are using a non UEFI system.

 

I use Grub just fine on UEFI systems with LUKS enabled as well

 

Quote

GRUB is the bootloader while efibootmgr is used by the GRUB installation script to write boot entries to NVRAM.

 

This will walk you through it https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#UEFI_systems

[abarbarian]

11 hours ago, securitybreach said:

I use Grub just fine on UEFI systems with LUKS enabled as well

 

Horses for courses. I had trouble understanding the older GRUB when I was dual booting in my early days in penguin land. When I upgraded to my Skylake build I hunted around for an easier solution and found rEFind. Dead easy to install and once installed along with the pacman hook it sits in the background and never needs any attention.

The beauty of the penguin is that you can do one thing in so many different ways and choose the one you are most comfortable with.

 

On a systemd install on a UEFI build you can simply use systemd's built in boot thingy so no need to fart around with anything.

 

systemd-boot, previously called gummiboot

 

[mhbell]

4 hours ago, abarbarian said:

 

Horses for courses. I had trouble understanding the older GRUB when I was dual booting in my early days in penguin land. When I upgraded to my Skylake build I hunted around for an easier solution and found rEFind. Dead easy to install and once installed along with the pacman hook it sits in the background and never needs any attention.

The beauty of the penguin is that you can do one thing in so many different ways and choose the one you are most comfortable with.

 

On a systemd install on a UEFI build you can simply use systemd's built in boot thingy so no need to fart around with anything.

 

systemd-boot, previously called gummiboot

 

Since you are still using ReFind are you multi  booting with Windows. With the newer grub there is no configuration to do. Like I said at the CLI you just use update-grub and it finds and lists all of the Distros on the hard drives or ssd's including windows..

[V.T. Eric Layton]

19 hours ago, mhbell said:

I use SSD disks because they are much faster, no moving parts to wear out, Never had a failure with one but have had many failures with mechanical hard drives. SSD disks are lighter and smaller.

 

All excellent reasons to use SSDs. The reason I don't is because I only have one system working these days, my main system - ericsbane07, which was built in 2016...

 

ericsbane07 - Built Nov/Dec 2016

System:

Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 rev. 2.1
AMD Phenom II 1090 6-core cpu
Cool IT ECO r120 water-cooled cpu cooling system
12 Gig RAM
WD Blue 500G SATA III (Slackware64 14.2)
Maxtor 500G SATA II (Slackware64 14.2 rsync backup)
Seagate 320G SATA II (MS Windows 10 Pro + common storage)
Seagate 320G SATA II (MS Windows 10 Pro + common storage - mirror)
IO Magic DVD RW
LiteOn DVD RW
Rosewill Multicard reader and USB 2.0 hub
Antec Continuous Power 750W - Modular
Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 vid card

Peripherals:

Samsung 22" LCD monitor (native 1680x1050 resolution)
Logitech 5.1 sound system
Logitech G610 mechanical keyboard
Logitech TracMan wireless mouse
HP Envy 5643 All-In-One printer/scanner/fax/copier

--updated 051620

 

It is what it is.

 

 

[securitybreach]

4 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

 

All excellent reasons to use SSDs. The reason I don't is because I only have one system working these days, my main system - ericsbane07, which was built in 2016...

 

ericsbane07 - Built Nov/Dec 2016

System:

Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 rev. 2.1
AMD Phenom II 1090 6-core cpu
Cool IT ECO r120 water-cooled cpu cooling system
12 Gig RAM
WD Blue 500G SATA III (Slackware64 14.2)
Maxtor 500G SATA II (Slackware64 14.2 rsync backup)
Seagate 320G SATA II (MS Windows 10 Pro + common storage)
Seagate 320G SATA II (MS Windows 10 Pro + common storage - mirror)
IO Magic DVD RW
LiteOn DVD RW
Rosewill Multicard reader and USB 2.0 hub
Antec Continuous Power 750W - Modular
Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 vid card

Peripherals:

Samsung 22" LCD monitor (native 1680x1050 resolution)
Logitech 5.1 sound system
Logitech G610 mechanical keyboard
Logitech TracMan wireless mouse
HP Envy 5643 All-In-One printer/scanner/fax/copier

--updated 051620

 

It is what it is.

 

 

 

But you have an SSD to use... It will make your machine seem 3x faster.

[abarbarian]

18 hours ago, mhbell said:

Since you are still using ReFind are you multi  booting with Windows.

 

I stopped dual booting probably around 18 months ago. I have no need for any Windows software since the major improvements in the Proton software for gaming.

I have an old pc with Windows 7 shoved in a corner so that I can use Garmin Express for updating my sat nav. Yes I know you can use Garmin Express with linux but it is a real pain to get it up and running.

When I did dual boot there were no problems setting it up and running. Make a 200 to 300 Mb EFI partition, install Windows which will use the EFI partition with no hassle. Install linux, Arch in my case, install rEFind to the EFI partition, job done. On my Arch I had to make a few minor changes to rEFind, but they were a once only thing and looked after themselves after that. Here are my ZIM notes for rEFind,

 

Quote

Note no \ or / before the initrd=intel-ucode.img putting this first allows microcode updates  2020
"Boot with standard options"  "ro root=/dev/nvme0n1p4    initrd=intel-ucode.img initrd=/initramfs-linux.img"
"Boot to single-user mode"    "ro root=/dev/nvme0n1p4 single"
"Boot with minimal options"   "ro root=/dev/nvme0n1p4"

####################################################

Also need to do this   ---2017 - 2020 done

Upgrading

Pacman updates the rEFInd files in /usr/share/refind/ and will not copy new files to the ESP for you. If refind-install worked for your original installation of rEFInd, you can rerun it to copy the updated files. The new config file will be copied as refind.conf-sample so that you can integrate changes into your config file using a diff tool. If your rEFInd required #Manual installation, you will need to figure out which files to copy yourself.

Pacman hook

You can automate the update process using a hook:

/etc/pacman.d/hooks/refind.hook

[Trigger]
Operation=Upgrade
Type=Package
Target=refind-efi

[Action]
Description = Updating rEFInd on ESP
When=PostTransaction
Exec=/usr/bin/refind-install

Where the Exec= may need to be changed to the correct update command for your setup. 
 

 

I like the way that rEFind finds any bootloader on Live usb distros and shows them in a neat graphical way.

 

 

[abarbarian]

12 hours ago, securitybreach said:

But you have an SSD to use...

 

Blimey you mean he has not used that ssd yet, that must be like four or five years since he got his hands on it .

[securitybreach]

59 minutes ago, abarbarian said:

 

 

That looks neat.

 

At one time I was into customizing my boot menu with custom icons and wallpapers but realized one day that I only see this for half a second (if at all), so why bother?

 

My Linux journey was kind of the same way. At one time, I was all into making my setup look slick with compiz with the wobbly windows and 3D cube but then I started getting more and more minimal as time went. Moved from KDE 3.x / Gnome 2.x to Xfce to Openbox, then Fluxbox, then Xmonad to i3wm. Heck, the only thing graphical application I use now is the browser.

[raymac46]

I TRIED rEFInd a few years ago when I was first experimenting with EFI and GPT and it was pretty neat. At the time GRUB was a little janky with EFI.

However most of my old junk uses legacy BIOS and I don't multiboot any more so it's a moot point if I use rEFInd. Besides, GRUB is working fine in the odd case where I have a UEFI setup. I think I only have one old junker notebook where that is the case.

Edited March 24, 2022 by raymac46

[raymac46]

I also have gotten away from Compiz and all the eye candy but I still prefer a mouse  and GUI. About the only customization I do is my own wallpaper and some GNOME shell extensions. I also prefer to have LightDM as my display manager. Other than that I am a default sort of guy.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

19 hours ago, securitybreach said:

But you have an SSD to use

 

Sure do, and thanks! It's still in the original packaging. However, you'll notice above that my system uses "matched" drives; matched in size, anyway. It's like this because the secondary drives are my backup mirrors. If I had FOUR SSD drives, I might consider installing them, but I only have one. I'm saving it for the next system I build, which may actually be never. When this system goes kaput, I'll probably be finished with computers/Internet... kicking the habit, off-grid and all that.

 

Oh, and I don't really need 3X faster. It's fast enough as is.

 

---

 

6 hours ago, abarbarian said:

Blimey you mean he has not used that ssd yet

 

Nope. Need three more, but need to pay my very late electric and phone/Internet bills, too. Priorities. Priorities... Computers/Internet is a fading hobby of mine. I'm pretty sure I can live fine without either. I did for many years prior to this.

 

With drooping eyelids and half-interest I thumb through some of the posts here every day. I read about your adventures with new hardware, software, etc. and yawn. Sorry. I just don't get thrilled by any of this carp anymore. I'm happy the soul-sucking box manages to boot up in the mornings. If it didn't boot up tomorrow, I may not even care. It is what it is. Sad, huh? I'm wearying of the struggle, I think... a touch of despair/depression, maybe. It's been a miserable decade, particularly the last three or four years.

 

Well, hope I've brightened your day a bit.

[mhbell]

Why do you need 3 more. Don't have to be matched unless you are using Raid array. The ssds will work with hard drives. I have a mixture in my system. 6 ssds and 1 hard drive and a External 3 tb hard drive. I use a Icy Dock to hold them and to swap them out when ever I want to without opening the case.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Because... OCD.

[mhbell]

 

OCD

 

 obsessive-compulsive disorder.

adjective

SOMETIMES OFFENSIVE

 

1. having a tendency towards excessive orderliness, perfectionism, and great attention to detail.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Yeah... that.

[abarbarian]

22 hours ago, mhbell said:

I use a Icy Dock

 

Me too. Mine can take two SATA drives at the same time which is very handy. Only usb2 three would have been neat but it is fast enough.

[mhbell]

10 minutes ago, abarbarian said:

 

Me too. Mine can take two SATA drives at the same time which is very handy. Only usb2 three would have been neat but it is fast enough.

I have two icy docks in my main computer. in two 5 1/4th slots. One Holds 4 ssd's and the other one holds 2 ssds and 1 Hard drive. all are swapable except the hard drive which i'm not using. I also have a 3TB USB external Hard drive that I use for storage and backups.

Edited March 25, 2022 by mhbell

[abarbarian]

1 hour ago, mhbell said:

I have two icy docks in my main computer. in two 5 1/4th slots. One Holds 4 ssd's and the other one holds 2 ssds and 1 Hard drive. all are swapable except the hard drive which i'm not using. I also have a 3TB USB external Hard drive that I use for storage and backups.

 

That is neat. My bad though as I do not have an ICY DOCK but a Dual Star Tech external dock that accommodates two sata ssd/hd.

 

 

[abarbarian]

On 3/24/2022 at 10:47 AM, securitybreach said:

On 3/24/2022 at 9:49 AM, abarbarian said:

 

Expand  

 

That looks neat.

 

That was a shot taken from the net.

This was mine,

 

An after a quick tweak

 

 

If I press F2 from the above I get two options to boot like so

 

 

If I boot from a Live MX or any other distro on a usb on this pc then icons show up automatically. I tried to get a screen shot with the F10 key but for some reason it did not work.