My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Slackware Live Edition 1.1.0 comes with the latest Plasma5 on ISO

blueSW-64pxISO images for Slackware Live Edition based on the liveslak 1.1.0 scripts and using Slackware-current dated “Wed Jun 15 06:13:17 UTC 2016” are available as of now (I missed the 3rd update Pat made to slackware-current today but I think that’s acceptible). The Plasma5 variant contains the latest packages which I made publicly available earlier today.

Please give one or more of these ISO’s a test run, at least the full Slackware one (to check for Slackware 14.2 showstoppers) and the Plasma5 variant. If you already employ a Live USB stick that you do not want to re-format, you should definitely try the new “-r” parameter to the “iso2usb.sh” script that allows you to refresh the liveslak files on your USB stick without touching your custom content.

Remember, to find out what’s on the ISO you downloaded, try this command:

$ isoinfo -d  -i your_downloaded.iso | egrep “Volume id|Publisher id|Data preparer id|Application id”

And if you want to know what ISO was used to create your USB stick, check the content of the /.isoversion file in the root of its Live partition (partition number 3).

As usual, you will find ISO images for a full Slackware (64bit and 32bit versions), 64bit Plasma5 and MATE variants and the 700MB small XFCE variant (64bit and 32bit versions).

The changes between liveslak 1.0.1 and 1.1.0

  • Add ‘-r’ option to iso2usb.sh to refresh an existing Live USB stick with content from a newer Live ISO image file.
  • New boot parameter ‘nop=wipe’ allows you to wipe persistent data in case of boot- or usability issues.
  • Deal properly with new kernel drivers that are introduced to the Live OS, such as when using the boot parameter ‘load=broadcom_sta’. Now the kernel can use them immediately after boot.

Download the ISO images

The ISO variants of Slackware Live Edition are: SLACKWARE, XFCE, PLASMA5 and MATE. These ISO images (with MD5 checksum and GPG signature)have been uploaded to the master server (bear) and should be available on the mirror servers within the next 24 hours.

Download liveslak sources

The liveslak project can be found in my git repository: http://bear.alienbase.nl/cgit/liveslak/ . That’s all you need to create a Slackware Live ISO from scratch. Documentation for end users and for Live OS developers is available in the Slack Docs Wiki.

Have fun! Eric

90 Comments

  1. kjhambrick

    Eric —

    Downloading now.

    One Q before I refresh my slackware64-live-plasma5-current.iso USB Drive.

    Is it sufficient to simply invoke the -r flag ( along with -i in.iso and -o out/sdX ) ?

    Or do I need to duplicate any other flags I set ( example -c XXG ) ?

    Thanks for this. It’s awesome !

    — kjh

  2. alienbob

    Hi kjhambrick

    Only the “-r” parameter is needed apart from the “-i” and the “-o”. The iso2usb.sh script will check your existing configuration (LUKS containers and such) and modify the fresh initrd with those data so that the refreshed USB stick will boot and function just like it did before, but with all-new software.

    Famous last words…

    Note that I tested this but my testing may not cover all use cases, simply because I can not think of them. The script should be resilient enough that it will cope with all cases you can think of. It will even deal with a ‘-P’ option if you want to use the refresh to also switch from unencrypted persistence directory to an encrypted persistence container.

    Any errors? Report them to me along with your commandline and full logs.

  3. kjhambrick

    Thank you Eric.

    I am re-burning one now.

    Will test and let you know either way.

    — kjh ( looking good so far 🙂

    # We are going to refresh the Live OS on this device – ‘/dev/sde’:

  4. kjhambrick

    woo hoo !

    Worked great.

    All my configs ( new passwords, custom network stuff, programs ) are there.

    Will play with Plasma 5 later today when I’ve got more time.

    Thank you Eric !

    The -r feature looks like a keeper to me 🙂

    — kjh

  5. kjhambrick

    Another use-case …

    I’ve been following rsync://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackware/slackware-live/slackware64-current-live and I’ve got a 32GB USB Drive with a few ‘extra’ goodies on it.

    I originally ran iso2usb.sh with a -c 16G -i in.iso -o /dev/sdX

    I just now tested the -r flag with your current.iso from last night.

    Worried me at first — iso2usb.sh did not ask for the password … BUT !!!

    When I booted the refreshed image, it asked me for the LUKS password, it booted fine and my ‘extra’ goodies are there.

    Nice !

    Another bonus … the -r flag results in a MUCH quicker iso2usb.sh session when refreshing a USB drive.

    Thanks again, Eric !

    — kjh

  6. alienbob

    > Another bonus … the -r flag results in a MUCH quicker iso2usb.sh session when refreshing a USB drive.

    Yes, the timeconsuming part is the creation of the LUKS container.

  7. alienbob

    And… thanks for testing kjhambrick.

  8. kjhambrick

    You’re welcome Eric.

    The liveslak USB is actually a very useful tool ( 🙂 and a fun toy too 🙂 )

    — kjh

  9. alienbob

    I did have to fix the script tonight, when I tried it on an older bigger USB stick which had an encrypted persistence container as well as an encrypted /home
    I checked the fix into git and also refreshed the two download locations:
    http://www.slackware.com/~alien/liveslak/
    http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/liveslak/

  10. Paulo

    Hi Alienbob, about Broadcom driver, it isn’t loaded at boot yet.
    I still have to load it with ‘modprobe wl’ after logging in plasma or xfce.

  11. kjhambrick

    Thanks Eric.

    Re-burnt both the Plasma5 and last night’s current with the updated iso2usb.sh

    Worked fine on my two USB Drives.

    Thanks.

    — kjh

  12. Paulo

    I have to apologize, didn’t check the iso version, it is 1.0.1
    I downloaded from Ryan’s mirror because it is really fast here,
    but it seems that was not with new versions.
    I will download from primary mirror (bear) this time.

  13. alienbob

    Paulo, it looks like Ryan’s server has now synced up to bear.
    The timestamps look OK to me and at least the MD5SUM mentioned in the .md5 file of the Plasma5 ISO is the correct one.

  14. Paulo

    It’s working now 🙂 ‘new kernel modules…need a bit’

  15. Vladimir

    Hi Eric. Your work is really amazing. I cannot stop learning something new for myself. Thank you.

    greetings from Odessa, Ukraine.

  16. babam

    Hi Alien,

    Add the ability to use “persistence.img” or “persistence” directory that is located on another drive.

    Example;
    To use “persistence.img” on the root of the local harddisk 1st partition (Ext4 / NTFS / FAT32).
    persistencefile=/dev/sda1

    To use the “persistence” directory on the root of the local harddisk 2nd partition (Ext4).
    persistencedir=/dev/sda2

    Thanks.

  17. alienbob

    Hi babam,

    I can understand it when you would request the possibility to create the persistence directory or containerfile, or the LUKS homedirectory containerfile, somewhere in a subdirectory instead of in the root of the partition (because you may want several Live OS’es to share a single partition). In fact, your post triggered me and I have already updated the code to make it possible, I just need time at home to test it (writing USB sticks is very time-consuming).

    But a persistence container on a different partition? Even on a local harddrive on your computer? You need to convince me that there is something worthwhile to that scenario before I would implement it.

  18. babam

    Using Persistence Container on another drive is very helpful.

    I only have a USB Stick 4GB then install Slackware Live MATE into it, I wanted to have “persistence.img” which is able to store a lot of files / programs.
    I have to make and put “persistence.img” on another drive that has a large capacity and then Slackware Live can use it to store a lot of files / programs.

    Impossible for a 4GB USB Stick which has “persistence.img” is able to store a lot of files / programs.

    Sorry, my English is bad.

  19. JeffB

    Thanks for the updates Eric, working great on a couple different systems here.

    Is there an easier way to get multilib up and running than to follow the standard upgrade process via the persistence? My 8GB USB stick with a LUKS didn’t have enough free space to get through a multilib install with a 64 bit slacklive image. I’m guessing I need to follow the docs and roll a custom ISO.

    I’m using liveslak to play games using WINE without cluttering up a work laptop. The 32 bit version is easier to get up and running but suffers lower available memory with the kernel slacklive is using.

    Also, is the LUKS container resizeable once created?

    Thank you for all the Slackware work you’ve done over the years!
    Jeff

  20. alienbob

    JeffB you could create a “multilib.lst” file (containing a list of the package names) in pkglists/ directory, along with a “multilib.conf” which defines where to find the packages. Then you can indeed create an ISO with multilib included.
    Such an addition is on my TODO with an undefined ETA.

    LUKS containers can be resized but that is not trivial so I will not cover that case. It involves renaming the old one, creating a new -bigger- one with the original name, mounting both containers, copying all data from old to new, and then umounting both and deleting the original -smaller- container.

  21. alienbob

    I just added the code to make a multilib ISO, generating the ISO now. I am not sure if I have time left to test if this works, tonight.

  22. Gérard Monpontet

    i have make one usb ‘slackware-usb-boot-iso’ with the slackware64-live-plasma5-current.iso, work fine 😉

  23. JeffB

    Eric: That’s awesome, look forward to trying it. Don’t worry about rushing it out, since it’ll probably be till my next work trip to get a chance to use it. I also need a faster bigger USB stick for liveslack! 🙂

  24. alienbob

    Hi JeffB,

    Oh, but I committed it to git already on the same day, because it is working just fine: http://bear.alienbase.nl/cgit/liveslak/commit/?id=5b833f4bcaf12a47dfb551d6bc7d9209c851b720

    I implentented it as a new “-M” option for the make_slackware_live.sh script and although I am not planning to add multilib to any of the Live ISOs by default, I am considering adding the “0020-slackware_multilib-current-x86_64.sxz” module to the ./optional directory of liveslak so you can be running multilib merely by adding “load=slackware_multilib” to the boot commandline.

  25. charlie

    I used this iso to install on laptop and the only problem I’ve encountered is when starting Firefox I get :
    (firefox:20827): GLib-GIO-ERROR **: Settings schema ‘apps.gecko-mediaplayer.preferences’ is not installed

  26. Jack Carpenter

    I must to old or dumb to do this.

    When I type iso2usb.sh I get a error. So what should the command line look like? Or can I use a USB installer to do it?

    I want to put it on a 16GB USB and I want to install Mate which I all ready downloaded.

    Any help would be great.

  27. alienbob

    Geez Jack

    You could have expected that with a remark like “I get an error” you will not get a meaningful response from me.

    I wrote a frigging document describing all you need to know – it has several commandline examples depending on what your need is, plus the “iso2usb.sh” script (like all my scripts) has a “-h” option for help.

    As what useraccount did you try to run the command? What did you download? What is the exact commandline you used? What is the exact error?

  28. Jack Carpenter

    This is what I ran.

    root@porteus:/mnt/sda2/keep# sh iso2usb.sh
    iso2usb.sh: line 1: !DOCTYPE: No such file or directory
    iso2usb.sh: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token `newline’
    iso2usb.sh: line 2: ` “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>’
    root@porteus:/mnt/sda2/keep#

    And I try iso2usb.sh -h and this what I got.

    root@porteus:/mnt/sda2/keep# sh iso2usb.sh -h
    iso2usb.sh: line 1: !DOCTYPE: No such file or directory
    iso2usb.sh: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token `newline’
    iso2usb.sh: line 2: ` “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>’
    root@porteus:/mnt/sda2/keep#

    It looks the same to me. And if I do this I get this.

    root@porteus:/mnt/sda2/keep# iso2usb.sh -h
    bash: iso2usb.sh: command not found
    root@porteus:/mnt/sda2/keep#

    And I even try this.

    root@porteus:/mnt/sda2/keep# sh iso2usb.sh slackware64-live-mate-current.iso
    iso2usb.sh: line 1: !DOCTYPE: No such file or directory
    iso2usb.sh: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token `newline’
    iso2usb.sh: line 2: ` “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>’
    root@porteus:/mnt/sda2/keep#

    If I can’t do it I will stick with a full install.

  29. alienbob

    Whatever you downloaded, it is not iso2usb.sh…
    Looks like you downloaded some HTML instead.
    Try this command:
    # wget http://bear.alienbase.nl/cgit/liveslak/plain/iso2usb.sh

  30. Jack Carpenter

    I downloaded it again and here is the output.

    root@porteus:/home/guest/Downloads# sh iso2usb.sh slackware64-live-mate-current.iso /mnt/sdb1
    *** Unknown parameter ‘slackware64-live-mate-current.iso’!
    root@porteus:/home/guest/Downloads#

    Now can you help me?

  31. Jack Carpenter

    # Examples:
    #
    # iso2usb.sh -i ~/download/slackware64-live-14.2.iso -o /dev/sdX
    # iso2usb.sh -i slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso -o /dev/sdX -c 750M -w 15
    #

    I did the 2nd example.

    root@porteus:/home/guest/Downloads# ls
    iso2usb.sh slackware64-live-mate-current.iso
    root@porteus:/home/guest/Downloads# sh iso2usb.sh /Downloads/slackware64-live-mate-current.iso -o /dev/sdb -c 750M -w 15
    *** Unknown parameter ‘/Downloads/slackware64-live-mate-current.iso’!
    root@porteus:/home/guest/Downloads#

    That was the output. What is wrong?

  32. Jack Carpenter

    It was a 4GB USB formated fat 32

  33. Jack Carpenter

    When I get transfer what is the login info?

  34. alienbob

    Read the fucking information the script gave you instead of spamming my blog page with lame questions. It’s right in front of your eyes.
    If you can not figure out the login information then this is not meant for you.

  35. Jack Carpenter

    Delete all my message and I’m new at this and I don’t mean to spam your blog. And sorry about all this. I did get it copy but I look every where for the login info.

    AGAIN SORRY have a good day.

  36. e. wayne johnson

    I used iso2usb.sh to create a bootable usb stick. it works fine. Now I want to put the liveslak system on an available hard drive using setup2hd. I am hung up at the point where I am asked to mount the Live media partition on /mnt/livemedia.

  37. alienbob

    That’s strange, because when you boot the Live OS, the live media (the partition where liveslak is stored) should automatically be mounted on /mnt/livemedia . Did you change anything with regard to directory naming?

  38. e. wayne johnson

    I am using the liveslak-1.1.1 from -latest.
    I setup everything with the defaults.
    after boot to kde5, I open a terminal and run su -l
    then
    root@darkstar:~# mount
    none on / type tmpfs (rw)
    proc on /proc type proc (rw)
    sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
    tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
    tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nodev,nosuid,mode=1777)
    tmpfs on /var/tmp type tmpfs (rw,nodev,nosuid,mode=1777)
    gvfsd-fuse on /home/live/.gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=live)
    root@darkstar:~#

  39. e. wayne johnson

    root@darkstar:/mnt# dir
    README cdrom/ floppy/ live/ liveslakfs/ tmp/
    cdrecorder/ dvd/ hd/ livemedia/ memory/ zip/
    *

    lsblk gives this about the usb drive
    sde
    ??sde1 vfat DOS F843-3340
    ??sde2 vfat EFI F844-86C7
    ??sde3 ext4 LIVESLAK c9965981-52aa-47cb-af4b-fc34b59a9c66

  40. e. wayne johnson

    I created another usb with no parameters at all and I get the same result regarding the hard drive setup script. If fails with the same message. I am using iso2usb to create the usb. Should I be using dd or some other script?

  41. emidevices

    Hi Eric, just comment a little issue:

    I have a second drive. This one is permanent mounted as /DATA (in root), so when I install Plasma LiveSlack with setup2hd.sh I put this option when installer prompts to me for another partition to mount. I conclude the installation and then when I reboot mi new system, a boot error message tells there isn’t a valid mount point.
    ls command shows there is no /DATA directory in root, however the fstab file is correct. No matter, mkdir /DATA, reboot and voila, DATA has become.
    Boot again LiveSlack pendrive I noticed of an empty directory /DATA in pendrive’s root, so the installer has been created in the wrong place.

    Great job. Congratulations again

  42. babam

    Hi Alien,

    Please make a Slackware Live MATE x86.

    Thanks.

  43. e. wayne johnson

    Eric, I did give up on installing to hard drive directly from the usb for now, and installed KDE-5 -current on top of a fresh installation of Slackware 64 -multilib -current. It works well. I find that some of the difficulty with the dialog boxes that had crept into Libreoffice recently (the color switching dialogs for instance) is much better in this version of KDE5. I was able to tweak the appearances to suit me quickly.

  44. kjhambrick

    Eric —

    Another Q … probably confused ( 🙂 again 🙂 )

    Did I read a mention of adding MultiLib to an existing liveslak 64 USB via iso2usb.sh -M or am I thinking of make_slackware_live.sh ?

    I can’t find a new iso2usb.sh with the -M flag so I guess I must be confused …

    Do you see any down-side to updating an existing liveslak USB via iso2usb.sh -r and then adding MultiLib to the USB from the multilib directory downloaded to my main Laptop scripts and copied over to the running liveslak instance ?

    Thanks again Eric !

    — kjh

  45. alienbob

    kjhambrick – that “-M” commandline switch was added to the make_slackware_live.sh script.
    If you have a persistent Live USB stick you can just install the set of multilib packages – those will get added into the “persistence” directory (or container file, depending on your setup). Alternatively you could create a squashfs module of all the multilib packages together and put that module into the “addons” subdirectory of liveslak so that the module will get loaded every time.
    I hinted at providing such a squashfs module separately but I want to make some modifications to the liveslak scripts first.

  46. alienbob

    babam you can make that yourself. Do not wait for me to create such an ISO… it will not come.

  47. alienbob

    e. wayne johnson – the “mount” command does not show the mounts that were created during the live init. Try “df” instead or else examine the output of “cat /proc/mounts”.
    What do you find at /mnt/livemedia ? The live init should always mount the Live media partition.
    Unless you specified “toram” boot parameter in which case /mnt/livemedia points to a RAM based filesystem containing a copy of the Live media partition.

    • e. wayne johnson

      I’ll check it out. Thanks.

  48. alienbob

    emidevices – I will have to debug the Slackware installer to find the place(s) where there’s a hard-coded usage of “/mnt” instead of “$T_PX”. Obviously I have not found them all yet.

  49. kjhambrick

    Thanks for setting me straight again, Eric 🙂

    I’ll install the multilib Packages as usual.

    — kjh

  50. KG Hammarlund

    Although running a stable install of AbsoluteLinux 14.2 I realise that I sooner or later must switch to a 64 bit distro and Slackware Live comes up as the most attractive, not least thanks to Eric’s ambition to keep it up to date. So I’ve tested the Mate version on a USB stick and encountered the following issues/troubles:

    a) the AltGr key doesn’t work (my PC is a Lenovo Ideapad U330p). I’ve tried various keyboard layouts without success. This means that I cannot get [], {}, \, ~ and other important symbols (my default keyboard is Swedish).

    b) it is vital that I can run a few windows applications under wine (Adobe Digital Editions among them). I installed wine but couldn’t come further without multilib capabilities. I tried the “quick and dirty instructions” here: http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:multilib
    but got stuck on the command (getting the message no package found or similar). Don’t know if I’m doing something wrong (I’m not that knowledgeable) or if the instructions are outdated (it says on the page that it’s updated 2014/04/05).

  51. alienbob

    KG Hammarlund, welcome. There is no “swedish” (yet) in the language selection menu at boot, but that does not mean you are not able to define another language. What happens if you add the following to the boot commandline (syslinux or grub):

    kbd=se xkb=se,nodeadkeys

    And if that does not work, but you have a Linux where it does work, can you compare the X.Org keyboard settings and give me feedback so I can improve the Swedish support in the Live OS?
    Slackware Live writes its X.Org keyboard settings into the file “/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/30-keyboard.conf” but on another Linux the name may be slightly different, the location should be the same ideally.
    Another thought: for German keyboard mapping I had to bind the Compose Key to something else than AltGr because germans too had issues with the AltGr key. So while non-german configurations will have:

    Option “XkbOptions” “grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll,compose:ralt”

    the germans will have:

    Option “XkbOptions” “grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll,compose:sclk”

    Perhaps this is needed for you as well on your swedish layout.

  52. alienbob

    KG Hammarlund, about multilib:

    The liveslak scripts already allow you to create a multilib version of a Live ISO so with a bit of time you could create such a multilib Mate ISO. However I have a TODO item to re-write the script that generates the ISO a little bit, so that the multilib packages can be easily separated from the rest, in their own squashfs module, which can then be used with any other Slackware Live ISO. You need to wait a bit for that to happen because the TODO is large. But essentially I am planning on releasing new ISO’s as well as a separate “0020-slackware_multilib-current-x86_64.sxz” file which everyone can download if you need multilib and then just copy the file into the “/liveslack/addons/” directory of the USB stick. And get instant multilib support.

  53. alienbob

    KG Hammarlund, yet again about multilib: the Slackware Documentation Project has a copy of that multilib page: http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:multilib
    In fact that copy was more up to date so I have refreshed the original at http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:multilib as well.

    Still not sure what your issue was with installing multilib.

  54. KG Hammarlund

    @alienbob re: AltGr and mulltilib

    Thanks, Eric, for a fast reply!

    Adding kbd=se xkb=se,nodeadkeys to the boot line did not help. A simple workaround that worked, however, was to choose the German keyboard at booting and then switch to Swedish keyboard with System>Preferences>Hardware>Keyboard.
    My working /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-keyboard-layout.conf file (AbsoluteLinux ver. 14.2) contains the following:

    Section “InputClass”
    Identifier “keyboard-all”
    MatchIsKeyboard “on”
    MatchDevicePath “/dev/input/event*”
    Driver “evdev”
    Option “XkbLayout” “se”
    #Option “XkbVariant” “”
    Option “XkbOptions” “terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp”
    EndSection

    Multilib: Yes, I understand that Slackware Live offers the opportunity to create a tweaked iso, but I’m afraid that it is beyond my skills/experience. Even if I’ve been running Slackware distros for many years (FluxFlux as long as it was maintained and then AbsoluteLinux) I know my limits. I’ll eagerly wait for your multlib version. But please don’t forget to get some well-deserved time off during summer!

  55. alienbob

    KG Hammarlund, FluxFlux was just in the process of re-inventing itself, but then based on my liveslak scripts. Unfortunately, something seems to have happened to the developer since the web site says it is currently not active.

    About your keyboard, I am going to add support for Swedish. Are these correct values? I have doubts about the console keymap (is it ‘se-latin1’ or ‘sv-latin1’ ?).

    menu entry: svensk
    console keymap: sv-latin1
    timezone: Europe/Stockholm
    language: sv_SE.utf8
    X Keyboard map: se
    X Keyboard variant: -none-
    X Keyboard options: -none, as Slackware takes care of the ‘ctrl_alt_bksp’-

    A multilib module will come and it will be announced here on the blog.

    • KG Hammarlund

      ‘sv-latin1’ is the option I always have chosen and it has always worked for me so yes, it ought to work here as well.

  56. Paulo

    Hi Alienbob, 14.2 isos are working when writing with dd, thanks 🙂

  57. USUARIONUEVO

    Hi , can make a message when sxz are mounted to loops?

    MOUNTED –> $MOD
    MOUNTES –> $MOD

    if error

    CORRUPTED –> $MOD

    or something similar .. is nice when add extra mods , because can get some corrupted “inclompleted copied to usb” ..or something … and graphical message help to see.

    THANKS.

    I think arround how create a file like

    /var/log/liveslack-log

    to write modules charged and livemdia source ..as a log of live start.

  58. alienbob

    USUARIONUEVO yes good idea to alert the user if a SXZ module fails to mount.
    What I added just moments ago is a check on the successful mount of the module and if it failed, the module will be excluded from the overlay and a message will be shown like:

    “LIVESLAK: Failed to mount addons module ‘0060-tt-15.1-current-x86_64’, excluding it from the overlay.”

    And the modulename will be written to “/mnt/live/modules/failed”.

  59. USUARIONUEVO

    HI again :=)

    I think ,when ls modules , is better adding a -R argument.

    ls -R

    with this, the people can ornagize the addons inside folders as a categories.

    multimedia/handbrake….sxz
    multimedia/audacity…sxz

    etc

    same with libraries

    libraries/*.sxz

    People then can organize better the own extras inside categorized folders.

  60. William

    Hello. Is it possible to use the liveslak scripts to create a live iso including non-slackware packages (anaconda)? I think it might be possible by using the usb and putiing the anaconda distro inside the /rootcopy directory and then setting the path somehow. Motivation: I want to use slackware for some teaching, and slackware live seems to be perfect for testing except that I also need to install anaconda (python distribution). From the docs it seems that slackware live supports only slackpkg and slackbuilds, so anaconda is excluded. Any guidance is appreciated. Thanks PS: Congratulations for this awesome work. Due to this I am able to use again slackware in places where the love other no so stable distros. Thanks, really.

  61. alienbob

    Hi William

    I guess it is this Anaconda you are speaking of, https://www.continuum.io/ ? Pity they chose a name that is already used by Redhat’s installer.

    You can copy the whole Anaconda installation directory tree into “rootcopy” which would then take a lot of time on every boot to get copied from “rootcopy” into the Live OS if we are talking gigabytes.
    You can also do the following:
    Install the Anaconda distribution on your computer into a directory of your choice. Then use the “makemod” script which is part of liveslak to create a squashfs module out of that installation; first parameter is the installation directory, the second parameter is the output file:

    # ./makemod /path/to/anaconda 0066-anaconda2-4.1.1-x86_64.sxz

    And then copy the “0066-anaconda2-4.1.1-x86_64.sxz” module into the liveslak/addons/ directory of the USB Live. That way, the module will be mounted always when you boot Slackware Live and it will be instantaneous because there’s nothing to copy.

    If you add, remove or modify any of the Anaconda modules, that is totally OK. The modifications to the filesystem (and therefore to the Anaconda directory tree) will be written to the persistence volume so that it will work OK for you across reboots.

  62. KG Hammarlund

    Thanks for the option to choose Swedish keyboard at boot, works perfectly!

    However, I still struggle with multilib and 32 bit programs under wine (probably doing some idiotic mistake).

    I’ve added the multilib module (0020-slackware_multilib-current-x86_64.sxz) to the /optional directory on my USB stick. Since I only run two applications, both 32 bit, under wine (Adobe Digital Editions and Harzing’s Publish or Perish) I first simply installed your 32bit (i486) version of wine. When trying to run the .exe files I got:

    bash-4.3$ wine digitaleditions_172.exe
    bash: /usr/bin/wine: No such file or directory

    although there is an executable wine file in /usr/bin/

    I then tried uninstalling wine and reinstall it after creating a converted package using the compat32 converter. Same issue:

    bash-4.3$ /usr/bin/32/wine digitaleditions_172.exe
    bash: /usr/bin/32/wine: No such file or directory

    but again: there is an executable wine file in /usr/bin/32/

    I guess I’ve probably made some stupid mistake, but which one?

  63. alienbob

    If you run a 64bit Slackware OS and you want to use wine, you install the multilib packages and on top of that, the 64bit wine package (wine-1.9.15-x86_64-1alien.txz) which was built on such a computer system. It contains both the 64bit and 32bit wine.

    You should be able to use the package from the 32bit package directory too (./pkg/current/wine-1.9.15-i486-1alien.txz) though. No idea why you got that error “No such file or directory” – it indicates that your system does not have support for 32bit binaries. Which makes me think:

    When you say you copied the multilib module (0020-slackware_multilib-current-x86_64.sxz) you *are* aware that optional modules are *not* loaded into the Live OS by default and you have to explicitly use a “load” command parameter? If you copied it to the addons/ directory instead, it would be loaded by the Live OS by default.

    I realize that I should have renamed the multilib module to get rid of the string “slackware-“. Addon and optional modules must not have dashes in the base name. Renaming it to “0060-multilib-current-x86_64.sxz” would allow you to use “load=multilib” in the boot commandline.

    BTW, there is no sense in using the convertpkg-compat32 script on the wine package because of the existence of the 64bit wine package. Just use that.

  64. kjhambrick

    Eric —

    Speaking of liveslak and Plasma5 and multilib …

    I installed multilib on liveslak/Plasma5 and I was wondering if I need to manually convert and install any QT5 or KDE5 Libraries ?

    For example, should I convert qt5-5.6.1-x86_64-1alien into a compat32 file ?

    If so, is there an additional list of packages for multilib on a Plasma5-enabled Slackware ( 14.2 ) ?

    Or better … will your massconvert32.sh script do this automatically ?

    Thanks again Eric !

    I am loving my 64GB liveslak Plasma5 !

    — kjh

  65. alienbob

    kjhambrick the massconvert32.sh script only deals with official Slackware packages. If you want a converted qt5 package you will have to create one yourself using the convertpkg-compat32 script.

    What do you need a converted qt5 package for? Do you want to run a binary-only 32bit program which uses Qt5 as its interface? You don’t have to convert anything unless a binary-only program requires its 32bit library.

    In case you intend to compile a 32bit program on your 64bit multilib computer, and it depends on other 32bit libraries, you will have to make all those 32bit libraries available too, and that means: use convertpkg-compat32 on all the 32bit packages containing those libraries. An exercise I will leave up to you.

  66. KG Hammarlund

    Thank you so much, Eric – I renamed the multilib module as per your suggestion and copied it to the Addon library (easier than editing the bootline, but that works too – I checked). Now wine (and the 32 bit Win programs) runs as it should!

    Another stupid(?) question: If I boot with the multilib module (and the Swedish keyboard) and then make a full install using the setu2hd script, then surely the multilib version will be installed too (so that I don\t need to install the multilib packages afterwards)?

    A week left of my vacation and rainy days are coming up, so it seems to be a good opportunity to make the switch to 64bit…

  67. alienbob

    KG Hammarlund, the setup2hd script will install all *active* modules to harddisk, so if you run “setup2hd” while the multilib module is loaded, then that will get installed too.

  68. kjhambrick

    Thanks Eric.

    As far as I know, I don’t need a 32-bit qt5.

    Thanks again for the info and the explanation.

    — kjh

  69. William

    Dear Eric, thanks a lot for your reply. Yes, you were right, I was talking about the Anaconda Python distribution from Continuum.
    I successfully created the live iso by using the iso2usb.sh script, then I created the anaconda module (I installed anaconda3 on /opt/anaconda3 so I used bash liveslak/makemod.sh -i /opt/anaconda3 0066-anaconda3-4.1.1-x86_64.sxz), and then copied the module into the usb addons directory. I just tested the usb and seems to work (I love the idea of persistence changes), although not all anaconda module is loaded but only some var directory, so I needed to manually mount the module by doing mount /mnt/livemedia/liveslak/addons/0066-anaconda3-4.1.1-x86_64.sxz -t squashfs /opt/anaconda3 , and then everything works. Maybe I did something wrong which avoids the module to be mounted automatically? On the other hand, I would like to distribute an iso containing the module, to make my students just burn it / copy into a usb, so I have been playing with the make_slackware_iso.sh script. I have not had any success, either the script creates the iso without the anaconda module (although it is inside the addons directory) or I get some errors . Before posting more text with the errors, could you please tell me what is the mistake in the following procedure I am doing? 1. Use a SLackware 14.2 installation (virtual machine). 2. Clone the liveslak repository. 3. Create the directory addons inside the repository and copy the anaconda module there. 4. Edit the make_slackware_live.conf (I am doing nothing here). 5. Stup the slackware 14.2 mirror (I just mount the install dvd and point the installation there). 6. Call the make_slackware_live.sh script. Sorry for the long post and again thank you for your time.

  70. USUARIONUEVO

    Hi , one more time :=)

    liveinit , at start says , lang , timezone, keymap …

    then , no want more messages around that

    use quiet argument when load keymaps -q

    – /usr/bin/loadkeys ${KEYMAP}
    + /usr/bin/loadkeys -q ${KEYMAP}

    2nd , to ensure sxz ar really loaded in alphabetical order ..please add a pipe using sort.

    – $(find /mnt/media/${LIVEMAIN}/${SUBSYS}/ -name “*.xzm” 2>/dev/null )

    + $(find /mnt/media/${LIVEMAIN}/${SUBSYS}/ -name “*.xzm” 2>/dev/null |sort)

    thanks for your work man.

  71. USUARIONUEVO

    Sorry for replay , but cant edit last message.

    Since implementation of custom subfolders in the addons section , when some fail , or pass the noload , the text log only say the basename of sxz.

    For better info to user , i think in the logs (skipped,dups,fail or nolad) , … add the full path of the sxz package affected to find more fast.

    exmaple in skipped

    # Skipped sxz during boot
    /mnt/live/liveslak/addons/Multimedia/audacity……sxz
    /mnt/live/liveslak/addons/Libraries/wxpython….sxz

    same for noload , error

    dups (duplicates)

    # List of duplicated sxz
    NAME: MODNAME.xzm
    PATHS: addons/Multimedia && addons /System

    Only i make examples , i hope some of this like you.

    regards.

  72. KG Hammarlund

    When running Slackware Live Mate 1.1.2 from a live USB, NetworkManager has run flawlessly. However, after making a full install on my SDD (setup2hd), NetworkManager does not start automatically. nm-applet starts, but when hovering over the tray icon I get the message “Networking disabled” although “Enable Networking” and Enable Wi-Fi” are checked. After starting NetworkManager from terminal, everything works OK.
    Tried googling but couldn’t find a plausible solution. Grateful for suggestions how to solve this.

  73. alienbob

    KG Hammarlund, if you install Slackware to your harddrive using setup2hd, your computer will be configured through the standard Slackware scripts. I.e. different from a Live system where I did a bunch of configuration changes to make Slackware Live a pleasant experience out of the box. One of these modifications is to enable NetworkManager at boot.

    The Slackware network configuration script will ask you whether you want to use NetworkManager or configure your network using rc.inet1.conf. If you do not choose for NetworkManager at that moment, the boot script /etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager will not be made executable. That is what you are experiencing I think.

  74. KG Hammarlund

    Re:NetworkManager:

    Thanks again, that was indeed the solution. I suspected that the solution should be a simple one (since NM could be started from terminal) – it was just a question of finding it.

    All my favourite programs installed and seem to work as they should. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship 🙂

  75. alienbob

    William is it possible that you share the file “”0066-anaconda3-4.1.1-x86_64.sxz”” somewhere so that I can have a look? the module should have been mounted automatically if it was placed in the “addons/” directory.

    About creating your own ISO file: if there is a addons/ subdirectory in the liveslak/ directory then its content is copied into the /liveslak/addons/ directory of the ISO, *unless* you are creating a XFCE variant (by using “-d XFCE” parameter) because the XFCE variant is forcibly kept as small as possible.
    The steps you describe sound like they should work but perhaps you can post the *exact* commandlines in here.

    A quicker way to recreate an ISO if you already have one and want to modify it a bit (by adding a module for instance) is:
    – loop-mount the ISO file
    – make the directory /tmp/slackwarelive_staging
    – copy the content of the ISO (using the loopmounted directory) to /tmp/slackwarelive_staging/
    – un-mount the loop
    – make your modifications; in you case, copy the anaconda module to /tmp/slackwarelive_staging/liveslak/addons/
    – run the make_slackware_live.sh script with the additional “-G” parameter which will skip all the package download/install and post-configuration stuff and will skip straight to generating an ISO file from the content below /tmp/slackwarelive_staging/ .

    You should end with an ISO file containing the original ISO content plus your anaconda module.

  76. William

    Dear Eric, thanks for your reply.
    You can find the anaconda module at https://goo.gl/aIafSu .
    I have tried what you said regarding the iso, and yes, it was really quick. After that I tested it but still the directory /opt/anaconda3 only have a var file but, under /mnt/live/modules I have the anaconda module (so it is loaded at start) but it mounted under / , not under /opt/anaconda3 , which messes all internal paths. SO I have two questions and sorry if they are to dumb: 1. How should a make the module in order to it be mounted on /opt/anaconda3 (I created it by the command bash liveslak/makemod.sh -i /opt/anaconda3 0066-anaconda3-4.1.1-x86_64.sxz ), and, 2. How could I configure the system (and then create the iso) to add /opt/anaconda3/bin to the PATH for all users (I put something like echo ‘export PATH=/opt/anaconda3/bin/$PATH >> /home/live/.bashrc ‘ under the configuration function of the make_slackware_live.sh script but it did not work). Thanks again for your time, help, and these awesome tools.

  77. alienbob

    Ah, I understand the cause of your problem now William.
    A squashfs module is *always* mounted at the root level. If you want to create a module out of everything that is in /opt/anaconda3 you will have to create a temporary directory, move (or copy) the /opt/anaconda3 in there and then run makemod. Like so (the first command is redundant but it shows better what the second command does):

    # mkdir -p /tmp/modtemp
    # mkdir -p /tmp/modtemp/opt
    # mv /opt/anaconda3 /tmp/modtemp/opt/
    # makemod /tmp/modtemp 0066-anaconda3-4.1.1-x86_64.sxz

    That way, the squashfs module will contain a directory structure starting with /opt/anaconda3 and if that is mounted at the root of the Live filesystem, it is exactly where you want it. Run “unsquashfs -l 0066-anaconda3-4.1.1-x86_64.sxz” to view the module’s file content.

    If then you want the /opt/anaconda3/bin directory to be in the user’s $PATH you can create an additional directory structure in /tmp/modtemp/ and add a profile script in there before creating the module with the “makemod” command, like so (you forgot a colon):

    # mkdir -p /tmp/modtemp/etc/profile.d
    # echo ‘export PATH=”/opt/anaconda3/bin:$PATH”‘ > /tmp/modtemp/etc/profile.d/anaconda.sh
    # chmod +x /tmp/modtemp/etc/profile.d/anaconda.sh

    And this script will be sourced when any user logs in so that the Anaconda bin directory will be foremost in the user’s $PATH

  78. alienbob

    USUARIONUEVO… I do not think that that sort command you are proposing is going to do what you want it to do.
    You want to sort on the module filenames, irrespective of the subdirectory is is placed in? I am not going to sort that way. The sort is on directory names, and inside every directory the sort is on the filenames _in that directory_ .

    I am also not going to quieten the loadkeys command, if the text annoys you just close your eyes for a second.
    And I am not going to log the full name of a module in the “failed” and “dupes” logfiles. You just have to take care that you create modules that are not corrupt and not a duplicate of something else.

  79. USUARIONUEVO

    np , i modified all i need in my own distro.

    my distro have graphical installer to hdd ..

    easy way … read in some log , the loaded suqash files , in the same order than are inserting during boot…

    (((( need | sort in the find sxz command ))) i added for me … if use sort no need

    0010
    0020

    (4 digits to respect order) ..working ordering ever and nice if use sort , then

    001
    002
    002
    ..
    010 is no loading erroneous

    001
    010
    002

    im sure you understand what i am talking, because you are using 4 digits in names for this reason … and no need if use a simply sort to ordering first and load later.

    .The easy installer way is uncompress xz in to hdd … in the final , copy some configs in the live to hdd ..like

    timezone
    hardwareclock
    localtime
    localtime-copied-from
    keymap … and all custom lang stuffs ..to hdd to ensure system in hdd starts same like a live lang configs.

    in the last pass ..install grub …

    yad is a very very easy graphical tool .. code is similar to bash ..can use bash .. easy programming lang to do basic “gui”.

    because mine is “slack based” , i recompiled huge kernel … and config the modules inside the initrd as “y” , then initrd is an “STATIC” , no need never kernel maintenance inside. :=)

    good look , and very very nice work man.

  80. William

    Dear Eric,
    Thanks a lot! Everything is working now! You cannot imagine how happy I am now that I learnt how to easily customize the live edition and play with my beloved slackware while teaching. Thanks for your awesome work.

  81. USUARIONUEVO

    Hi ,i found an issue (little) , system ever goes with utf8 LANG , but when mount the media is not specified iochart=utf8 , if save files with especial charts in name ..later that files see estrange symbols in name.

    Solution is mount live with utf8 cgart especified at mount point.

    Thanks.

  82. alienbob

    USUARIONUEVO can you show a patch please if it is an issue you fixed. Otherwise it’s just an observation.

  83. USUARIONUEVO

    Its an observation … spanish have some especial chars…

    i noticed that little issue , when make some screeshots in spanish ksnapshot do default name as

    instantánea –> see second “a” have special char , when save to my usb stick and run slackware along ext4 i see how snapshots in to usb stick ..have estrange chars in the “especial a”.

    Thats because USB have fat system using non utf8 but real slack in hdd all have LAN with utf8 , then produce that rare charts.

    If save the screenshots , in to “ext4 or ntfs device” ..charts are ok … only when save in to FAT32 (usb sticks use this as default filesystem)

  84. USUARIONUEVO

    Hi again , i found “temporary solution”

    Im not modify the init , i rebuild kernel

    4.6.6

    CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_UTF8=y

    and now fat partitions have utf8 encoding.

    That kernel option appears in first time in branch 4.6 i think.

    Slackware testing config have that option as “not set” … strange , when in changelogs can read slackware now oficially use utf8 encodigs en LANG , by default.

    I go send a request , to change that option kernel as “y” ..if you remain in to 4.4 kernles… best add

    if media is fat , encoding utf8

  85. Janis

    I’d suggest to add pv to the live image, if possible (or – the suggestions how can I do it myself)

  86. alienbob

    Janis, ‘pv’ as in ‘pipe viewer’? I do not have that in my repository but I have documented how you can add your own packages and files to a Live ISO.

  87. Janis

    Yes, pipe viewer.
    Thank you!

  88. Janis

    May be it is just co-incidence, but Slack/KDE5 strangely hanged after 2 hrs of compressing 512GB of data – the mouse moved, but the was no reaction on key-press or click, even normal power button pressing had no effect.

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