I have uploaded a fresh set of ISOs for the Slackware Live Edition. They are (of course) based on the ‘liveslak‘ scripts and contain the latest Slackware-current dated “Fri Feb 9 19:59:54 UTC 2018“), which sports the new 4.14.18 kernel which is mitigated against the Meltdown and Spectre v1 vulnerabilities.
The ISO variants you will find at the download URL https://slackware.nl/slackware-live/latest/ (remember to add support for CACert to your system if you see certificate warnings!) are:
- Full unmodified Slackware (32bit and 64bit).
- Stripped-down XFCE (32bit as well as 64bit), this ISO will fit on a CDROM medium.
- Slackware with MATE instead of KDE4 (64bit) to showcase the new 1.20 release of just 2 days ago. Thanks to Willy Sudiarto Raharjo for the packaging!
- Slackware with Plasma 5 instead of KDE4 (64bit) to showcase the Plasma 5.12 Long Term Support (LTS) release. This ISO also contains LibreOffice 6.0.1 and VLC 3.0.0.
The new liveslak version 1.1.9.6 has seen only a few updates since the previous tag, they are related to the package additions in Plasma 5.
Wayland and X.Org
The PLASMA5 ISO image does not feature Wayland support this time, but if you want you can build an ISO version that does! Download my liveslak scripts and use the following command to generate a PLASMA5 ISO (you will find it in /tmp afterwards) with the additional packages from my ‘testing’ repositories that add Wayland support:
# git clone --depth 1 git://bear.alienbase.nl/liveslak.git
# cd liveslak
# ./make_slackware_live.sh -d PLASMA5 -m plasma5wayland -M -X
If you run a Wayland-enabled Slackware Live, you can login to a regular X.Org Plasma5 session but you can also choose the “Plasma – Wayland” session from the SDDM dropdown menu.
Refreshing your USB stick instead of re-formatting
If you already use a Slackware Live USB stick that you do not want to re-format, you should use the “-r” parameter to the “iso2usb.sh” script. The “-r” or refresh parameter allows you to refresh the liveslak files on your USB stick without touching your custom content. If you want to modify other parameters of your USB stick, use the script “upslak.sh“. It’s main feature is that it can update the kernel on the USB stick, but it also can replace the Live init script. As with most (if not all) of my scripts, use the “-h” parameter to get help on its functionality.
Historical info on liveslak
More detail about the features of Slackware Live Edition can be found in previous posts here on the blog.
Have fun!
Thanks a lot Eric.
There was two problems by updating.
One time the slackpkg updated, and at the next update it started downgrade plusma.
The other one, I think the update process should warn about x window to close it and continue upgrade without x window.
Maybe I need to learn more about upgrading.
Mohammad – this is Slackware. Tools give no warning because Slackware assumes you know what you are doing.
If you mess it up, consider it a good learning experience.
The documentation should help you (https://docs.slackware.com/) and if you find it not covering your needs, consider writing a new article on the Wiki after you have found your solution. The Documentation Wiki is *nothing* without its users and its contributors.
Thanks for all your work on liveslak. I downloaded slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso
and dd’d it to a 4GB USB stick and tried it out on my brand new ASUS ZenBook UX550. It boots up through UEFI fine but fails with “No live media found… trouble ahead.” It seemed to be trying to mount my hard drive’s sda partitions but nothing on sdb which should be the liveslak USB stick. An fdisk -l at the # prompt shows only sda. I tried again giving rootdelay=20 as an option via GRUB as suggested and although it did wait for 10 seconds after detecting sdb as a removable disk, it failed in exactly the same way. Any suggestions?
Hi Andrew
The liveslak boot environment (the initrd basically) contains a limited amount of kernel modules to keep the total size in check. Usually, what’s contained is sufficient to boot the Live OS but sometimes a not-so-standard kernel module is reqiured but not included in the initrd.
What I normally do when I find myself at a computer where liveslak has issues, is to boot a regular Linux installation instead, and then capture the output of “lsmod” to see if there are any modules that I missed in liveslak and that are required for the USB storage to be configured and used.
If that computer does not have a regular Linux installed on it, you can also try booting the official Slackware installer and run a “lsmod” there.
If you find out what kernel modules are required to support USB storage on your particular brand of PC but are missing in liveslak, let me know and I will add those to the liveslak scripts.
This is the line that defines the KMODS variable containing kernel modules I add to the initrd: http://git.slackware.nl/liveslak/tree/make_slackware_live.sh?h=1.1.9.6#n201
Thanks Eric – appreciate the swift response.
I’ll have a look at the modules as you suggest and let you know.
However, it seems there are more fundamental issues on this new hardware of mine. Just posted about that here: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=5823130#post5823130
i think theres a xmodmap bug? but if you dont have an .Xmodmap file it will work using ‘xmodmap .Xmodmapcustom’
the .Xmodmap file would change the caps_lock to control but it would remain caps_lock saying that it is Control_L in xev if you had an .Xmodmap file.
slackartist, I have no idea what you are talking about. There’s no .Xmodmap in Slackware Live Edition.
If you think that what you are talking about is a generic Slackware issue then please open a new thread on linuxquestions.org. It has no place here.
I have tried to google the problem, but maybe I am looking for the wrong keyword.
Is this a bug or have I missed something?
1. Downloaded slackware64-live-plasma5-current.iso (2018-03-15).
2. Ran it from an USB and was satisfied, so did the setup2hd.
3. At selection of Window manager i chose xinitrc.plasma
4. After finishing installation, it reboots into KDE login and then …. lumina!? 😮
All this on a 100% clean machine.
I have even checked /etc/X11/xinit and xinitrc points at xinitrc.plasma
*scratching head and then trying: *
5. From konsole in lumina as root: init 3 …. => gets dumped to terminal as expected
6. From terminal as ordinary user: startx … => starts plasma as expected
7. Logging out and gets dumped to terminal
8. From terminal as root: init 4 … => KDE login => opens lumina
9. From konsole in lumina as root: init 3 …. => gets dumped to terminal as expected
10. From terminal as root: startx (do not normally do this) … => starts plasma as expected
Shouldn’t init 4 and startx not always go to the same place?
When I try to launch one of the following (either as root or normal user) …
startkde
ck-launch-session dbus-launch –sh-syntax –exit-with-session startkde
dbus-launch –sh-syntax –exit-with-session startkde
… i just get:
“$DISPLAY is not set or cannot connect to X server.”
As normal user echo $DISPLAY gives an empty string.
As root echo $DISPLAY gives “:0.0” (without the quotes).
What went wrong? – or – how do I fix it?
I am willing to RTFM, but need a clue where to look.
If you install Slackware it shows a selection of deskops and window managers and lets you pick a default. You selected ‘plasma’. This makes it the default for runlevel 3 (console login, then “startx”). This is the same configuration that happens when you run “xwmconfig” as root.
In runlevel 4 however, “startx” is not used and “xwmconfig” is not setting the default desktop. It is SDDM which determines what Desktop Environment to launch. It will remember your previous choice and will make that the default, but the very first time SDDM will pick the lexicographical default which appears to be Lumina in your case.
Just select “Plasma” from the dropdown menu on the SDDM Greeter screen and you’ll launch into Plasma every time.
*repeatedly hitting my head hard against the wall*
Thank you alienbob!
I actually looked for the dropdown menu but didn’t see it due to too high screen resolution. I found the little bugger hidin in the lower left corner and now have the pleasure of plasma5 installed to disk 🙂
You could try changing “EnableHiDPI=false” to: “EnableHiDPI=true” in /etc/sddm.conf to see if the SDDM greeter scales better that way on your high DPI screen.