Slackel 7.4 "Openbox"

[djemos]

Slackel 7.4 Openbox has been released. Slackel is based on Slackware and use salixtools from Salix.

Includes the Linux kernel 5.10.4 and latest updates from Slackware's 'Current' tree.

The new version is available in 64-bit and 32-bit builds.

The 64-bit iso image support booting on UEFI systems.
Iso images are isohybrid.
Iso images can be used as installation media.

It is good to read the Slackel Startup Guide before install Slackel.

What is new:
Slackel can be installed (real installation) in an external 16 or 32 GB usb stick or ssd disk and have a portable fast system always with you. You can upgrade it also having the latest programs. It is a real installation. You will not notice you run slackel from a usb. System is fast.

In details:
Slackel Live Installer (SLI) now can do a real installation to an usb stick or external usb ssd or external usb hard disk, creating the necessary initrd for booting.
For this a) create a msdos partition table on /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc and a linux ext4 partition on /dev/sdb1 or on /dev/sdc1 where /dev/sdb is your first usb device, /dev/sdc the second usb plug in device. Sign the /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdc1 bootable.
Create also a linux swap partition to /dev/sdb2 or /dev/sdc2, with size 2 or 4 GB according the memory you have.
Or b)
1. Create a gpt partition table on /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc and fat32 500MB partition on /dev/sdb1 or on /dev/sdc1 where /dev/sdb is your first usb device, /dev/sdc the second usb plug in device. Sign the /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdc1 boot,esp.
2. Create a linux ext4 partition on dev/sdb2 or /dev/sdc2
3. Create also a linux swap partition to /dev/sdb3 or /dev/sdc3, with size 2 or 4 GB according the memory you have.
4. Create a fat32 33MB partition on /dev/sdb4 or /dev/sdc4 and sign it bios_grub

If you boot using a slackel live openbox dvd then your external usb device will be recognized as /dev/sdb.
If you boot using a slackel live openbox usb then the second usb you will use for real installation it will be recognized as /dev/sdc.

Persistent become slow after installing programs. Doing a real installation on an usb stick or external ssd disk you will have a portable slackel usb in your pocket. You will even notice you run from a usb. It is fast. It is a really portable installed system which can be upgraded. To upgrade the kernel you have to use the install-upgrade-kernel-ext-usb script so usb will be bootable. (e.g. sudo install-upgrade-kernel-ext-usb upgrade huge)

To boot from ext usb or ssd plug in your usb reboot and press fn+F12 (in my case for lenovo laptop) and from bios boot menu choose the usb to boot.

Some of the packages included in iso:
mozilla-firefox-84.0.1, mozilla-thunderbird-78.6.0, libreoffice-7.0.4.2, filezilla-3.51.0,smplayer-20.6.0, gimp-2.10.22 (you have to install multimedia codecs from menus to use exaile to play mp3 files), fbpanel is used, many gui applications for managing the system and more.

USB Installation (frugal install)
If you want to transfer the iso to a USB stick, make sure you read the respective instructions in this file:
http://www.slackel.gr/isos/slackel-live ... ON_USB.TXT
You can also use the instonusb gui tool to transfer the iso to a usb.
Windows users can use the rufus application which exists in iso in boot folder to transfer the iso to a USB stick under windows system. Be sure to name the usb label "LIVE" without quotes.

Persistent file encryption is also supported.

medialabel="USB_LABEL_NAME" parameter.
Users who use a different program to create the live USB and this name the usb label differently than the default which is "LIVE" and/or also want to have many distributions on usb, can pass the parameter medialabel="YOUR_USB_LABEL_NAME". In this case slackel will be found and can boot.

Note: Install the iso in the usb without persistent (because it will take a lot of time) Then run again the script to create the persistence file.
sudo sh install_on_usb.sh --usb path_to_iso_image device
sudo sh install_on_usb.sh --persistent 64 /dev/sdb
(where device is /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc etc)

(The root password for the live CD is “live”. Standard user login is “one” with password: "one") (no quotation marks).
For installation and for all work required administration privileges the super user "one" with password "one" is used.

Minimum system requirements:
* Pentium 2 or equivalent
* 512 MB (RAM) or 1024 (RAM) and more for libreoffice, firefox and other heavy applications.
* 10 GB HDD

You can download Slackel 7.4 Openbox iso image from the following links, using the Sourceforge servers.

Live iso images: Can be used also to install the system to hard disk.

Slackel64 7.4 "Live Openbox" (64-bit)
(size: 2062 MB, md5: 5832b7a0a6057d87b4fa3ec7e9603585 sha1: 40cd006d9bd08dc5241ca5c8620722a08ba0e127)
Sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/slacke ... o/download
pkglist


Slackel 7.4 "Live Openbox" (32-bit)
(size: 2082 MB, md5: 9fc9633eecfd118157c5a0cd43f21cde sha1: 4aa288b0c21c25d7c9ebfa56c5e0359fddf9ce82)
Sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/slacke ... o/download
pkglist


Have a Happy and Healthy New Year 2021
Dimitris Tzemos

screenshots

[Papasot]

Right at the time I was about to setup my USB installations. Thank you Dimitri.
Happy New Year!

[djemos]

Happy New Year!
After installation edit /etc/conky/conky.conf and in line 70 change %G to %Y to saw the correct 2021 year.

[Papasot]

I have completed updating my existing Slackel 64-bit installations and I have also created a Slackel 7.4 USB installation from scratch. A few remarks:
(1) No installation problems whatsoever. As usual, I've spent way more time configuring the system the way I like it and installing my own libraries than installing Slackel itself.
(2) The gendai penguin wallpaper looks funny, but I am old fashioned and changed it to the old-good green cobs field. Old men don't like changes.
(3) I am glad to see wicd is still the default network manager. Nevertheless I keep connman as my network manager in an older installation for checking purposes. No issues at all after months of daily use, so should you ever have "NetworkManager" as the default, I do have a perfectly working alternative already.
(4) For the fist time after years, I tried the "Full Installation" on the fresh USB Slackel 7.4. I must say it has the right choice of applications, without bloated useless additions. I usually go with "Basic Installation", adding the packages I want after that, but from now on, I guess I would go with "Full Installation". It would be nice to let new users know that by "Full" you don't mean "everything", but instead one application for each task.
(5) The only objection to Full installation worth noting is Lilo. I wonder why Lilo is included in full installation, when Grub is the default. A user willing to change from the default Grub to Lilo is surely skilled enough to just install Lilo from the repos first.
(6) The performance of USB installation keeps impressing me. Excluding a slightly lengthier booting time, it's barely different than a hard disk installation. It works just great. However, although my full USB installation works fine on my laptop, it doesn't on my desktop computer: sometimes it doen't boot at all (as if the USB is not present), or it starts booting but stops after loading kernel, asking me to press Ctrl-D and maintain errors found. I will need to test it on other computers to be able to provide more feedback.

[juliusse]

Hi, and happy new year.
Very great news, the USB full install is working well, now that it have the new adapted initrd.
As usual, great job, simple, fast and efficient.

[djemos]

Hi, and happy new year.
Very great news, the USB full install is working well, now that it have the new adapted initrd.
As usual, great job, simple, fast and efficient.

Happy New Year juliusse
Someone said in distrowatch that Slackel permanent installation to USB, wouldn’t that kill the drive relatively quickly?. I do not think so. Usb's can be writable many many times and also even this happened they are cheap now.

[djemos]

at "Papasot"
Lilo is included in case even a new user want to use it. Since grub is default there is no problem.
I thought to have networkmanager as default and drop wicd but i keep it in this version. It is simple to do it in the future. I have both installed in my system and can use networkmanger or wicd.
About slackel usb booting in desktop pc. It does not boot not even once ? Or other times boot and others not ? Desktop pc is 64 bit?

[Papasot]

at "Papasot"
Lilo is included in case even a new user want to use it. Since grub is default there is no problem.
I thought to have networkmanager as default and drop wicd but i keep it in this version. It is simple to do it in the future. I have both installed in my system and can use networkmanger or wicd.
About slackel usb booting in desktop pc. It does not boot not even once ? Or other times boot and others not ? Desktop pc is 64 bit?

Desktop PC is 64-bit and much more powerful than the laptop. It never booted Slackel 64-bit USB so far. Either doesn't see the usb at all, or starts booting but stops very soon. Laptop boots from USB and works literally flawlessly every time.

[djemos]

Boot with usb in laptop and run these commands to recreate initrd with wait to 20 secs (can put it to 30 secs -w 30 to wait for usb to be sure its enough time)

Code: Select all

export moduleslist="loop:xhci-pci:ohci-pci:ehci-pci:xhci-hcd:uhci-hcd:ehci-hcd:mmc-core:mmc-block:sdhci:sdhci-pci:sdhci-acpi:usb-storage:hid:usbhid:i2c-hid:hid-generic:hid-apple:hid-asus:hid-cherry:hid-logitech:hid-logitech-dj:hid-logitech-hidpp:hid-lenovo:hid-microsoft:hid_multitouch:crc32c-intel:fuse"
sudo mkinitrd -c -f ext4 -u -w 20 -o /boot/initrd-5.10.4.gz -r /dev/sdb1 -k 5.10.4 -m $moduleslist 
sudo rm -rf /boot/initrd-name
sudo update-grub

Then boot with usb on desktop pc.
I do not have a desktop pc to test it.

[Papasot]

Boot with usb in laptop and run these commands to recreate initrd with wait to 20 secs (can put it to 30 secs -w 30 to wait for usb to be sure its enough time)

I tried with -w 20 and -w 30, both don't change anything, but I think I know what's going on. I do see the Grub screen, kernel modules are loaded, then I get this:

Code: Select all

/sbin/e2fsck: Bad magic number in suoer-block while trying to open /dev/sdb1

Now, desktop computer has two hard disks, while laptop has only one. Grub was configured on laptop, where the Slackel usb is /dev/sdb1, but on desktop it's /dev/sdc1, I guess. The error above seems to mean the booting proccess is trying to proceed with installed filesystem at sdb1, but finds nothing there. So, is there any way to make the USB installation bypass this somehow? Also, what was the default waiting time, so I reconfigure Grub with the proper -w default flag?