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Is there an easy way to do a fresh install of slackware current? I've
not found any info on this with Google. Obviously I can install 11.0 and
then upgrade all the packages but my experience with Mandriva suggests
that fresh installs are preferable. Also some packages - notably tcpip -
have been split up. I presume a simple upgrade wouldn't deal with this.

I have tried installpkg -root /mnt/new *.tgz from a slackware 11.0
install on another partition, but I can't boot into the resulting system.

There are no isos, nor any boot/root disks in the slackware-current
tree. The obvious things that I am considering:

(1) Should the above technique work? If so I'll troubleshoot the
installation.

(2) Would 11.0 boot/root disks allow me to install from a
slackware-current tree on a hard disk partition or over NFS?

(3) Is there a script (or a howto) for making a slackware install CD
from the slackware-current tree?

Thanks,

Mark Atherton

Mark Atherton wrote:
> Is there an easy way to do a fresh install of slackware current? I've
> not found any info on this with Google. Obviously I can install 11.0 and
> then upgrade all the packages but my experience with Mandriva suggests
> that fresh installs are preferable. Also some packages - notably tcpip -
> have been split up. I presume a simple upgrade wouldn't deal with this.
>
> I have tried installpkg -root /mnt/new *.tgz from a slackware 11.0
> install on another partition, but I can't boot into the resulting system.
>
> There are no isos, nor any boot/root disks in the slackware-current
> tree. The obvious things that I am considering:
>
> (1) Should the above technique work? If so I'll troubleshoot the
> installation.
>
> (2) Would 11.0 boot/root disks allow me to install from a
> slackware-current tree on a hard disk partition or over NFS?
>
> (3) Is there a script (or a howto) for making a slackware install CD
> from the slackware-current tree?

The procedure to generate the CD/DVD are explained in the README.TXT
file in the isolinux directory. It is possible that someone have done it

ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackwar...nux/README.TXT

Olive

Mark Atherton wrote:
> I have tried installpkg -root /mnt/new *.tgz from a slackware 11.0
> install on another partition, but I can't boot into the resulting system.
[...]
> (1) Should the above technique work? If so I'll troubleshoot the
> installation.

i've installed a bootable system that way once, but just installpkg'ing the
packages you need isn't gonna do it. at the very least, you'll need to
configure and run lilo. to be able to log in, you may also need to make
sure root has no password (that's probably the default set-up, but i'm not
sure; it's at least a theoretical possibility that by default root has a
"random" password).

there may be a couple of other things that i'm overlooking right now. (it's
been a long time since i've done this... ;-)

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

On 1 May 2007 21:44:13 GMT, Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> wrote:

> it's at least a theoretical possibility that by default root has a
>"random" password).

Empty root password -- I had this just recently when an install went
awry and I had to complete it manually )

Grant.
--
http://bugsplatter.mine.nu/

On Tue, 01 May 2007 22:03:51 +0100, Mark Atherton <htlshoqz@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>(3) Is there a script (or a howto) for making a slackware install CD
>from the slackware-current tree?

$ cat make-boot-cd
#!/bin/bash
#
# build a slackware boot cd, from isolinux/README.TXT
#
mkisofs -o /home/common/slackware.iso \
-R -J -V "Slackware Install" \
-x ./extra \
-x ./pasture \
-x ./source \
-x ./testing \
-x ./zipslack \
-x ./slackware/e \
-x ./slackware/gnome \
-x ./slackware/kde \
-x ./slackware/kdei \
-x ./slackware/t \
-x ./slackware/tcl \
-x ./slackware/xap \
-x ./slackware/x \
-x ./patches/source \
-hide-rr-moved \
-v -d -N -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
-sort isolinux/iso.sort \
-b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
-c isolinux/isolinux.boot \
-A "Slackware Install CD" .
---
Change first line (output filepath) to suit your system. Call script from
top-level install tree (one with COPYRIGHT.TXT file). I use this to boot
and for starting an NFS install of slackware.

Grant.
--
http://bugsplatter.mine.nu/

On 2007-05-01, Mark Atherton <htlshoqz@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Is there an easy way to do a fresh install of slackware current? I've
> not found any info on this with Google. Obviously I can install 11.0 and
> then upgrade all the packages but my experience with Mandriva suggests
> that fresh installs are preferable. Also some packages - notably tcpip -
> have been split up. I presume a simple upgrade wouldn't deal with this.


It will, with a little creativity. In the early stages of -current, I
was too lazy to build an ISO, and since I was curious and had nothing to
lose anyway, I played around with both the method you tried below
(installpkg -root) as well as installing a minimal 11.0 (A series only)
and then upgrading it. Both worked fine. The biggest gotcha is to make
sure you take care of any removed/added/split packages in the A series.
See CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT on the -current mirror for that information.


> I have tried installpkg -root /mnt/new *.tgz from a slackware 11.0
> install on another partition, but I can't boot into the resulting system.


This will work fine if, after you install all of the packages, chroot into
the new installation, run pkgtool, and run all the setup scripts.

As others have advised, there are instructions for creating ISO images on
the mirror, and there are numerous scripts to do so (Hameleers has a good
one) as well as unofficial ISO images.

RW

Olive wrote:
> Mark Atherton wrote:
>> Is there an easy way to do a fresh install of slackware current? I've
>> not found any info on this with Google. Obviously I can install 11.0
>> and then upgrade all the packages but my experience with Mandriva
>> suggests that fresh installs are preferable. Also some packages -
>> notably tcpip - have been split up. I presume a simple upgrade
>> wouldn't deal with this.
>>
>> I have tried installpkg -root /mnt/new *.tgz from a slackware 11.0
>> install on another partition, but I can't boot into the resulting system.
>>
>> There are no isos, nor any boot/root disks in the slackware-current
>> tree. The obvious things that I am considering:
>>
>> (1) Should the above technique work? If so I'll troubleshoot the
>> installation.
>>
>> (2) Would 11.0 boot/root disks allow me to install from a
>> slackware-current tree on a hard disk partition or over NFS?
>>
>> (3) Is there a script (or a howto) for making a slackware install CD
>> from the slackware-current tree?
>
> The procedure to generate the CD/DVD are explained in the README.TXT
> file in the isolinux directory. It is possible that someone have done it
>
> ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackwar...nux/README.TXT
>
> Olive

Thanks for that! I had looked in the isolinux directory but completely
missed the readme. As the README_SPLIT.TXT file says:

"Thanks for noticing this README-encrypted file. :-)"

Mark Atherton

Grant wrote:
> On 1 May 2007 21:44:13 GMT, Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> it's at least a theoretical possibility that by default root has a
>> "random" password).
>
> Empty root password -- I had this just recently when an install went
> awry and I had to complete it manually )
>
> Grant.

Actually, when the system booted it failed to find a root partition and
then automatically rebooted sufficiently quickly that I couldn't read
the message fully. I had configured and run lilo on the existing
slackware installation and put the root filesystem in fstab, so none of
the blindingly obvious problems.

Thanks,

Mark

Robby Workman wrote:
> On 2007-05-01, Mark Atherton <htlshoqz@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Is there an easy way to do a fresh install of slackware current? I've
>> not found any info on this with Google. Obviously I can install 11.0 and
>> then upgrade all the packages but my experience with Mandriva suggests
>> that fresh installs are preferable. Also some packages - notably tcpip -
>> have been split up. I presume a simple upgrade wouldn't deal with this.
>
>
> It will, with a little creativity. In the early stages of -current, I
> was too lazy to build an ISO, and since I was curious and had nothing to
> lose anyway, I played around with both the method you tried below
> (installpkg -root) as well as installing a minimal 11.0 (A series only)
> and then upgrading it. Both worked fine. The biggest gotcha is to make
> sure you take care of any removed/added/split packages in the A series.
> See CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT on the -current mirror for that information.

That's nice to know. It doesn't surprise me that this method works
better than on Mandriva :-) I'll try making a CD first.

>> I have tried installpkg -root /mnt/new *.tgz from a slackware 11.0
>> install on another partition, but I can't boot into the resulting system.
>
> This will work fine if, after you install all of the packages, chroot into
> the new installation, run pkgtool, and run all the setup scripts.

I didn't do that, so might explain it. I'll try that before zapping the
partition with a CD install. Thanks.

Mark

Mark Atherton wrote:
> Is there an easy way to do a fresh install of slackware current? I've
> not found any info on this with Google. Obviously I can install 11.0 and
> then upgrade all the packages but my experience with Mandriva suggests
> that fresh installs are preferable. Also some packages - notably tcpip -
> have been split up. I presume a simple upgrade wouldn't deal with this.

An upgrade at this point in the development cycle should only be
considered if you know what you're doing and follow the directions in
the CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT file.

> I have tried installpkg -root /mnt/new *.tgz from a slackware 11.0
> install on another partition, but I can't boot into the resulting system.

Maybe if you tell lilo where to find your new kernel and root
filesystem, that this approach will work.

> There are no isos, nor any boot/root disks in the slackware-current
> tree. The obvious things that I am considering:

If you have a computer that can boot from a USB stick, you might
consider trying the USB boot image "usbboot.img" in the
/usb-and-pxe-installers/ directory of slackware-current. Write the
image to a USB stick (this will overwrite it's contents of course but
convert it into a bootable Slackware installer):
"dd if=usbboot.img of=/dev/sda"
Of course, if your USB stick is not /dev/sda you'll have to adapt the
above command line, please double check before accidentally
overwriting your SATA or SCSI harddrive...
The USB installer still needs the Slackware-current tree on an NFS
share. The USB image file is 21 MB in size.

> (1) Should the above technique work? If so I'll troubleshoot the
> installation.
>
> (2) Would 11.0 boot/root disks allow me to install from a
> slackware-current tree on a hard disk partition or over NFS?

Yes, probably. YMMV. I don't know whether you'll end up with the
correct kernel but it is worth trying.

> (3) Is there a script (or a howto) for making a slackware install CD
> from the slackware-current tree?

Get http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tool...are-current.sh
and run it at first like this to see (among others) how it can create
ISO images for you:

"sh mirror-slackware-current.sh -h"

Cheers, Eric