Slackware, Simplified: Entry 1 - Installing Slackware

This is a blog series designed to help people starting out with Slackware, or just considering it, be able to use it to their fullest extent, presented in a beginner-friendly manner.

Slackware is often considered a Linux distro solely for advanced users, and while some aspects of it can be very foreign to someone coming from, say, Linux Mint or Ubuntu, with time and patience it can become a really easy distro to work with once you gain the experience. 

I'll be teaching you, the reader, how to use Slackware step-by-step in a clear and concise manner that will be approachable to both beginners and power users alike.

With that out of the way, let's install Slackware!

First, you'll need the Slackware install media, which can be found at us.slackware.nl (US mirror of slackware.nl, which is in the Netherlands, if you couldn't tell by the domain name. People in Europe might be better off using the non-US mirror).

Here's the time for you to make a choice. There are two main branches of Slackware, known as stable and current. 

Slackware stable is the stable release version of Slackware, meaning updates that aren't absolutely necessary will come less frequently, but the flip side to that is that all the software in the stable release is more well-tested and less likely to have undesirable bugs. The current stable version of Slackware, as of the writing of this blog, is 15.0

Slackware current is the rolling release version of Slackware, meaning updates come more frequently, but the software isn't as well-tested and may be more susceptible to bugs. This makes current an undesirable choice in a critical environment such as a server that many people depend on, but for personal desktop usage, it's no worse than some other rolling release distro like Arch, Gentoo, or Debian Sid.

Also note that Slackware supports both 32 and 64-bit x86-class CPUs, which the mirrors differentiate between by appending the number 64 to the name for the 64-bit versions. Do take care to choose the correct version for your hardware. When you decide which version you want, enter the correct directory to get the ISO image. For the stable versions, this directory is called slackware-iso/ and for current, it is slackware-current-iso/. I'll be selecting Slackware current, so all I have to do is select the file titled "slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso."

I should note that there is a live CD version of Slackware if you would prefer to try before you buy, so to speak. Everything related to that is found in the directory titled "slackware-live/."

Once the ISO file is fully downloaded, you can either burn it to a DVD or flash it to a USB stick. Keep in mind that the full install DVD ISO is about 4GB, so make sure you have something big enough to hold it all.

Once you do that, boot the computer you wish to install Slackware on, and ensure that you're booting from the DVD or USB stick. Do this either by entering your BIOS and setting the boot order such that the DVD or USB stick boots before your hard drive, or just spam the necessary key to enter the boot menu while it's still showing the splash screen (usually this key is something like F12, but may vary depending on your hardware).

After you boot from the DVD or USB stick, you'll eventually be greeted with the login prompt on the terminal. Login as the root user (there's no password at the moment).

You're probably wondering, "Soooo... what now?" Well first, you need to partition the hard drive on your system. The way I'll be showing is by using a tool called fdisk. First, you need to see what your hard drive is called, so type fdisk -l to see a list of connected storage devices. From here you can discern which one is the correct hard drive based on the size and naming conventions. For example, if your drive is an IDE hard drive, it'll be something like /dev/hda, and if it's a SCSI or SATA hard drive, it'll be something like /dev/sda. An eMMC will be something like /dev/mmcblk, and an NVME drive will be something like /dev/nvme0n1. Since I'm stuck in the stone age, I have a SATA hard drive, so mine is /dev/sda, which will be reflected below. Just change /dev/sda to whatever you have and it should be fine.

First we tell fdisk that we'll be partitioning /dev/sda:

fdisk /dev/sda

then we create a new disk label (on a modern system, this will be GPT) by typing g.

Next we create a swap partition. Type n for a new partition. Hit enter for a primary partition. When it prompts you for a partition number, just hit enter for the default number, which in this case is 1.

Then it'll prompt you for the first sector, to which you can just hit enter again, and for the last sector, you'll enter the amount of swap space you want. For the uninitiated, swap space is just hard drive space you set aside to be treated as extra RAM in case some task on your computer uses up all the actual RAM. In my case, I'll set aside 8GB for swap space, so I'll type +8G here.

Next, we have to set this partition's type to be swap space, so we type t to change the type, and when prompted, we'll enter the correct number to set it to swap space. Usually this number is 82 and/or 19, but if you're not sure, you can type L to see all the available types. In my case, it's 82, so that's what I'll enter.

Next, we create the root partition. We type n again for a new partition, and hit enter again for the number and first sector. Then for the last sector, this is up to you. If you wish to use the rest of the hard drive for all your stuff, then just hit enter again. But if you wish to have unused space, or set up a separate partition for other directories like your home directory, then enter the amount you want for the root partition. In my case, I'll have everything in one partition, so I'll just hit enter again.

This time, we don't have to change the type, so we're almost done. It's always good practice to double check that you got everything right, so we'll type p to list the new partitions we made, in this example /dev/sda1 for swap and /dev/sda2 for root. If everything looks right to you, just type w to write the changes, and once it does that, it'll exit itself for you.

Now that the disk is partitioned, we can type setup to enter the Slackware installer.

This brings up a nice menu system. Here we use the arrow keys to go down to the "ADDSWAP" option. This detects which partition is swap and has us select it to use. It'll ask you if you want to check for bad blocks on the hard drive - in most cases you can select no.

Then it'll detect the root partition, and you can hit enter to that as well. It'll ask you if you want to do a quick format, select that option. It'll ask you for the filesystem you want for the root partition. Most modern Linux systems use ext4 as the default, and that's what we'll select here.

Then it'll ask us what media we're installing Slackware from. If you chose a DVD, select the DVD option. If you used a USB stick, select the USB option. The other options are not covered in this blog as they're not really something a beginner would use. I'm installing from a DVD, so I'll select that. Then select auto when it asks you to scan for a DVD drive. Once it does that. you'll be presented with the different software sets that make up Slackware. These sets are whole collections of software of certain types (i.e. a set for networking tools, a set for X11, etc.). Here you can toggle which sets you want to install with the space bar. In my case, I won't be using GNU Emacs or XFCE, so I'll deselect those.

Then it'll ask you to select a prompting mode. If you deselected any software, do NOT select full as that will install the stuff you deselected along with everything else. Instead, choose terse. That will install only what you chose to install. 

This will then start installing the packages that make up Slackware. This'll take a few minutes, so kick back and relax.

After all that is done, it should ask you if you want to make a USB boot stick. If you don't install a bootloader, or the bootloader becomes unusable, this can come in handy, but for my situation, I'll skip it.

Next it'll ask you if you want to install LILO, the bootloader for Slackware. In most cases, you should select simple to get an automatic LILO configuration.

In some cases (depending on your hardware, or if you're using VirtualBox like me in this example) it may ask you about configuring LILO to use the frame buffer console. If you're not knowledgeable about this, just select standard like I did.

The installer will then ask you to optionally add some kernel parameters to LILO. Most people don't need to do this, and I don't either, so we'll just hit enter without typing anything in.

The installer will then ask you where you want to install LILO to. In my case, I'll use the MBR (Master Boot Record).

Once all the LILO configuration is done. It'll ask you about the mouse. For most desktops and latops, you'll want to select a PS/2 mouse or a USB mouse.

Next it'll ask you to configure the network. A quick clarification: this is not asking you to connect to the internet, as the Slackware installer is (in our installation case) entirely offline, unless you use one of the network install options. This is simply asking about the hostname and domain. If you're just gonna use the system like a normal PC, you don't need to put much thought into here. Enter whatever you like for the hostname. I'll do the default, darkstar (Fun fact: the default hostname is named after the Grateful Dead song "Dark Star", as Patrick Volkerding, the creator of Slackware, is a fan of the band).

Next, for a domain name, since we're not using this as a server, we'll just enter something random, like slackware.is.cool or something like that.

The installer will then ask you if you want to connect via VLAN. If you're not sure about this, just select no like I did.

Next the installer prompts you to choose the configuration type. In most cases, you can choose NetworkManager for both wired and wireless connections.

It'll then ask you if everything's correct. In my case it is, so I'll select yes. If not, select no and you can redo your network settings.

Next, the installer will prompt you to select some startup services to run when you boot the machine. You can have a look through here and toggle them with the space bar. In my case, I need not select any of them, so I'll just hit enter to continue.

It'll ask you if you'd like to try out any custom screen fonts for the terminal. I'll choose no, since everything is legible to me, but if you're using a super high-resolution monitor or have trouble seeing, you can select yes and try out whichever ones may work best for you

Then the installer asks us if our hardware clock is set to UTC time. Most PCs are set to local time, so I'll select NO and set my time zone (US/Eastern).

Next it'll ask you what text editor you'd like to use by default. I'll just use Vim.

Then it'll ask you what desktop environment or window manger you'd like to use. Since I deselected XFCE earlier, it doesn't show up here. Instead, I'll select KDE.

You'll then be prompted to set a root password. I'll do that for good measure.

Finally, the setup is complete.

Once we hit ok, we just navigate to EXIT, remove the installation media, and select Reboot.

If all went well, we should just reboot into a lovely Slackware installation.

The first bootup will take a little longer than subsequent bootups due to first-time configuration, but now we should be good to login.

Notice that Slackware has booted up into the terminal by default. Don't worry, I'll have a new entry covering how to change that, among other things, in the future. For now, you can just type startx to go into your desktop environment or window manager of choice.

WELL THAT WAS EXCRUCIATINGLY LONG!

Yes, I'm aware. Future entries in this series will be much shorter and more "to-the-point" than this one, but a lot of the information I gave in this entry is vital to a beginner who may not have any experience with things like manual partitioning or command line menus.

For the rest of this blog series (or until I need it again) I'll be abandoning the virtual machine I made in favor of doing all this on real hardware (I run XFCE instead of KDE, so things'll look different in the next entry).

I must also stress that you should not rely on this blog series as your sole source of Slackware information and tutorials. There are plenty of good resources out there, my favorite of which is the SlackDocs wiki. A quick search on your search engine of choice will provide you with all the information you want to know. Another amazing source of information is the Slackware section of the LinuxQuestions forum. There's also a newbies forum on the site if you need it. Regardless, the people on LinuxQuestions are very helpful and will try their damnedest to give you the answers you need.

Hopefully you learned something. I'll be back soon!