In Pursuit of "Slack" - Slackware UEFI Plus Grub Install

I'm not a fan of Lilo, the default Slackware bootloader, so this video illustrates how grub can be installed during the installation on a UEFI system
I use the Slackware current iso but the process is essentially the same for stable - 14.2
The key thing here is to reject the options to install Lilo or ELilo and drop back to a root prompt after installation has finished but before rebooting. Then issue the following commands:
mount
chroot /mnt /bin/bash
source /etc/profile
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
For a non-UEFI system the grub install command is:
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi /dev/sda #or whatever your drive is called
For virtual box to boot on UEFI you also need to copy grub to a new directory:
mkdir -p /boot/efi/EFI/boot # -p option creates any intermediate directories
cp /boot/efi/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
That's it. Links to useful pages below:
#Slackware
www.slackware.com/getslack/
#Slackbuilds
slackbuilds.org/
#Multilib how to
docs.slackware.com/slackware:...
#Ponce Repo for Current
github.com/Ponce/slackbuilds
Slackpkg+
slakfinder.org/slackpkg+.html
#SBOtools
pink-mist.github.io/sbotools/
#SBOpkg
sbopkg.org/
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[@legojenn]

Slackware uptimes are measured in decades.

[@OldTechBloke]

They are indeed

[@epicgamerman420]

funny as hell i searched up "Slackware boomer" and got this video

[@pizslacker]

Like Eric Hameleers (alien-bob) said: "To me, Slackware remains the Swiss army-knife of Linux".

[@mylinuxgr5050]

An old school video from an old tech bloke... Brilliant!

[@OpenSourceSlayer]

Dudes content is the best haha love his longer ones to just listen to while I relax

[@stanislausbrown8626]

I actually enjoyed that, which is quite strange for me. I'm a long time Slackware user. I don't usually use UEFI though, but I thought your installation and explanations were very clear and to the point. I use Slackware everywhere I can. Its stability is incredible. I never have to wonder what went wrong because nothing ever does. I've used Ubuntu-based systems which messed themselves up for no good reason - some weird update or something. I have a wide range of experience with a variety of Linux distros and other operating systems as well, going back to the 8bit days, but Slackware stands out for stability. Thanks for treating Slackware with the respect it deserves. Pat and Eric are really good at what they do.

[@gtrklem]

I have used it in years, but Slackware was the first distro I used, and the only one that I used for many years. My time with Slackware gave me a much deeper understanding of Linux and computers. I may need to check it out again.

[@lesonyrra]

Thanks so much. I've used Slackware since 1999, but I don't know beans about EFI and was tearing my thinning hair out trying to get Slackware installed on a recentish ThinkPad ... your instructions worked!

[@fossrules]

I'm a loyal Slacker; I started with 10.0 in 2004. Many thanks for your informative video. I successfully completed a UEFI installation of Slackware64-current this morning. Prior to this I've always done BIOS installs. My Dell laptop required a UEFI set-up. Everything works as expected. I've subscribed to your channel.

[@OldTechBloke]

Cheers George

[@slackernetuk938]

Slackware was my first love, and I tell you what..... I am still in love! :-) Thanks, I really enjoyed the video.

[@OldTechBloke]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@estudiordl]

Slackware 7 taught me how to configure, make, and make install, and I never even code anything in my life... 🤣

[@shutdowncnn6086]

OTB fantastic job on doing a UEFI "Slackware Current" install. Your video is a keeper and with a special note on using the grub Installation and configuration after the install so your system to boot. I like how you highlighted the difference of a BIOs and UEFI installs. Slackware is a rock solid Linux system, non systemd for everyday use. I started my Linux journey in the mid 1990's on RedHat and Slackware. These days I run my home computer boxes on both Archlinux and source code install Gentoo. I like the CLI installing, I'm use to doing it. My opinion using "startx" command script is the best way to start your GUI. Running from CLI you can do lots of magic as well as harm.. :)

[@OldTechBloke]

Thanks mate

[@nightwolf1966]

WoW this install was easier than Arch base lol thank you very much for the walkthrough now its time for me to set it up lol you have a great day

[@OldTechBloke]

Glad I could help

[@trueriver1950]

Yeah for me Slack seems lots easier than Arch

[@briank2434]

good vid. I started with 3.3 those old floppy days :) Still have slack and my own made it a yr after slamd64 2006-now when i got my first 64bit Q6600.

[@antuelle78]

Very informative and educational, well done. Keep it up.

[@OldTechBloke]

Cheers Michael

[@gnuemacs1166]

Very good, always my favourite for programming

[@wastingtime9152]

Wonderful; easy to follow tutorial. Thank you!

[@OldTechBloke]

Glad it was helpful!

[@paulnoecker1202]

Slackware is where my love of funtoo started. Slack wares mostly source based past install.

[@peasantrobot]

Left Slackware many, many years ago! Nice to see it again, but for me the preferred distro is Void Linux. But I recommend LMDE4 to my students. Thank you for the episode!

[@devflanker9702]

2021 and i'm considering on installing this current slackware version on my dell laptop , nice video ;-)

[@OldTechBloke]

Go for it, it was and remains a great distro

[@devflanker9702]

@@OldTechBloke i got it :-)

[@kztuptuo7076]

absolutly love it

[@msr4553]

Very deftly done....Amazing!

[@nickoct7472]

Thanks for giving the UK current iso location. I tried the US current iso and it said it would take 6 days to download.

[@smoejith9283]

I really wish Slackware 15 would surface. I'm still running 2 Slackware boxes, a 14.x machine and another one from about 1998 with a 2.2.16 kernel. I've been running Slack since about 94 or so. I did actually install SLS but got frustrated with it and came back around to Slackware a few months later.. Installed that puppy from MANY floppy disks!!

[@jeffreyjoshuarollin9554]

Nice video!

[@henninb]

I enjoyed the video, I am downloading the iso now.

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

Thanks for the Video OTB! I think I tried this way back in 2004 or somewhere in that timeline. Did Not know what I was doing and if memory serves I failed Bigtime and gave up! Look at me now, Linux on everything and NOT a Windows Computer in sight... Lol LLAP

[@OldTechBloke]

Ha ha, slackware is actually easy once you get the hang of it

[@FredSvedmyra]

Thanks! Very helpful!

[@OldTechBloke]

You're welcome!

[@bencze465]

Funny that youtube offered me this video now. Last night I tried to upgrade (reinstall) from 14.1 -> 15.0 and I had like 5 full attempts with a lot of troubleshooting and internet searching. Went to sleep at 5 am with a kernel panic. Today spent more hours and I'm done but had to delete my home and repartition the entire disk. Initially I went on to boot uefi because i'm starting to reconcile with the fact it's just there and not going away. My setup was originally dos partition table w/ a /boot and lvm for the rest. I'm still confused by uefi and not sure if I can 1 partition for both efs and boot. Gave up and went back to bios mode but by then I backed up and erased the whole thing and repartitioned so I had gpt with bios mode which I think also doesn't work. At the end I had something that seemed to work but after doing first round of updates, including some kernel update, system failed after a reboot. I should have manually generated an initrd and new lilo entries maybe it would have worked. Instead I wiped everything again and restarted with uefi, gpt, and grub. I still failed to boot because I forgot to create the grub config but after an usb boot, mount everything and chroot I managed to fix everything and boot in it. Arch install is for kids you just follow 5-8 steps to the letter, slack would be similar it just doesn't have such a guide you have to piece the puzzle together. :) Slack is simplest to use for many many things that's why I like to use it since.. well since systemd took over everything. But some are a lot harder unless you're used to installing and configuring these things as your everyday work.

[@charleswilliams8368]

This also works with bhyve. Thanks!

[@trueriver1950]

As you say Slackware is the longest running distro, with if I remember rightly Debian as the next longest.

[@williambien]

Praise "Bob"!

[@Ax4400]

Thank you, so very much. You have no idea how long I've looked for a clear howto install on a UEFI Bios Motherboard, luckily my computers broke 2 yrs ago and I just build 2 new modern ones. The old computers were 15 yrs old 🤣 I had tried to install Slackware on an nvme .M2 & failed because I didn't have the instruction regarding installing Grub, till now I had always use Lilo & fdisk and when I had to install on all this fancy hardware I got lost. Anywho thanks for a great video, learned how to use chroot now too👍 BTW what are your thoughts on Garuda Gnome, it needs help for GNOME DM, I know you like gnome & mate

[@marceloreis5780]

Thank you very much!

[@OldTechBloke]

You’re welcome

[@revealingfacts4all]

I discovered Linux in 1993 via Slackware in a Boarders book store. I have used it non-stop ever since. I later set up my own company and my entire data center was mostly Dell servers running custom compiled Linux kernels after a Slackware install. And over the years working at various companies and having to deal with Suse, RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu, etc... became a nightmare. I absolutely hate them. These other distros are horribly bloated. I do use Ubuntu for desktop but for a dedicated server that needs to run email, bind, dhcp, ldap, kerberos, and other server based services? Slackware is my tool of choice. It's just so much more fricken easy!

[@ZuluEchoRomeoOscar]

Nice... I was just idly wondering what to try next on my Thinkpad X200 - I think I know now!

[@OldTechBloke]

Well I can pretty much guarantee it will work well :-)

[@eznix]

That Slackware installer has not changed since I tried it a couple years ago. Actually, I do not think it has changed in the last 20 years. I meant to ask, why do you go with grub when lilo and elilo work well?

[@OldTechBloke]

Hi Eznix. A couple of reasons I suppose. I’m more familiar with it and so find it easy to customise. When multi-booting I’ve also found that it works better with refind, which I like to point to the grub file rather than individual kernels. I used lilo for years but now I’ve swapped I just stick with it. As for the installer, yep it hasn’t changed for at least 15 years 😁

[@rmcellig]

I have never used slackware before. Thanks so much for doing this video!! What are the recommended slack based distros or is that too broad a question? The most popular ones then.

[@OldTechBloke]

To be honest just install Slackware. I wouldn’t recommend any distro based on it as the original is always the best

[@rmcellig]

@@OldTechBloke thanks!! 😀

[@animauk5]

As a Arch user, I didn't expect slackware to hold your hand during install. Also the grub install, I just run "grub-install --efi-directory=/boot" It defaults to x86_64-efi

[@OldTechBloke]

Slackware is pretty easy to be honest. The grub command differed because I was installing to /boot/efi

[@serge5046]

How strange to use fdisk or cfdisk when tools like parted, gdisk, cgdisk or sgdisk are ideal to cope with GPT! For your timezone instead of scrolling all the way to Europe/London you can press E and then scroll to Europe/London. You can untick the games, Emacs (unless you absolutely want/need to use it) and all the desktops you don't wish. As you chose Xfce you could have removed the asterisk in front of KDE. Another point worth mentioning is you'll get a new kernel once a week through the updates when you are on the current branch. By default Slackware removes the packages related to the running kernel when installing a new version. People have to update grub manually before rebooting when there is a new kernel in the updates!!! Fortunately there is a warning in the updates when there is a new kernel telling you to update your bootloader configuration. People might want to keep the running kernel not knowing if the new kernel is going to be totally fine. That would be an interesting video to make: how to keep the previous kernel when a new kernel is installed! Cheers

[@OldTechBloke]

cfdisk is what I've always used and it works :-)

[@trueriver1950]

All three of Steve's tutorials on Slack 15 are in this playlist of mine kzbin.info/aero/PLKD3-VuBUskN_NIxBNU_DrFM45DAutQUx

[@pchristy102]

Some modern UEFI systems use 64-bit addressing for the EFIframebuffer (efifb). Elilo doesn't support this, and the stock Slackware installer will hang as soon as the initrd is loaded. To work around this, you need to create an install media that uses Grub, rather than elilo. Luckily, this is fairly simple: www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-installation-40/howto-prevent-installation-hangs-on-recent-hardware-4175671086/

[@aMulliganStew]

Thanks very much. It worked. It seems to me though the demonstrated grub sequence is backwards and/or has an unnecessary step. Typically grub-install comes after grub-mkconfig, not before. I think what happened here is that setup had already run the mkconfig (and evidently a mkinitrd) and those were sufficient for the grub-install to succeed. As this is my first EFI install (and subsequent modification to get over to the generic kernel), if you have a minute or two, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. In any event, thanks very much. I appreciate what you've helped me to do.

[@OldTechBloke]

If you take a look on the arch wiki the grub install and then the grub mkconfig steps are usually in that order

[@aMulliganStew]

@@OldTechBloke You're right. I came back to this comment because I just did a grub-mkconfig (that produced an error) so I didn't bother with the install. I then went on to other things and forgot about it. Later, when reboot time came around, the changes were there. I've so much to learn. Thanks for taking a minute.

[@wadegrant7465]

Going forward, you shall be known as "I am shroot...."

[@northof-62]

I always thought that ncurses have a design flaw. The black shadow line is wrapped around the top right corner. It should end just below that same corner to give the 3D effect. Movin' on.. Thx for the video. Still looking for a complete review of the old system, available software, kernel updates etc. Can you put Plasma latest (5.19) on there or any of the GTK desktops? I remember compiling a lot of extra stuff on this distros back in the days. It probably ends up being your/my own distribution if one is able to upgrade Slackware into a modern desktop system with all the bells & whistles. Still think Patrick should throw out the installer in favour of Calamares or Ubiquity (my fav.) Volkerding, I wonder how he pronounces it, as Folkerding or Volkerding, being a German name . .. Yes maybe I'll try and add Ubiquity and modern libs to this old system V Linux and see how far I can go. Starting to sound like Linux from Scratch now. Could be fun. Like what I used to do in the beginning: Install Visix' Looking Glass or Xi Graphics maXimun CDE on Slackware. 32Mb RAM! .. drifting into memories.

[@OldTechBloke]

Well that sounds like you have a busy time ahead. Alien Bob has a repo with the latest version of Plasma that can be added, and you could always use his live builds. However, no calamares still

[@shoeprano27]

I may be wrong but is that a Harald Invades hoodie? new subscriber here. what is your distro daily driver?

[@OldTechBloke]

Ha ha, yes it is, you’re the first to spot it. My daily driver has been Arch for the last year or so

[@shoeprano27]

@@OldTechBloke interesting. I read arch would be a bit complicated for some one brand new like me. literally, found this video of yours yesterday and downloaded manjaro as my first Linux to dual boot with win10. I'm liking it so far. maybe I'll learn the ins and outs of it so I can fully replace windows. but heading to distrowatch, there's so many Diff OS that I feel the need to try each and every one. thanks and hope you and yours are staying safe from these weird times. I just hope it don't get as bad as 1918 Spanish flu.

[@OldTechBloke]

Thanks for the comments . Don’t get lost on distro watch, it’s easy to do. If you want to try an easy arch installation I would recommend endeavour. Basically arch with a quick installer

[@shoeprano27]

​@@OldTechBloke hello mister. i ended up going a bit overboard lol i triple booted windows 10, endeavorOS and macOS Mojave 10.14.on a single drive. i ws tempted to go with bluestar linux but it looked more like a headache than anything else. i like endeavor though. thanks for the recommendation.

[@AbarSimorgh]

Thank you for the video. At 35:57 how do you reboot? What is the command? shutdown -r doesn't work Edit: good old three finger salute, CTRL+ALT+DELETE

[@OldTechBloke]

Sudo shutdown -r now or loginctl reboot. /sbin not in your path by default so will need to modify that or use /sbin/shutdown

[@AbarSimorgh]

@@OldTechBloke thank you for your reply. I did try /shin/shutdown but it gave me some sort of error, CTRL+ALT+DELETE worked at the end.

[@alwanrosyidi2772]

Is there any slackware based using calamares installer? I used to use Slackware as my daily driver, several years ago. But now it feels unpractical to use text installer in modern devices.

[@OldTechBloke]

None that I’m aware off

[@DV-ml4fm]

Can you do with luks with lvm.

[@1oneguythat]

tried to install this and got stopped by grub. entered ls into grub command line and no partitions were found. f

[@ZuluEchoRomeoOscar]

BTW - your 'non UEFI' grub commands in the description might need checking.... I used grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda

[@OldTechBloke]

That's for a non-uefi install on a non x64 pc

[@joetheman74]

I've never known much about slackware but your description in the beginning sounds more like a description of Arch. How is a 9 gig recommended install "keeping it simple"? That's more bloated then most other distros. My daily driver still uses a full bloat distro, just not nearly bloated as this though. I have converted a few of my older systems over to Arch with a WM. With everything needed to perform most tasks they boot up with only 160 to 180 mb of ram and around 600 packages or less. That's what I call keeping it simple. Everything you need, nothing you don't.

[@OldTechBloke]

The reason a full install is so much Joe is because there are multiple DEs and WMs and development packages. It keeps things simple when compiling new packages as most of the dependencies are already installed. But I take your point

[@joshmcdzz6925]

When will slackware be cloud ready? I will love to my kubernetes master and workers running on slackware, slackware AWS AMIs etc.. When I write ansible with slackware I find myself going back to using either the command or shell module.. when will slackware's slackpkg be automation ready?

[@OldTechBloke]

No answer for you Josh I'm afraid

[@615bana]

"/bin/bash no such file or directory" can you help me?

[@amos660]

My boss is a hard core Slackware user. Never used any other distro's. He makes fun of me for using Arch.. although he always says that Arch is somehow a son of Slackware.. have no idea why. I have to ask him one of these days what he means by that.

[@paulnoecker1202]

Slapt-get! Slack also does rpm

[@darrenaustin1156]

slapt-get is a great tool for management of 3rd party repos; but, like all admin tools, it WILL bite you in the arse if you don't know how to use it correctly. Read the docs, people! rpm's can be installed on Slackware, but they are not guaranteed to work due to library version differences from what the rpm was packaged against and what is available on Slackware. There's also an 'rpm2tgz' tool to convert your rpms into proper Slackware packages; but again note the caveat of library versions :)

[@OldTechBloke]

Hello mate

[@johnjoyce]

No. Don’t revert to normal. More Slacking!!!!!!!!!

[@IBITZEE]

Soooooo... the Templars are now into Linux???

[@paulnoecker1202]

templars are like church of school people, so yes. bsd is straight out of the temple

[@IBITZEE]

Those would be the Jesuits... like the ones from "Rolland Jaffé/The Mission"... or from "Martin Scorsese/Silence"... ;-) Templars were more on the "punch-side" of the thing :) :) :)

[@paulnoecker1202]

@@IBITZEE school or poverty are your choices. they be whacking ya with rulers and shit.

[@alwanrosyidi3753]

It looks little bit hassle even for a linux veteran. Can we just choose elilo instead of this grub? What are the downside of elilo?

[@OldTechBloke]

Google it

[@salemreturn1289]

11:20 start

[@OpenSourceSlayer]

OTB, I’ve been having the itch to mess with Slackware please stop me 🤣😅

[@OldTechBloke]

I'm never going to stop someone doing that :-) everyone should take a look at Slackware. BTW I've been watching your gentoo stuff

[@OpenSourceSlayer]

@@OldTechBloke that’s amazing to hear thank you so much for the support it’s really humbling coming from you! It means a lot

[@CollinBaillie]

F-stab!! 😝 I'm so boring... I call it the f-s-tab.... but I like f-stab... I'm going to try to use that moving forward...

[@brandonphilander661]

Would I be able to game on Slackware?

[@OldTechBloke]

Absolutely you would. However you would need to do the work to set it up. Slackware gives you a foundation and then hands over to you

[@nuraana8093]

I installed 14.2 then upgraded it with -current, added Alienbob's multilib, Ktown and the Slackers repository on the conraid server for some otherwise absent binaries and I manage my packages with slackpkg+ and sbopkg. All on a UEFI + grub disk. I installed lutris but compile my own wine-staging runner. Since 5.12 my wine-staging seems to want mingw-gcc, so I downloaded the AUR packages from sourceforge and repackaged them to be installed with upgradepkg --install-new I play World of Warcraft fairly often. (I experience no big difference between vulkan with DX11 and DX12 settings), and I manage my game addons with the twitch app running on wine. Currently I have kernel-5.4.61, wine-staging 5.14, working with xfce or plasma as my mood for the day goes. Hopefully this will encourage you to fiddle more. :)

[@brandonphilander661]

@@nuraana8093 Thanks man.

[@johanb.7869]

Was interesting to watch, but Slackware isn't for me;)

[@OldTechBloke]

Yep I know it's a bit niche

[@peterjansen4826]

Not the easiest install based on what I have seen.

[@OldTechBloke]

It's not too bad Peter, you just follow along

[@peterjansen4826]

@@OldTechBloke I would but I don't think that it offers anything that Arch does not offer me. At the moment I have a very weird bug on Arch, probably caused by some bug in a driver. Everything works good (heavy gaming, no problem) except for one thing: I can't use Google Maps, not on Firefox and not on Brave. When I dare to attempt it my mouse and keyboard freeze but if I play music or a video I keep getting audio.

[@garymaya1767]

Yeah ubuntu sucks bro. Slackware just works. 24/7

[@Adam01Time]

You are a nice guy, it kills me watching you trying to get your slack back. Partition, format , then install that simple nothing has changed in 40 years in the computer hardware world. GPT ok you got a stupid none asi computer you need to use UEFI. Slackware doesn't think people are stupid, they actually read the direction before assembly. So love the video. Have fun, could have done it in 5 min. with KISS you need to learn Slackware. As far as grub install dropping to root, before reboot. OMG it is in the docs for the last 20 years. You should have made the links to the docs' bro. You will never get laid bro come July the world will end, we shall leave with JR Dobbs on his spaceship. Hugs love ya.