Since I am scared by both overlayfs and VirtualBox snapshots, I've decided to try getting a Slackware64-14.2 livecd image which I could boot and use as sandbox for testing things, to avoid ruining my main system.

I remember liveslak being mentioned earlier in this forum, so I went to read https://docs.slackware.com/slackware:liveslak

I went through the links in the "Downloading ISO images" section (the https://seattleslack.ryanpcmcquen.or...lackware-live/ one is broken btw) and I've noticed there's only images for -current in all those locations, while the wiki claims that 14.2 is supported as well.

Does this mean that if I want a 14.2 livecd image, I'd have to build it myself?

If so, my other question is about the make_slackware_live.sh script. As I understand, I'd need a local mirror of a Slackware repo, which I would pass to the script via -s argument. I can do this part by rsyncing the Slackware64-14.2 directory from any mirror (I suppose I can exclude the sources?). What I did not understand by skimming through developer documentation is what livecd iso image will the script produce: will it be the Slackware64-14.2 at the moment of its release (years ago) or will it have all updates since then from patches/packages applied (what I'm aiming for)?

I don't know if he maintains 14.2 anymore, but I did find someone who had an older version still mirrored.

http://repo.gsacrd.ab.ca/slackware-live/

I suppose an iso that is years old doesn't have all patches that were released since then. If I end needing to do my own, I'd prefer generating one using the liveslak script rather than modifying an existing one, as long as the answer to my last question is positive and it indeed bundles all the patches when generating the iso image file.

Slackware 14.2 is still supported by liveslak. But liveslak and Slackware Live Edition are two things. The first is the project with the scripts as its output. The second is the actual Live ISO image. I stopped creating ISOs based on Slackware 14.2 a long time ago. But you can create one easily.

So, yes.

If you do not download a Slackware package tree beforehand, the script will do it for you (skipping the sources), it will actually download all it needs into /var/cache/liveslak if you want to remove it afterwards. But the "-s" parameter will do just fine if you already downloaded a Slackware 14.2 repository.
If you read the script's help (run ./make_slackware_live.sh -h) you'll see that by default it will create an ISO based on 64bit Slackware-current and also by default it will create an exact full Slackware Live (does not leave any Slackware package out of the ISO).
Typically you would run it like this to produce a 32bit Slackware 14.2 Live ISO:
The script will use the newer packages in the /patches directory if it finds one. So your ISO will be fully patched and up-to-date.

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Thank you.

It will take a while until I get my hands on the practical part, but since your answer covers all my questions, I'll mark the thread solved now.

I have succeeded to build an iso image for Slackware64-14.2 and boot it in VirtualBox. The build process was painless. The only small itch is that I'm getting a 800x600 resolution after KDE boots. So far I don't know how to fix that, so I'd be grateful for pointers about where to learn more about it. For a regular VirtualBox Slackware install, I would just mount the guest additions cd, run the installer script and reboot, obviously this didn't work when booting a setup with no persistence at all from a livecd image.