Hello everyone,

I'm looking for instructions on how to install Slackware without the setup program. I need to do these steps both for 14.2 and -current branches. I tried to google how to do it and I found https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...up-4175594184/ but I'm not sure if something important is omitted in this guide, especially for Slackware -current. I'm going to install Slackware by the installpkg --root way.

Any links to howtos or guide posts will be helpful.

Are you talking about the setup program that is in the ISO image, and that gets started automagicly even if you don't want it?
(In general, you DO want it!)

I never really understood why atelszewski wanted to do it that way, but that thread was a good resource. Doing it entirely manually does require you to understand, and attend to, many more steps.

I'm manually building the LXC container with the full installation of Slackware.

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Maybe you want it, maybe you don't. That's why it isn't started automagicly.

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Tell you the truth I have done it before. but the easiest to do is to just just create Virtualbox for slackware
do the complete install stop at the point it asks for roots password exit the setup.

Then create another slackware.vdi put it in the order of sda1 and the previous is sdb1.
Again install Slackware.
I mean a complete install and set you first install to /mnt/sdb1 and it mounts at boot up time to /mnt/sdb1
Now reboot get your virtualbox all set up with share file.

As root cd /mnt
It will be about 4 gigs. you have complete system except for the root password.
Now you can make any size or type of partition that matches your /etc/fstab.
For a clone of the device sdb.
Use Gpartition resize partition sdb1 the size you want it.
Now make sure you unmount that devices partitions. If swap is being used unswap unmount swap.
To put it on another drive.
The other drive must be the same size or bigger.
First time someone boots into it they must run passwd so you can create
a root password
At the prompt type root then enter then type passwd
Remember the /etc/fstab must match your partition

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I found this to be a better compression and time saving
open a terminal
This is about 3.2 gigs

It looks like a person could just run pkgtool from one filesystem with --source_mounted, --source_dir directory {where packages are} and --target_dir {mount point of target root}. Does that get everything done?

I think I'm in roughly the same boat as the original poster. When 15 is released I want to install it to a certain set of btrfs subvolumes on another partition than what my 14.2 install lives on, leaving the latter intact. This should also leave intact other parts of this btrfs fs which still have some old release of debian I might upgrade someday along with a bunch of personal files.

Reading the install help doc on slackware.com and the expanded docs with screen shots on docs.slackware.com it looks like the setup tool asks for a partition device for your root device, which won't work for this case. Think I don't want to run that guy.

But if I can get the right subvolumes mounted at /mnt and child mounts right under there, then run pkgtool ... --target_dir /mnt I should be good, right? I'll have to set up grub myself and maybe do some things in /etc. But all the files under /etc, they are part of some package that pkgtool would install or else are set in the later phases of pkgtool's run, is that right?

So far the only thing I'm nervous about is when I look at the beginning of pkgtool in 14.2 the TARGET_DIR and ADM_DIR variables are set to command line arguments only after a bit of other code runs. TMP and rootdevice are set earlier before the script knows what my TARGET_DIR will be re-set to. TMP maybe isn't a big deal. If pkgtool uses a directory under the current 14.2 root for temporary files, no biggie. But rootdevice is passed into some other scripts and is going to be set to the root device of 14.2 not the target I think (and besides, root device there is shared with debian, not a useful property here where slackware will be living in subvolumes within that filesystem). Not sure if that's right for me. This...

Like openSUSE? the pic below is taken after a fresh installation of openSUSE Tumbleweed. I am tempted to steal this layout for Slint in case user wants to cut the root partition in slices, else just use ext4 for the root partition.

Attached Thumbnails

 

If its just for LXC you could modify the Slackware template (/usr/share/lxc/templates/lxc-slackware) to install all the disk sets.
If you go to around line 320 where it has slackpkg install-template $TEMPLATE you could change it to slackpkg install a ap d e k kde l n t tcl x xap xfce y
That would have it go through and install all the disksets.

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You could check out AlienBob's scripts that install Slackware from the Slackware-Live ISOs.
https://git.liveslak.org/liveslak/tree/?h=1.3.10

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Thing is for LXC you need a pre configured
system, Basically a ready to go VM.
I think a pre installed system is the way to go.
Allow the user to configure the first time ran,
such as root password and users.

From my point of view start the Linux Container.
System should be already there,

This is how AWS uses containers.

I do not see the install as an issue.
The issue is a system image ready to go.

And this is why, after 20+ years, I still use Slackware. Thanks, Pat! :-)

It's more like this...

464r1:root# btrfs subvolume list /mnt/debian/
ID 259 gen 157390 top level 5 path home
ID 261 gen 5621 top level 5 path snapshots/root-2017-07-23
ID 263 gen 157275 top level 259 path home/media
ID 264 gen 157397 top level 259 path home/alt
ID 265 gen 5646 top level 259 path home/snapshots/home-2017-07-23
ID 386 gen 10076 top level 5 path snapshots/root-2017-07-29
ID 407 gen 35993 top level 259 path home/snapshots/home-2018-02-04
ID 409 gen 41950 top level 259 path home/snapshots/home-2018-03-03
ID 420 gen 70929 top level 259 path home/snapshots/home-2018-10-03
ID 458 gen 157409 top level 5 path mnt/lfs-usr-local
ID 459 gen 157418 top level 5 path mnt/slck15-root
ID 460 gen 157417 top level 459 path mnt/slck15-root/var
ID 461 gen 157418 top level 459 path mnt/slck15-root/home

That's the view of the btrfs fs seen from my Slackware 14.2 instance.
Those last three subvolumes would be where 15 would go. This laptop's harddrive is kind of crowded...

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 4096 20987904 20983809 10G a9 NetBSD
/dev/sda2 20989950 905752575 884762626 421.9G 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 970983424 1379050488 408067065 194.6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 * 1379051520 1420091391 41039872 19.6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 20989952 606924799 585934848 279.4G 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 606926848 612784127 5857280 2.8G 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda7 612786176 841375743 228589568 109G a9 NetBSD
/dev/sda8 841375807 842420031 1044225 509.9M a9 NetBSD
/dev/sda9 842420095 844524609 2104515 1G 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 844527616 846100479 1572864 768M 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 846102528 850296831 4194304 2G 83 Linux
/dev/sda12 850298880 905752575 55453696 26.5G 83 Linux


... but there are blocks available on sda5 in the btrfs partition Debian now boots from. Figured I could tuck Slackware 15 in there along with debian. Should be able to mount things in the right place using the sub volume id argument and grub also can boot to a subvolume using the subvolume id, I think. Just as long as Slackware install will treat what I get mounted on /mnt without any assumptions, just as a tree to put packages into.

I'm not saying this is a good approach. Did France get the David Letterman Show? You know the bit named "Stupid Pet Tricks." Maybe it's like that. But this is pure hobbyist terroritory, so I'm letting my drive layout evolve willy nilly.