LinuxQuestions.org - Some advice needed after having installed Slackware 14.2

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Some advice needed after having installed Slackware 14.2

Hi there!

When I started using Debian 3 some >10 years ago I thought that will be the distribution I'll be using for the rest of my life. That changed with Debian 8 using systemd. And since I have lots of things set up and running since Debian 3 there are a lot of things I will have to install and configure.

So please give me some hints on ...

- is there any forum or newsgroup dealing with Slackware for german speaking users?
- where can I read about „the Slackware way“ to deal with software? E.g. what do I have to do to get Enigmail up and running with Thunderbird?
- are there any security related mailing lists I should subscribe to?

There will be a lot of questions coming up when I start using Slackware as my regular system. I hope I'm welcome here then.

TIA

Gregor

I don't have the answer to your first two questions, but you can find mailing lists here.

http://www.slackware.com/lists/

I would also suggest the SBo mailing list since packages not included in the Slackware full install are often built from there.

https://lists.slackbuilds.org/

And even if its not Slackware, the GLSA is a generally good source for security updates.

https://security.gentoo.org/glsa

About doc in English, there is docs.slackware.com, where lot of things can be found, but you have to look for.
And this thread brings a lot of advice and links to understand slackbuilds.

About german forum, it seems the only one referred by distrowatch has closed and link here now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregors (Post 5922465)

what do I have to do to get Enigmail up and running with Thunderbird?

I have not used Thunderbird or Enigmail but,

Enigmail should work the same since it is just a addon, you should already know how to setup gpg I assume.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregors (Post 5922465)

I'm also a Debian refugee. I started slowly moving away from the distro at the beginning of this year and had moved all my machines over to Slackware by midsummer. Moving to Slackware is an excellent decision, both from a distribution and community perspective. I personally found Slackware to be quite a bit more difficult than Debian, but persistence paid off.

Thanks for your replies!

As expected there are two more questions (of some thousand to come :-)

- Sound doesn't work. Is there a simple way to get rid of pulseaudio and move to alsa? I don't linke pulseaudio because when I was trying to find helpful documentation some time ago I found myself being led in circles. Maybe the pulseaudio website has changed since then but since pulseaudio used to write in directorys that I consider to be mine (and I mean mine. No one - NO ONE - must put any files in my directories without asking me) I want to get it off my system.
- My favourite live stream doesn't work anymore (it doesn't even show an "install Flash player" message like it does here. I thought Flash became obsolete with HTML 5 ... ?)

Any help is very welcome!

Gregor

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregors (Post 5922544)

- My favourite live stream doesn't work anymore (it doesn't even show an "install Flash player" message like it does here. I thought Flash became obsolete with HTML 5 ... ?)

Flash can be grabbed from SBo (slackbuilds.org) here, or if you would rather have a prepackaged one you can grab it from Alien bob's repo here. If you use Alien Bob's, make sure to grab the correct arch.

I have flash installed, but the video tells me something in German that I take is something to the effect of I don't live in Germany so I can't watch it?

In Slackware current there is the pure-alsa-system in extra/ which has pulse free packages, but for 14.2 these packages will have to be built yourself without pulseaudio. You can use pure-alsa-system to see what packages and then you grab the sources from your preferred Slackware mirror and rebuild them with pulseaudio uninstalled by running the SlackBuild script. This will be easier when 15.0 comes out.

https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackw...e-alsa-system/

I don't know how to remedy flash issues, but you could potentially work around it by installing youtube-dl and downloading the content. You can also install mpv and use the ytdl integration to directly stream the content.

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1...rk/youtube-dl/
https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/multimedia/mpv/

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregors (Post 5922544)

When you say "sound doesn't work", can you be more specific? Have you enabled the right settings/selected your sound card in pavucontrol? This is what I have to do for every new application that requires sound, then Pulse just remembers those settings.

I don't think you want to get rid of Pulse Audio since it is a stock package in 14.2, and one thing you must learn is that removing stock Slackware packages is not a good idea.

However, you can make Pulse and Alsa play nicely together and reroute everything through Alsa. Take a look at this post here.

Didier Spaier is really the man for this one, he can give much better assistance than I. Alternatively, here's another useful thread on removing Pulse, but this method looks a bit syrupy and isn't guaranteed to work. I would recommend the first method I cited, because it does work and needs comparatively little effort.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregors (Post 5922465)

When I started using Debian 3 some >10 years ago I thought that will be the distribution I'll be using for the rest of my life. That changed with Debian 8 using systemd.

Interesting. Is systemd mandatory in Debian? I seem to recall reading something about it not being mandatory, and that you could still choose to install SysVinit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lysander666 (Post 5922548)

I don't think you want to get rid of Pulse Audio since it is a stock package in 14.2, and one thing you must learn is that removing stock Slackware packages is not a good idea.

Its not so much that its a bad idea as that Slackware will not warn the user if they want to break their system by removing something like glibc. If you know what you are doing and how to troubleshoot self caused issues then there is nothing wrong with removing certain packages. Its a great way to learn how stuff works at the very least. :)

Quote:

That changed with Debian 8 using systemd. And since I have lots of things set up and running since Debian 3 there are a lot of things I will have to install and configure.

Not to discourage you from using Slackware, :) but Devuan is a Debian fork that does not use systemd.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upnort (Post 5922562)

Not to discourage you from using Slackware, :) but Devuan is a Debian fork that does not use systemd.

Beowulf is such a better name than Buster.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregors

1. is there any forum or newsgroup dealing with Slackware for german speaking users?
2. where can I read about „the Slackware way“ to deal with software? E.g. what do I have to do to get Enigmail up and running with Thunderbird?
3. are there any security related mailing lists I should subscribe to?
...

4. - Sound doesn't work. Is there a simple way to get rid of pulseaudio and move to alsa? I don't linke pulseaudio because when I was trying to find helpful documentation some time ago I found myself being led in circles. Maybe the pulseaudio website has changed since then but since pulseaudio used to write in directorys that I consider to be mine (and I mean mine. No one - NO ONE - must put any files in my directories without asking me) I want to get it off my system.
5. - My favourite live stream doesn't work anymore (it doesn't even show an "install Flash player" message like it does here. I thought Flash became obsolete with HTML 5 ... ?)

Gregor

Willkommen an Bord!

5 out of your 1000 questions:
1. This LQ forum is the best one to stay in touch with the Slack community, only use English, otherwise you'll maybe get banned :)
2. Thunderbird is provided as standard package in Slackware, you'll only need to import your signatures in GPG and install the Enigmail Addon
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US...ddon/enigmail/
- for other SW that is not provided by Slackware, follow orbea's suggestion, get used with SlackBuilds (you need to compile your SW)
3. Again, this LQ Forum, specifically:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...00/page53.html
&
http://www.slackware.com/security/
4. If sound "doesn't work", check:

Code:

#Check if the system recognized/loaded(drivers) a sound card

/sbin/lsmod | grep snd

cat /proc/asound/cards

#If none, check dmesg together with:

#onboard sound card

/sbin/lspci

#usb external sound card

/usr/bin/lsusb

# and provide / load the drivers



# then

#check if pulseaudio is happy with the sound card

/usr/bin/pulseaudio -D

#check if/what cards are available

/usr/bin/pacmd list-cards

#check what outputs are available

/usr/bin/pacmd list-sinks | grep -e 'name:' -e 'index:'

- getting rid of pulseaudio is not really advisable, but you can try it. Have some inspiration/background:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...-a-4175639762/
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...em-4175636655/
+ search the Forum for other threads

5. That 3sat Mediathek should work fine with Firefox

6. As you come from Debian, I'd like to point out that under Slackware you always need to be root ( su - ) if you're performing administrative tasks, never use sudo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abga (Post 5922580)

... never use sudo.

Why not?

Regards,

Gregor

PS: Unfortunately 3sat is the station that tells me to use Flash :-/

see http://gregor.szaktilla.de/shot.jpg