[SOLVED] The easiest system to break: SLACK

Originally Posted by enorbet Ideally, in my view, he needs to learn from this experience to improve his current lack of skills. This is either a helpful community or it's not.

Clueless end user here, I've done the 'uncomment the wrong line in slackpkg/mirrors and accidently downgrade which then breaks the install' thing myself. The difference is that I knew enough to find how to proceed (I worked out it would be quickest to back up the dot files and reinstall)

When Slackware 15 is released, there will be some publicity and there will be (I hope - every crowd has a silver lining) a lot of people trying Slackware out and coming here for help.

There is time to think how to respond? As a straw man to attack, how about

1) Try live image to see if you like slackware and to see how it is administered

2) Point at https://docs.slackware.com/ especially the slackpkg bits

3) Point to instructions for booting off install media and chroot into their installation

4) Point to instructions for installing slackbuilds (various alternatives...)

Originally Posted by keithpeter Clueless end user here, I've done the 'uncomment the wrong line in slackpkg/mirrors and accidently downgrade which then breaks the install' thing myself. The difference is that I knew enough to find how to proceed (I worked out it would be quickest to back up the dot files and reinstall) When Slackware 15 is released, there will be some publicity and there will be (I hope - every crowd has a silver lining) a lot of people trying Slackware out and coming here for help. There is time to think how to respond? As a straw man to attack, how about 1) Try live image to see if you like slackware and to see how it is administered 2) Point at https://docs.slackware.com/ especially the slackpkg bits 3) Point to instructions for booting off install media and chroot into their installation 4) Point to instructions for installing slackbuilds (various alternatives...)

Yea, when someone comes in and says, "Hey, I just hosed my system what can I do?" I'm sure that more people will be more than willing to help out. But when someone comes in and starts ranting about how something screwed up 'and it's not my fault' then proceeds to not give any details about what happened or what they did or what version they installed, etc, etc, you are not going to get any help. And then it will likely turn into a thread like this one.

It's all about the approach.

Originally Posted by lakis70 for beginners i recommend puppylinux slacko with full installation on hard disk

Sensible answer. That would give the new user more insight into running Slackware than starting with any other so-called beginner distro.

Originally Posted by Skaendo Yea, when someone comes in and says, "Hey, I just hosed my system what can I do?" I'm sure that more people will be more than willing to help out. But when someone comes in and starts ranting about how something screwed up 'and it's not my fault' then proceeds to not give any details about what happened or what they did or what version they installed, etc, etc, you are not going to get any help. And then it will likely turn into a thread like this one. It's all about the approach.

Yup! Polite would be ideal... but then this is the real world. Some people have yet to learn that basic skill, are fraught with insecurities, etc etc etc etc. Rather than lash out at such folks (often the very young) my view is one of diplomacy. Inform them of their lapse in judgment and offer a possible solution, even if all that is initially is a request for more information. It's just way too easy to fall for triggers on the Webz.

Originally Posted by enorbet Yo latimro (OP) if you broke your system and got a kernel panic that very likely means you didn't keep your older, working kernel as a failsafe. I actually don't mean to offend you but that is why you look like a newb. That's just a common rank beginner mistake. Always Protect Your Six!

sounds like the reason that i am on a windows latop rather than a slack laptop now. did an upgrade last night, forgot to save the kernel as a fallback, and now, nothing when it tries to boot. time to save the data and install 15 i guess. i was gonna do that anyway soon, just not today, maybe this weekend.

edit: or i could just run the six commands i needed with the install disk like i did to get it back. time to save everything and do the upgrade to 15.

Just FTR sfzombie13, I see no shame in being a newb since really we are all newbs at something or we have stopped growing and nobody knows it all. In reality it is something to be proud of because it means we are "stretching" taking on a learning curve. From my POV the only possible shame is from choosing to run Windows (joke... I know some have to for work, at least for now).

BTW there are several ways to protect yourself re: kernels. Employing UEFI boot can do that but one surefire way is to name your desired default kernel something that will never be overwritten, better still... copy and rename the copy so you have two. As long as you specify "image = /boot/vmlinuz-foo" in whatever bootloader you prefer, you will always have a working fallback.

Perhaps I've grown OCD about it but back when I used MBR boot with LILO I always installed a 2nd system and installed LILO to the root partition for that install and made it an option off the Main MBR install. Just about any bootloader, even oddballs like PLOP and others on numerous recovery disks, can easily boot that with just one click or command. CHROOT is our friend for sure but it is possible to recover with fewer commands with such a fallback entry and immutable vmlinuz-foo.

You may already know all this but some others may not so Compone Accomoda Supera

Most of us have probably lashed out in frustration from time to time. It happens, some learn from it, some don't. He's not wrong on the face of it though - slackware definitely is one of the easiest to mess up just by invoking typical and expected commands, easiest to fix though. I rarely check the ChangeLog and sometimes the correct documentation isn't very obvious and 'google' finds a lot of out of date stuff (in general for technical questions these days). Honestly just getting it installed the point of being able to start an upgrade isn't a bad achievement, i'd be pretty pissed off if the next step in the installation guide I was following hosed my system too. I think the first couple of times i installed slackware i forgot to install a kernel but there was nobody but the buddy I was with at the time to hear my anguish.

No operating system is completely newbie-proof. Even Apple has technical support for MacOS and they wouldn't have it if they didn't need it. The installation or upgrade error boxes you get on MacOS or Microsoft Windows are usually far more opaque and undecipherable than any gnu/linux ('operation failed' is about as good as it gets), and for microsoft windows the install 'experience' on an empty machine is complete pants.

At least with gnu/linux and modern internet it isn't hard to just download another distro and try again - no licensing junk, no accounts or money, and it doesn't take days like it used to over dialup/getting it at uni/waiting for a cdrom to arrive. Newbies should break shit and learn from it anyway, and one of the first things you'll learn is not to do it on a 'production' system. Today there are so many other great options too, live boot images are easy enough to play with (you can also just install a normal distro to a usb drive if you really want to) and virtual machines are also trivial to use as test-beds and learning platforms.

I presume the kernel panic is a missing initrd or incorrect root parameter, the former is pretty easy to mess up particularly since most of the documentation and tools don't validate the bootloader you're using and either present multiple (very confusing) or the wrong one (even worse) as options.

Originally Posted by lattimro Hey, this is the easiest system to break, I had lots of distributions but never had such delightful experience. If you are just install a dependency or make an upgrade... boom kernel panic. Awesome!

"There are 2 kinds of administrators, those who have already made a
bullshit under root and those who will soon do one"

Done for you ^^"

Originally Posted by lakis70 for beginners i recommend puppylinux slacko with full installation on hard disk

Puppy Linux is a toy at best and Slacko is so far out of date you can hear an echo.

For a long time I would just format and reload Slackware when I broke it and didn't know what to do to fix it. It got easier to install over time and eventually could to it from memory. Don't have many problems these days and those that do crop up I can figure out for the most part

Originally Posted by Gordie Puppy Linux is a toy at best and Slacko is so far out of date you can hear an echo.

Compatible with 14.2.
https://puppylinux.com/
If you're recommending new users start with something "easier" than Slackware, then at least Slacko bears more resemblance to Slackware than the *buntus, Mint, PCLinuxOS, etc,etc, etc...
If you want to use Slackware, start with it. It's not quantum physics.

I would have to say that there are plenty of opportunities to shoot yourself in the foot, with Slackware. That's because it's meant to not get in the way, when people do want to go outside the box. Want to install conflicting packages? Wrong repos with slackpkg and friends? No questions asked. Want to remove glibc? Pull the trigger.

Want to have a mix of distro packages and "make install"ed system libraries? Not recommended unless you know what you're doing, but OK... your package management system won't fight you.

Good. I don't like it when a system works against me.

I also use Manjaro for gaming, but I have to slap that silly to have things my way.

P.S. I do mean to say, if you stick to recommended Slackware practices, once you get to know the drill, you are unlikely to break Slackware.