Hi all, 


I did a quick search but only found quite old threads about that. 


I have about 40 (a bit old laptops)  that were given for a school. 


I would like to have a (as fully as possible)  automated full Slackware64-current with EFI (and with alienbob's plasma but for that I could adapt things myself) install on each using usb thumb drive(s) :

No network config

Same root password 

Same basic user and password 

Same init level (plasma) 


Set timezone  locale, keyboard, X keyboard and kde locale 

Add a few pkg (Libreoffice, vlc, gimp, perhaps a few educational softwares) 


All laptops can boot from USB and have a hdd that I would part with 200M efi partition, 2G swap, 30G / and the remaining space for home. 


I think I can write all the post-install stuff but I am wondering in what direction look for the starting point :

I tested the setup2hd script provided in the plasma version of liveslack (that works well) but would like to avoid launching the live distribution at first. 

I was thinking of using the mini iso installer to point to a custom repo eventually 


As I am at best average user, any help would be appreciated, pointing me in the right direction(s?), giving warnings, suggesting tools or pointing me to parts I'll have to pay attention to. 

Thanks by advance!

One option I use is creating master partition images. Create one system. Configure and tweak everything. That is the master system.

Copy those disk partition images to other system disks. Removable drive bays are useful.

If you are using Slackware then create a bootable USB stick.

With laptops that might mean a lot of dissassembly to pull the hard drives for reimaging. An alternative to avoid that is a Live ISO and a USB-to-SATA adapter. Connect the master image disk to the adapter and boot with the Live ISO. Use gparted to copy the master partition images to the laptop disk. Reboot the Slackware bootable ISO stick. After botting into the laptop reinstall the boot loader.

Keep the master disk to small partition sizes. The gparted copying will be faster, especially with a USB-to-SATA adapter that is limited to USB speeds. After reimaging the master partitions, gparted can be used to increase the size of the final partitions.

Although not using Slackware at work, I use a similar imaging process. I can create new systems in about 15 minutes. We don't use EFI and I don't know how that additional partition would affect the imaging process. If you are using these systems with only one operating system then using EFI is not critical. Just configure the BIOS for legacy mode. I use GPT rather than MSDOS partitions.

Clonezilla Server does multicast cloning over the network.

You say "No network config", but if the laptops have a wired interface, then when preparing an image for cloning I suggest removing the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
It will be automatically generated at boot with a rule for the unique MAC address.

I make up my 'master' until satisfied. Then booting from (almost) anything (other than the master - obviously), making a tarfile of the master system. Carrying the tarfile on an external usb drive, carry it to each machine in turn and just untar the darned thing - or ... it can be done over the network. It means zero problem with different partition sizes. Works for me ...

Well...

There's stuff out there, but almost nothing for Slackware.

FAI is slightly cross distribution (debian/redhat is mentioned), but it might be possible to extend it with Slackware stuff. Nobody's done that, so it would be up to you. https://fai-project.org/features/

There was a Slack-Kickstart project, but it's been quiet since 2006; not sure it is worth looking into. http://www.slack-kickstart.org/