Handling NVMe devices in Slackware : Call for testing.
 

Hi there,

I have modified the Slackware installer (scripts /usr/sbin/probe and /usr/lib/setup/SeTEFI) and /sbin/eliloconfig so that Slackware be able to:

• Install Slackware on an NVMe device's partition
• Install a bootloader in an ESP on a NVMe device
• Install a boot entry for Slackware in the firmware's boot menu in case where the boot image is in an ESP on a NVMe device.

I have made limited testing in a VirtualBox VM but do not own a NVMe device thus this is a call for testers on bare metal.

In that aim I provide a mini-iso here, "mini" meaning that this ISO includes no package, only the installer itself.

To test you need:

• A computer equipped with a NVMe device, with Slackware installed on it or not, set to boot in UEFI mode.
• The ISO written with dd on an USB stick

WARNING: when asked, do *not* accept to format any partition, unless you wan to make a real installation and have at hand a Slackware installation media that you will use as source of packages.

TIP: if you need to partition your NVMe device, before running setup do this:

• type lsblk to know how it is named (probably nvme0n1)
• to format it, type "cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1" for instance. Of course set a GPT partition, not a DOS one.
• Your partitions will be named nvme0n1p<partition number>
• As usual you will need an EFI partition (100M) and a Linux partition. You can also set a swap partition if you want.

TESTING PROCEDURE

• If you really install Slackware, you will need a media (DVD or USB stick or on a network) with the Slackware packages, that you will select when asked at the SOURCE step. Other than that, proceed to the installation as usual.
• Else (Slackware already installed), do not format any existing partition and skip the INSTALL step but perform the CONFIGURE step so that you can check if you are proposed to install elilo on the ESP and a boot entry, and check that succeeds.

QUESTIONS:

• Is your swap partition (if any) on NVMe recognized by the installer?
• Is your Linux partition on NVMe recognized by the installer?
• Is elilo properly installed in the ESP on the NVMe?
• Is the elilo boot entry successfully written in the firmware's boot menu?

I attach to this post the patches used to build the ISO and the patch to eliloconfig.

NOTE You will need to apply the patch to /usr/sbin/eliloconfig in the installed system yourself, *before* performing the CONFIGURE step. To do that:

• Alt+F2 to start another virtual terminal
• cd /mnt/usr/sbin
• either download the patch with wget or get it from another USB stick where you will have stored it, mounted as /floppy. Assuming that you have copied it in /mnt/usr/sbin, do:
  Code:

  ---

  patch -p0 < eliloconfig.diff.txt

  ---

Thanks for reading and in advance for your test reports.

PS Some links about NVMe:
Overview
An explanation, including partitions layout
The current specification

The kernel module:PPS I realize now that the possible devices' list in SeTEFI is probably wrong. But this shouldn't matter if you have only one, in other words for preliminary testing.

Did more reading...
 

More references:

• NVM Express Drives and Digital Forensics. Good presentation including pics of the physical connectors and how to query the devices. Also from the same author (Bruce Nikkel) there is a book: "Practical Forensic Imaging: Securing Digital Evidence with Linux Tools".
• Implementing NVMe Drives on Lenovo Servers brings both a practical presentation of this kind of devices with pictures and the usable Linux command to manage them. Very handy.
• Intel® Rapid Storage Technology enterprise for NVMe Drives in Linux OS is not a must read but presents examples of the mdadm command for NVMe devices.

Let's borrow an explanation to Bruce Nikkel:
So, what?

In nvme0n1, nvme is the type of device, 0 is the volume number (if you have three devices they will be named nvme0n1, nvme1n1 and nvme 2n1) and 1 the namespace number. If the first controller had several namespaces we could see n2, n3 etc. instead of n1. But as says also Bruce : Namespaces are mentioned in the current specification under 6.1 Namespaces, page 143.

So I will modify at least SetEFI to handle at most 10 NVMe SSDs, but with only one namespace as that should be enough for now, build another ISO with that and post again here when that will be ready to grab.

I will also try to build nvme-cli and use it in a VM.

Stay tuned (if you want).

PS I think that my modified eliloconfig was wrong too. Will re-check.

If at first you don't succeed...
 

To make a long story short, you will find here:

• A new ISO image (only the modified installer)
• The fixed patches in patches/
• A nvme-cli package, and its source in nvme-cli/

I now understand that a controller can have as many namespaces as storage units attached to it.

So, I modified SeTEFI to be able to handle at most 10 controllers, each with at most 4 storage units attached.

I have also modified /sbin/probe to avoid duplicate entries in $TMP/SeTfdisk

I have also modified eliloconfig to fix the nvme partitions' names length including /dev/ (14 characters).

Everything should work now as expected. That is the case in a VM at least, see attached pics.

PS Feedback for testing on bare metal is of course still welcome. Be careful with the "nvme" command. Read the man pages: begin with typing just "nvme" as root then "nvme help <argument>". They are also provided as html pages. Just type <your preferred browser> /usr/doc/nvme-cli-1.1/nvme.html to read them.

No answer... Nevertheless I applied these patches to Slint and will let them in the same place for a while in case Patrick wants to apply them to Slackware current.

Hello Didier
I am currently looking at a new system, NVM would be included. It will probably be a while until I get it put together. However your work is appreciated and when the hardware is available to me I will definitely test your work on bare metal.
Thanks
John

An Update
 

Purchased a Plextor 512GB PCIe NVMe memory board
Newegg product description 512GB | PLEXTOR PX-512M8PEY RTL
P/N:3C07140090
S/N P0265110157

power on with the Plextor inserted in the
PCIe express 3.0 x 16 slot on the motherboard
which is an ASRock Z77 Extreme 4

ASROCK UEFI SETUP UTILITY
shows
at this point I attempet to boot from the NVMe and got a screen of 99's
(expected this of course as the nvme board was unitialized)

booted my full slackware64-14.2 using 4.10.1 kernel

dmesg
[code [ 4.451869] nvme nvme0: pci function 0000:01:00.0 [/code]

tryed fdisk -l
...the nvme part...
tryed
tryed
Sorry for the tease, but that is all I have time for right know.
Next I will try your fake installer to see if it sees the NVMe board.
From the above I think the standard UEFI installer will see it.
We shall see
john

PS on the box
">Supports Operating System
Windows OS / Linux OS @ PC Platform
"

Thanks for the follow up John.

You could also try a Slint64-14.2 ISO that includes a modified installer.

Oh, and for your information: now cfdisk (and also fdisk I assume) can handle GUID partition tables (GPT) as do cgdisk/gdisk.

PS Looking at your output I could be wrong about fdisk. But no issue with cfdisk and GPT.

Hi Didier
didn't use a swap on the NVMe
Linux partition was recognized
elilo was installed (not sure how properly)
firmware's boot memory got all screwed up!

firstly installing an NVMe board changed the UEFI memory map it became FS0
FS0 was previously /dev/sda
FS1 was previously /dev/sdb
everything was shifted up one, took a while for me to figure that out

I took the leap and used your installer to install slack from a hard drive partition. It appeared to install correctly including the efi partition, however it would not boot. Nothing would boot took me all afternoon to get things straightened out had to restore things using efibootmgr and Shellx64.efi. The recovered system sees the NVMe board and can read and write fine. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve to try yet but that is all the time I have for now.
Please provide any suggestions or additional tests you would like me to try.
John

Some Better News
 

I did another install and tried to install lilo no good it did not install.
The third time is the charm sort of. On the third install using your fakeDVD and a partition for the Slackware goodies. I did not install lilo or elilo but choose to make a boot stick. Surprise surprise my system will UEFI boot from a boot stick to an NVMe installed Slackware64-14.2.
You are definitely on the right path Didier, probably setting your efibootmgr in the installer to use a different name beside slackware would keep it from overwriting the working UEFI nvm ram entries or shifting them around.
Thanks
John

Off to Church for now.

More Good News
 

I am able to boot the nvme partition by adding the last stanza to my Slackware elilo.conf located on /dev/sda1.
So as I see it efibootmgr should write a new UEFI entry for the nvme without over writing the Slackware entry or shifting the other entries. I think it just needs to have a different label perhaps "-L NVMe" for testing purposes or even ask user for the label.
just my 2 cents
Thanks
John

PS: I used to think my ssd was fast. The NVMe makes it seem like a floppy LOL!

I am glad you can use your NVMe device.

To better understand your situation (as I infer from your last post that you have at least five systems on three mass storage devices), please give the output of this commandAnd tell what is the usage of all the listed partitions

Hopefully this will help me give you a sound advice and/or ask relevant questions.

Attached your two requested items.
Always something new to learn
Glad to help/test anything.
Fixing my mistakes is what makes life fun.
John

Accept My Apologies Please
 

YOU MAY KINDLY DISREGARD ALL MY PREVIOUS COMMUNICATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT

I get very excited when I get a new piece of hardware to play with, now that things have settled down here in the shack I can state

EVERYTHING WORKED AS YOU INDICATED

Seems I did not read your first post very carefully and missed the eliloconfig patch. This time after the install was complete and before rebooting I applied the eliloconfig.diff and ran eliloconfig. One additional (and very important) adjustment to /usr/sbin/eliloconfig I did an edit to change "-L Slackware" to "-L nvme". This prevented eliloconfig from over writing my Slackware entry in the UEFI NVRAM. I now have both my Slackware entry and a nvme entry the latter boots into the Plextor memory card.

The answer to all four of your questions is a resounding YES

Again Sorrowfully Yours
John
PS hope I did not cause you too much trouble

No Apologies Needed
 

I am glad it worked and truly thankful that you took the time to test on bare metal and report the outcome.

No sorrow: be happy and have fun!

Cheers,

Changing the label(-L) is not doing what you think it is. efibootmgr, called by elilconfig, doesn't overwrite UEFI NVRAM entries, but rather creates a new one. You can have multiple entries with the same labels each pointing to a different ESP bootloader or even the same one. All you would get is a list of menu entries with the same label when you invoke the UEFI firmware boot screen. Here an example of having NVRAM boot entries with the same lablel
Booth Boot0004 and Boot005 have the same label, Salix, with one pointing to a boot loader for Slint and the other to Salix. So the real problem is when eliloconfig creates the Slackware directory on the ESP (EFI/Slackware) and copies the kernel, initrd and bootloader to it. If there is already a Slackware directory on the ESP, then it will be overwritten, but I do believe the installer warns about this.

Yes you are correct the installer does warn, However in my case on the first attempt I ignored the warning and allowed the Slackware entry to be over written it did not create a second Slackware entry but completely hosed the Slackware UEFI entry which could no longer boot. I was only able to recover by using the boot manager to use an entry on a second drive.
I hope that more clearly explains my issue and my solution. It is a simple change I used for successful testing as requested.

[EDIT]
I admit I am not the best splainer in the hood,
and I don't want to cause anyone unnecessary woe.
I am sure when I pressed F11 to bring up my boot manager screen
There was only one 'Slackware' and it would not boot
[/EDIT]
[EDIT] Last edit I promise. Just to satisfy my own curiosity I erased the nvme board and restarted from scratch. Booted with the 'fakeInstaller' iso and installed slackware64-14.2 from a HD partition. I could not install lilo (that is a lilo problem). Made a boot stick which works. The patched eliloconfig worked flawlessly. It erased the current Slackware UEFI entry and added a new Slackware UEFI entry which works.
As far as my system is concerned Didier's patches are ready for prime time.[/EDIT]
John

Hi Didier,

I had the pleasure to try your patches today on a 5th gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

First, I installed Slackware 14.2 using the stock usbboot.img, wondering why
it suggested not to install LILO and then never offered to install ELILO. Then
I found this thead, booted using your ISO, ran configure which now mounted
the EFI System Partition and installed ELILO onto it.

Like John, I managed to forget patching eliloconfig, so there was a third
round through configure to have the boot entry installed in the firmware.

Both swap and Linux partitions were recognized on NVMe even with stock image.
ELILO seemed to be properly installed with your image even with missing patch.
ELILO boot entry was only written to firmeware after applying eliloconfig.diff

Cheers!

Hi Didier,

Maybe a bit of a late reply, and maybe not of much use (anymore), but I tested your eliloconfig.diff successfully on my new Thinkpak T470p. Lilo installs on the ESP and a boot entry is added to the firmware.

Unfortunately, I did not get to test the swap partition and Linux partition detection: Hardware support issues, unrelated to this topic, made me decide to (temporarily) switch to Arch Linux.

cheers!

Hi Stmlpjmpr and welcome to this forum.

Thanks for your reply, still helpful as a confirmation even with the patches now applied in Slackware-current, thanks Pat.

This leads me to mark this thread as [SOLVED].

Maybe you could tell us a little more about your hardware support issues, so that we can check that they be addressed at least in next Slackware release.

Hi Didier,

Glad I could help.

Off topic:
My hardware problem: The SW 4.4 kernel somehow was unable to detect my ethernet adapter (Intel i219-V) properly. This surprised me, as this device is in use for a while now. lspci did output something, but I remember it was very brief.

I tried several kernels, also non-Slackware such as systemrescuecd. With the latest systemrescuecd (5.0.0, date 2017-04-23, kernel 4.9.24) it worked, as well as with Arch kernel 4.10.13-1. lspci Was more verbose here. In contrast, an old systemrescuecd I had made earlier in January 2017 was unable to properly detect and load the e1000e-driver.

For now, I use Arch for a while to more easily familiarise with the hardware. In case I happen to find out more, I'll get back to you.

cheers!

I ended up just moving my /dev/sda1 'boot' partition (EFI/ESP) to my NVME and rewrote my EFI boot loader entry via 'efibootmgr' ... I found this process to be easier given my configuration, but I wholly support your work here and I'd like to say thank you for tackling this project, and I'm very excited for this to be patched into -current and eventually Stable.

For any interested, moving your EFI partition from one drive to another is very easy.

edit your fstab for your /boot/efi entry to point to your nvme (nvme0n1p1 in my case) ... I literally just changed the line from and left the rest.
Replace your EFI boot entry with 'efibootmgr' .. I used I removed my old EFI boot entry via where '0000' is the value of your entry ID (0000,0001, or 0002, etc)

and that's it. I can now completely wipe/remove my /dev/sda SSD and just use my NVME

What about your elilo.conf file. I believe you must also edit your default boot in that file?
John

At least in my case, I've always kept my initrd.gz file in /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/initrd.gz, instead of just /boot. For elilo.conf, I use since they're both in the same directory (/boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/ initrd.gz and elilo.conf) and I needed to make zero modifications.

Cheers!

I will add that elilo can only "see" files in the same EFI system partition (ESP) as the EFI image. This is why eliloconfig copies the kernel and case occurring the initrd from /boot to the ESP instead of just linking to them in the config file. The same limitation applies to elilo.conf.

Instead GRUB can have its files in different partitions, at the expense of an increased complexity as that needs modules to handle all file systems used to store the files, while elilo can only handle a FAT filesystem.

I use elilo.conf to support multiple kernels and multiple root=/dev. That's why I assumed you would need to edit.
ie bzImage-4.11.0 and bzImage-4.4.14 or bzImage-4.9.6 etc.
This is my current elilo.conf on my NVME device (I use multiple bootable devices)
I guess I'm very old school
John

You're still correct. I do need to edit my elilo.conf, just not due to the fact that I'm moving it from /dev/sda1 to /dev/nvme0n1p1 ... I do however use the generic vmlinuz since I tend to stay on the supported kernel now that all my hardware is supported. So, I guess my need is a little less, but yes, you are right.

Also, I find compiling a new kernel in LUKS tends to break stuff, but I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. :-)

Thanks for your work on this. I've installed -current twice on the same nvme equipped machine recently. The first time around was a very manual process, but with your patches included in the latest -current it just worked.

It would be great to have the nvme-cli included as a package, and also in the installer initrd. I will ask in the "Requests for Current" thread.

Hello guys, thank you for your efforts, I got a P51 Lenovo with NVMe device, I'm going to try it on Monday, could the above fix my problem that the Ubuntu install works but the slackware isn't?

See this thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...me-4175609849/

Cheers,

I used Didier's boot cd and followed his instructions to install Slackware64-14.2. After a small hicup everything installed fine. I am now on Slackware64-14.2 with 12.2 huge kernel (self-compiled). All works fine since my install
John

Thanks, fingers crossed...

IT would be easier to have a release date for the next slackware so it's just built in :-)

Didier,

I realize I'm late to need, but I wanted to thank you for putting together this method for installing Slackware 14.2 to an NVMe device. I followed the steps you outlined in the first post in this thread and now have a machine running Slackware 14.2 on a Plextor NVMe (the only drive in the machine). Went very smoothly!

Thanks!
Lumpy

You don't need to patch eliloconfig anymore
 

The new ISO fake_slackware64-14.2-4.iso in the directory: http://slint.fr/forSlackware/NVMe includes a modified installer shipping the patch for eliloconfig, applied by the slackinstall script at end of packages' installation. I just had to slightly modify the build script.

So now, you can just follow these instructions:

• download the file fake_slackware64-14.2-4.iso
• check its integrity with fake_slackware64-14.2-4.iso.md5
• write it on an USB stick
• have at hand a genuine Slackware installation media
• insert the USB stick then reboot and begin the installation as usual
• at the SOURCE step, choose the Slackware installation media
• proceed to the rest of installation, including the CONFIGURE step, as you would do with a genuine Slackware

Sorry it didn't come to my small mind to do that sooner.

EDIT 21 August 2017, 22h00 UTC+2: uploading a new ISO (build #4) the previous failed to patch eliloconfig.

Easier is better--thanks!

Best,
Lumpy

Didier,

Thanks for this; I installed current (kernnel 4.9.44) on a Samsung SM961 M.2, NVMe card and both install and elilo-config worked as a dream; never got the windows test install so quickly replaced on a drive ;-)

rob

Didier,

just to let you know that I used your latest image to install Slackware64 14.2 on a ThinkPad X1 6th generation (with a Samsung 1Tb NVMe drive). It went smoothly as I pointed it to another USB with the full Slackware installation files (incredibly this ultrabook has 2 USB3 slots). The part that was more complicated for me was dealing with UEFI, as this is the first time I have installed anything not using MBR, but I still managed to do this without errors. I also used luks+lvm and encrypted root and swap together (as explained in README_CRYPT.TXT). All is working well.

Thank you!

Impossible to boot on NVME partition
 

Hi Didier

I have a new laptop with NVME partitions

To install the Slackware 14.2 I have followed your instructions

-Download and verify fake_slackware64-14.2-4.iso
- Put it on an USB stick
- Boot my laptop with this USB stick
- Give the source with another USB stick
- Installation finished without asking me to use Elilo ?

I have made an initrd using mkinitrd in the newly installed system and put the initrd.gz in /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware

Reboot on this EFI partition

Elilo starts reads initrd.gz and vmlinuz-huge : start of the Slack boot list

Just after starting eudevd , stop with an error message

mount /dev/nvme... on /mnt : No such file or directory

Seems that I have forgooten to do something ?

Didier Courtaud

This looks really weird as during startup there should be no reason to mount anything on /mnt automatically.

To investigate further please do this:

• Run the fake installer again up to logging in as "root" but do not run setup.
• To check which is the partition for / of the installed system type:
  Code:

  ---

  lsblk -l -o model,name,type,size,fstype

  ---

• Mount this partition as /mnt
• Mount the EFI partition as /floppy
• Provide the output of:
  Code:

  ---

  cat /mnt/etc/fstab

  ---

• Provide the output of:
  Code:

  ---

  ls -l /floppy/EFI/Slackware

  ---

• Provide the output of code
  Code:

  ---

  cat /floppy/EFI/Slackware/elilo.conf

  ---

To save some typing you could plug-in an USB stick with a FAT formatted partition, check how it is named typing again the lsblk command above, make a mount point for it like this "mkdir /stick", mount the FAT partition of the stick as /stick.

Then you can redirect all commands above to files in /stick and just type: to copy the file elilo.conf on the stick.

Everything seems clear ?

I have thought about two possible explanations :

1- It does not work with reiserfs partitions ?

2- As I have made a in the shell after the Slackware installation to make my inird file , maybe the initrd file remembers the /mnt location ?

In any case thanks for your help !

Yes but, in this requested command:you omitted the size.
I don't know, however I recommend using a "mainstream" file system, well supported. I had never had an issue with ext4 and the gain in performance using another one will probably be unnoticeable, especially on a NVMe device.

Maybe. I recommend installing with the huge kernel, then start the new system and only then make an initrd.

Oh and there is no benefit in having in having separate partitions for /var and /usr in a desktop. I don't even have one for /home and encounter no issue: actually all my systems have just one partition: /

Some people think that having a separate partition for /home helps in case of upgrade but I strongly disagree: the content of /home can be backed up then restored after upgrade, ant it is inadvisable to keep all hidden files and directories as is after upgrade. You are better off saving and restoring only case by case the ones that should not be modified.

In any case, the more you cut your space on a mass storage device in slices, the sooner you will have a partition filled up. You can still set LVM, but why complicate things?

tl;dr: install anew with the huge kernel, ext4 and only one / partition (also /home if you insist, but again I don't see the usefulness of that).

When this will be done, come back to get some advice about installing the generic kernel and an initrd, while setting elilo.conf to keep two boot entries just in case: one for the huge kernel, one for the generic one with an initrd).

[

Maybe. I recommend installing with the huge kernel, then start the new system and only then make an initrd.

Didier, that is just what I want to do : start the huge kernel but without an initrd, it is impossible !

With elilo.efi wmlinuz-huge and the elilo.conf I showed you in /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware and the UEFI in BIOS pointed to that .efi file , the laptop does not show anything and refuses to boot

Finally I have succeded to boot my Dell Latitude 5490 on Slack !!!!

I have to switch the laptop to AHCI as described here :

http://triplescomputers.com/blog/unc...hci-operation/

and then with only the kernel and elilo.efi in /boot/efi/EFI/Slacware it boots normally !

Thanks to Dell to make me spend a week before succedding :

- Decrypt the root partition in order to shrink the Windows Partition
- Obliged to use UEFI to boot the Slack
- Turn the laptop from RAID IDE to AHCI

All this stuff to forbid the installation of Linux on this laptop !

DC

Must admit, your fake_slackware works a treat, UEFI/LVM on NVME worked first time. thanks for the image

Will fake_slackware64-14.2-4.iso also work with non-NVMe computers? The reason I'm asking is that I'm starting a new job next week and don't know what laptop will I have (should have asked) and of course I want to put Slackware on it. And I think that the answer for this question is yes - it will work because I've just tried it in VirtualBox that doesn't expose any /dev/nvme devices and it's ok but just want to make sure.

It should work fine, but unless your company is getting you a 3 year old laptop, you'd probably want to run -current since semi-recent hardware support in 14.2 will probably be lacking. The fix for NVMe drives has been in -current for many years and you won't need the fake_slackware64-14.2-4.iso.

Or install Slint64-14.2.1.2, that ships a 4.19 kernel and speaks Polish during installation ;)

They told me they are going to buy a new laptop. I thought that when it comes to hardware support kernel is the most important part of an OS with only several pieces of software that should be present in the userland and bootloaders. I have created my custom ISO with all packages upgraded to their newest versions what means I will use Linux 4.4.190 that was released in August https://lwn.net/Articles/797253. Can you give me some examples of hardware that is not supported by Slackware 14.2?

Thanks, but even though I'm not a native English speaker I prefer when my computer speaks to me in English, it just sounds natural.

Any hardware support added to kernels after the 4.4 series are not backported to older kernels. Backporting only happens with security/bug fixes. So, the 4.4.190 kernel should have all the major fixes to ensure it is a relatively secure and bug-free kernel, but no new hardware support has been added since it was released in early 2016.

This will also mean that video acceleration may not work out of the box and it might rely on basic vesa style drivers. This could prevent compositing in your WM/DE and prevent GPU assisted video decoding.

You can add support for most hardware by upgrading the kernel to a more modern version (4.19.x is currently the newest LTS and 5.3.x is the latest stable, and 5.4, which is expected to be the next LTS is currently in RC status), however, video support will likely be handicapped by the mesa and Xorg versions in 14.2.

Success! I have installed Slackware on my work ThinkPad E480 laptop today but it wasn't as straightforward as I thought it would be.

First, I had to disable secure boot because Slackware installation USB stick wasn't shown in boot menu at all. Second, big thanks to Didier Spaier for creating fake_slackware64-14.2-4.iso because I wouldn't to able to install Slackware without that at all as 256GB SSD PCIe NVMe is the only disk that this laptop has. Installation was quite smooth, it just took me some time to realize that I have to do instead of Third, X failed to start after installation. I used slackpkg to upgrade to -current but had to copy new vmlinuz manually to /boot/EFI/... so that elilo would pick it up. After reboot I was able to start X. The conclusion is that Slackware 14.2 is getting old.

*EDIT*: what's weird Wi-Fi worked out of the box.

That's good to hear! And wifi hasn't changed a ton over the last few years unless you have something supporting 802.11ax, which very few devices support at this point. So it isn't too surprising that wifi works fine.

In the future, you can download Eric's slackware64-current ISOs to prevent you from needing to install the stable version and then take the extra time to upgrade to -current via slackpkg.

@bassmadrigal Thank you for the hints, do you mean Slackware -Current support NVMe now?