LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Handling NVMe devices in Slackware : Call for testing.

- Slackware (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/)

- - Handling NVMe devices in Slackware : Call for testing. (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/handling-nvme-devices-in-slackware-call-for-testing-4175597516/)

Quote:

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal (Post 6048976)

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.

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?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Didier Spaier (Post 6048990)

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

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by average_user (Post 6049010)

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

Code:

cgdisk /dev/nvme0

instead of

Code:

cgdisk /dev/sda

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?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzi (Post 6052156)

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

Have a look in changelog... :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzi (Post 6052156)

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

Yes, it has since May of 2017. Here's the relevant portion of that changelog entry.

Code:

+--------------------------+

 Thu May 4 22:14:08 UTC 2017

 a/elilo-3.16-x86_64-3.txz: Rebuilt.

        Patched eliloconfig to properly handle NVMe devices.

        Thanks to Didier Spaier.

 isolinux/initrd.img: Rebuilt.

        Patched SeTEFI and probe to fix NVMe device handling.

        Thanks to Didier Spaier.

 usb-and-pxe-installers/usbboot.img: Rebuilt.

        Patched SeTEFI and probe to fix NVMe device handling.

        Thanks to Didier Spaier.

 +--------------------------+

I opened the log, did a "Find on this page" and decided not to ruin his pleasue! :D

I do however get four hits...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jan K. (Post 6052329)

I do however get four hits...

The fourth is for patching lilo to allow usage of NVMe devices. Before that, using NVMe devices on Slackware would still work fine on grub or elilo, but if you still used legacy booting, someone may try and use lilo and then the NVMe device wouldn't show. This was a limitation of lilo, where the previous fix (the one I posted) was a limitation of the Slackware installer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jan K. (Post 6052329)

I opened the log, did a "Find on this page" and decided not to ruin his pleasure.

That’s why I love Slackware so much, so many nice and interesting people here.

Thank you @bassmadrigal