Hi Exaga,

I have been a user of SARPi for some years, and I recently tried SARPi64 too.
Now that I have a number of 64-bit capable Raspberry PI devices, I have noticed that there is no true 64-bit Slackware-based OS around for them.
Yes, I noticed SARPi64, but there only the kernel is 64-bit enabled, while the userland remains only 32-bit.

I have asked around a bit at Slackware ARM, and I got the answer that they have no plans to add 64-bit support for their distribution.
I also learned about Slarm64, which is an Aarch64 port of Slackware/Slackware ARM, however it doesn't have an installer for Raspberry PI 3 and 4.

I even tried using the SARPi installer and tried installing the packages Slarm64, plus the SARPi64 kernel, but the SARPi installer failed to install the Slarm64 packages in the first place, so that experiment was deemed a failure.

Slarm64 however does have a collection of installer image build scripts ( https://gitlab.com/sndwvs/images_build_kit ) for a host of 64-bit ARM devices, but these are mostly RockChip-based.
sndwvs AKA mara is the sole maintainer of that project I believe.

My question would be the following:
Would you be ready to share your SARPi installer image generation script(s) somewhere, if you haven't already? It is possible that it's already out there, but I haven't seen any trace of it so far. If it's not, would you be ready to make your work public somewhere, and maybe with time others may contribute to it too.
Maybe it could be adapted and integrated to sndwvs' image build kit, so that one could use it to generate an all 64-bit installer for Raspberry PI 3 and 4, that would install Slarm64 packages to have an all 64-bit Slackware-based OS on the PIs (which support it) as an end result.

mara doesn't have any RPis to conduct any testing, and that's where your script would come in handy. Once the adapted version of it would work to a degree to be usable as part of images_build_kit, I would be ready to conduct the testing and straingten out any loose edges, and such.

So would you be ready to share your work on the SARPi installer and the 64-bit kernel packages?

Thanks in advance!

János

Hi János,

The question of whether I would consider making the SARPi build scripts available has arisen on quite a few occasions. The answer has always been a decisive "No" and hasn't changed. This is why you haven't seen a trace of these scripts out there in the public domain. The SARPi build scripts were originally based on Dave Spencer's work from http://www.daves-collective.co.uk/raspi - freely available to download and modify, which is what we initially did with the fledgling SARPi project in October 2012. If you are wanting to do something similar then there really is no better place to begin than Dave's Collective. It's the "Mecca" of Slackware ARM on a Raspberry Pi.

Another major consideration is that I can trust myself with sticking to what I know is the right thing to do with SARPi for the right reason(s). Other people might have great ideas and suppose that they're worth including too. That may or may not work out according to the Slackware developer's plans. Over the years I've seen half a dozen unofficial efforts of Slackware ARM releases of varying questionable legitimacy. One of of which was quite laughable. I'd hate to be responsible for (in)directly allowing that to happen or for allowing my work to be used as a basis towards that end.

Incidentally, the SARPi build process can be carried out without any build scripts but would involve an enormous amount of typing in commands and executing them. All the scripts do is carry out these commands in an automated and sustained orderly process.

The question of an official Slackware ARM64 version has also been frequently asked. I've harked on about it to MoZes for years but the truth is he doesn't have a need to build or run a 64-bit port of Slackware ARM. So if MoZes were to spend time developing it he'd only be doing it for other people. On that basis I could not agree more with him, as one who has wasted much time towards the requirements of individuals with SARPi. I've thought about it a lot recently and I guess the only way it's going to be done, and done properly, is if I repeatedly kept bugging the hell out of Stuart - to find out how to put an ARM-based OS together - and spending the rest of my days bugging him while building it - and then maintaining it. Not something I'm jumping at the opportunity to do, by the way! I probably don't have enough years left in me to fulfill that endeavour adequately.

On slarm64 - I've never installed or used it. From what I've read it's still a work in progress and I wouldn't have much interest in using it until it is complete, or thereabouts. SARPi is designed specifically to install Slackware ARM and I'm not sure how it would perform or if indeed it could be adapted and integrated to sndwvs' image build kit for slarm64. Much time in investigation and discussion would be required to even formulate an answer to your question regarding this probability.

I've always stated that I'd be willing to share the SARPi build scripts when MoZes posts a YouTube video of himself wearing a florescent pink tutu (a female ballet dancer's costume consisting of a bodice and an attached skirt, incorporating numerous layers of fabric) whilst singing Rick Astley's song "Never gonna give you up" (NB: and NOT miming!) I'm willing to continue to hold myself to that promise until it becomes a reality. At which time I'll move the goalposts to something a lot more improbable.

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Most of the outgoing links on daves armedslack and the ftp site are incorrect. What you are looking for are the slackbuilds. The work he did is backed up here: https://github.com/idlemoor/raspi-slackbuild/

You can modernize those scripts pretty easily and just build the latest kernel (or whichever version you want).

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There's also https://gitlab.com/users/idlemoor/projects which users might find useful. Most of Dave's work is very interesting indeed.

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Thank you for the helpful hints.
I am now working with sndwvs to put the puzzle together.

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I added aarch64 support to the Slackware installer a while ago (it was just -O2 compiler flags I think!) so you should be able to build the installer image from within the 64bit OS.

Hi Stuart,

Could you please point me to the place where the installer's sources are at? I tried looking at http://ftp.arm.slackware.com/slackwarearm/ but couldn't find them at first glance.
Thanks!

It uses the slackware64-current/source/installer and has a wrapper script to insert the Kernel modules, then creates a cpio archive and the U-Boot version.
The wrapper script isn't published but there's not much to it.

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Since the topic has been posted, Mara/sndwvs and I have worked together, and Mara updated images_build_kit to include support for building Slarm64 images for both Raspberry Pi 3 and 4. So there finally is a fully 64-bit Slackware derivative that one can install and use on the Pi 3 and 4.

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