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Slackware Demystified

Vincent Batts

@vbatts

Southeast Linux Fest

June 11, 2011

What to talk about ?

Smidgens
Philosophy
Services
Configurations
Packages
Kernels
Community

Smidgens

First, Some Thanks!

To All Yall

slackware linux

volkerdi
& rest of the team
(alienBob, rworkman, Alan_Hicks, fred,
PiterPunk, alphageek,
mrgoblin, Mozes, karlmag)

<3

Trivia:

Why was there a pi Release Candidate?

(for 13.37)

Trivia:

Who is the guy smoking the pipe?

Who has run

Slackware Linux?

slackware linux

it is old
it is stable
it is cultist
(not really) :)

$ whoami
vbatts

Shade tree Linux Nerd
Slackware Crew
since summer of 2009
Primary distractions are Ruby and KDE

Day Job

We are hiring!
akamai.com/careers

akamai

Contact

vbatts@
slackware.com
hashbangbash.com
akamai.com

Philosophy

Keep It Simple

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Lack of "here, let me help you with that"

and no magic

Stick with Upstream

./configure && make && make install

essentially

Shell

startup scripts
package management
(no magic)

Learning to Learn

Get comfortable reading man pages
and the difference in their sections.
Validate bugs against STOCK Slackware, before submitting an issue
Build out your protocol for investigating.
SRSLY, make an effort to ask educated questions

Services

init

(sysvinit)

Age old,

tried and true

Trivia:

Default runlevel?

/etc/inittab

1: single user
3: multiple user (default)
4: X11 with KDM/XDM/GDM
2,5: "unused", but setup same as 3
0: halt
6: reboot

/etc/rc.d/rc.*

rc.S - system initialization
rc.K - single user
rc.M - Multi user (3,4)
rc.4 - X11
rc.0 - shutdown
rc.6 - reboot
rc.inet1 - various networking (see rc.inet1.conf)
rc.inet2 - network system (sshd, nfs, rpc, cifs, etc.)
rc.wireless - ... wireless setup (see rc.wireless.conf)
rc.sysvinit - to support /etc/init.d and the /etc/rc[0123456].d/* structure

local startups

rc.local
Trivia: Where else?
rc.local_shutdown

gist of the rc.local

(and a lot of the rc.{M,S} )


if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.foo ] ; then
  . /etc/rc.d/rc.foo start
fi

/sbin/modprobe acpi-cpufreq
echo "level auto" > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

Configurations

Upstream

(again)
There is not a shimmed in OS abstraction.
--sysconfdir=/etc

the few, the proud

/etc/rc.d/rc.*.conf

rc.inet1.conf
rc.wireless.conf
rc.bluetooth.conf

Boot Loader

Trivia: What bootloader is used?
lilo(8)
lilo.conf(5)
mkinitrd(8)
mkinitrd.conf(5)

*.new files

$ slackpkg new-config

Searching for NEW configuration files

[...]

$ find /etc/ -type f -name '*.new'
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf.new
/etc/httpd/httpd.conf.new
/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-default.conf.new
/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-userdir.conf.new
/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-autoindex.conf.new
/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-ssl.conf.new

Packages

Counts

core: 936 pkgs ( + 82 kde l10n )
/extra: ~21 pkgs

Slackbuilds.org Counts

unofficial

+2600 pkgs

Package Structure

A compressed tar ball of the file tree relative to '/'

Package "meta" data

/install/slack-desc
/install/doinst.sh
TRIVIA: What else can be used (in stock Slackare)?
/var/log/setup/setup.$PKGNAME

Tools

pkgtool(8)
makepkg(8)
explodepkg(8)
installpkg(8)
removepkg(8)
upgradepkg(8)

Package data storage

/var/log/packages/ & /var/log/scripts/

removed_packages/ & removed_scripts/

X

To X, or not to X

Robust Command Line Installation

$ xmwconfig

$ startx

Kernels

No patching *

* Apart from CVEs or a blocker regression

huge & generic

Shared *.ko modules

hacking

(because people do it)

$REPO/testing/
/usr/src/linux
/proc/config.gz

Build your own

$ wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/testing/linux-3.0-rc2.tar.bz2
[...]
$ tar jxf linux-3.0-rc2.tar.bz2
$ cd linux-3.0-rc2
$ zcat /proc/config.gz > .config
$ make oldconfig
[...]
$ make
  CHK     include/linux/version.h
  CHK     include/generated/utsrelease.h
  CALL    scripts/checksyscalls.sh
  CHK     include/generated/compile.h
[...]

WARNING!!1!one!

do NOT report issues, until
you validate it against a stock installation.
Even if you don't think it's kernel related

Community

Where is it?

People
IRC - Freenode ##slackware
Usenet - alt.os.linux.slackware (AOLS)
Forum
linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/
Mailing Lists
Discussion - mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/slackware
AOLS Off Topic - wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/mailman/listinfo/slackware-ot/

Additional Packages
slackbuilds.org/

Bug Tracking?

Nothing Formal
Emails to the team, and forums
Not much in the OS interferes
Most reports go straight upstream

Recap

K.I.S.S
(Keep It Simple, S<word>)

Slackware Demystified

Slackware Demystified

Vincent Batts

@vbatts

Southeast Linux Fest

June 11, 2011

What to talk about ?

Smidgens

First, Some Thanks!

To All Yall

slackware linux

<3

Trivia:

Why was there a pi Release Candidate?

(for 13.37)

Trivia:

Who is the guy smoking the pipe?

Who has run

Slackware Linux?

slackware linux

Next

Day Job

Contact

Philosophy

Keep It Simple

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Lack of "here, let me help you with that"

and no magic

Stick with Upstream

./configure && make && make install

Shell

Learning to Learn

Services

init

(sysvinit)

Age old,

tried and true

Trivia:

Default runlevel?

/etc/inittab

/etc/rc.d/rc.*

local startups

gist of the rc.local

(and a lot of the rc.{M,S} )

Configurations

Upstream

the few, the proud

/etc/rc.d/rc.*.conf

Boot Loader

*.new files

Packages

Counts

Slackbuilds.org Counts

unofficial

Package Structure

A compressed tar ball of the file tree relative to '/'

Package "meta" data

Tools

Package data storage

/var/log/packages/ & /var/log/scripts/

removed_packages/ & removed_scripts/

X

To X, or not to X

Robust Command Line Installation

Kernels

No patching *

* Apart from CVEs or a blocker regression

huge & generic

Shared *.ko modules

hacking

(because people do it)

Build your own

WARNING!!1!one!

Community

Where is it?

Bug Tracking?

Recap

Questions?

Links

fin