In Pursuit of 'Slack' - Slackware UEFI Plus Grub Install

I'm not a fan of Lilo, the default Slackware bootloader, so this video illustrates how grub can be installed during the installation on a UEFI system

I use the Slackware current iso but the process is essentially the same for stable - 14.2

The key thing here is to reject the options to install Lilo or ELilo and drop back to a root prompt after installation has finished but before rebooting. Then issue the following commands:

mount
chroot /mnt /bin/bash
source /etc/profile
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub

For a non-UEFI system the grub install command is:
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi /dev/sda #or whatever your drive is called

For virtual box to boot on UEFI you also need to copy grub to a new directory:

mkdir -p /boot/efi/EFI/boot # -p option creates any intermediate directories

That's it. Links to useful pages below:
#Slackware
#Slackbuilds
#Multilib how to
#Ponce Repo for Current
Slackpkg+
#SBOtools
#SBOpkg

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[legojenn]

Slackware uptimes are measured in decades.

[pizslacker]

Like Eric Hameleers (alien-bob) said: "To me, Slackware remains the Swiss army-knife of Linux".

[gtrklem]

I have used it in years, but Slackware was the first distro I used, and the only one that I used for many years. My time with Slackware gave me a much deeper understanding of Linux and computers. I may need to check it out again.

[paulnoecker]

Slackware is where my love of funtoo started. Slack wares mostly source based past install.

[antuelle]

Very informative and educational, well done. Keep it up.

[nickoct]

Thanks for giving the UK current iso location. I tried the US current iso and it said it would take 6 days to download.

[wastingtime]

Wonderful; easy to follow tutorial. Thank you!

[serge]

How strange to use fdisk or cfdisk when tools like parted, gdisk, cgdisk or sgdisk are ideal to cope with GPT!
For your timezone instead of scrolling all the way to Europe/London you can press E and then scroll to Europe/London.
You can untick the games, Emacs (unless you absolutely want/need to use it) and all the desktops you don't wish. As you chose Xfce you could have removed the asterisk in front of KDE.
Another point worth mentioning is you'll get a new kernel once a week through the updates when you are on the current branch. By default Slackware removes the packages related to the running kernel when installing a new version. People have to update grub manually before rebooting when there is a new kernel in the updates!!!
Fortunately there is a warning in the updates when there is a new kernel telling you to update your bootloader configuration.
People might want to keep the running kernel not knowing if the new kernel is going to be totally fine.
That would be an interesting video to make: how to keep the previous kernel when a new kernel is installed!
Cheers

[rmcellig]

I have never used slackware before. Thanks so much for doing this video!! What are the recommended slack based distros or is that too broad a question? The most popular ones then.

[alwanrosyidi]

Is there any slackware based using calamares installer?

I used to use Slackware as my daily driver, several years ago. But now it feels unpractical to use text installer in modern devices.

[trueriver]

As you say Slackware is the longest running distro, with if I remember rightly Debian as the next longest.

[aMulliganStew]

Thanks very much. It worked. It seems to me though the demonstrated grub sequence is backwards and/or has an unnecessary step. Typically grub-install comes after grub-mkconfig, not before. I think what happened here is that setup had already run the mkconfig (and evidently a mkinitrd) and those were sufficient for the grub-install to succeed. As this is my first EFI install (and subsequent modification to get over to the generic kernel), if you have a minute or two, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. In any event, thanks very much. I appreciate what you've helped me to do.

[oneguythat]

tried to install this and got stopped by grub. entered ls into grub command line and no partitions were found.


f

[shoeprano]

I may be wrong but is that a Harald Invades hoodie? new subscriber here. what is your distro daily driver?

[bana]

"/bin/bash no such file or directory" can you help me?

[revealingfactsall]

I discovered Linux in 1993 via Slackware in a Boarders book store. I have used it non-stop ever since. I later set up my own company and my entire data center was mostly Dell servers running custom compiled Linux kernels after a Slackware install. And over the years working at various companies and having to deal with Suse, RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu, etc... became a nightmare. I absolutely hate them. These other distros are horribly bloated. I do use Ubuntu for desktop but for a dedicated server that needs to run email, bind, dhcp, ldap, kerberos, and other server based services? Slackware is my tool of choice. It's just so much more fricken easy!

[henninb]

I enjoyed the video, I am downloading the iso now.

[trueriver]

All three of Steve's tutorials on Slack 15 are in this playlist of mine

[amos]

My boss is a hard core Slackware user. Never used any other distro's. He makes fun of me for using Arch.. although he always says that Arch is somehow a son of Slackware.. have no idea why. I have to ask him one of these days what he means by that.

[CollinBaillie]

F-stab!! 😝 I'm so boring... I call it the f-s-tab.... but I like f-stab... I'm going to try to use that moving forward...