Slackware-FAQ

=Business=

What happened to the store?
The relationship between Pat Volkerding and the store collapsed in 2018.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/donating-to-slackware-4175634729/#post5882751

How do I support Slackware?
Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/slackwarelinux

Cafepress:

https://www.cafepress.com/volkerdi

Paypal:

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme2/volkerdi

=Roadmap=

When will the next version of Slackware be released?
The best indicator is the -current changelog. Feature freezes and release candidates are announced there first.

What's the easiest way to follow the changelogs?
Vincent Batts has RSS feeds for them, here.

=Packages=

How should I keep my system up to date?
Use the slackpkg+ extension to Slackware's included slackpkg tool. Alien Bob's blog has an introduction. It handles Slackware's official repository, and several third party ones, including Alien Bob's multilib and ktown repositories, MateSlackBuilds, and others.

Where are the recommended places to get packages?
The two major repositories:
 * SlackBuilds.org, optionally with the sbopkg frontend and its sqg queue generator
 * Slacky

Slackware's contributors:
 * Robby Workman
 * Eric "Alien Bob" Hameleers (particularly for Steam, VLC and LibreOffice)

Slackware's package-compatible fork(s):
 * Salix OS

How do I get GNOME?
There are several active projects providing variants of GNOME for Slackware:


 * MATE SlackBuilds
 * Cinnamon SlackBuilds (discussion thread)
 * Dropline GNOME (discussion thread)

How do I get LXQt?
Use slackrepo to build and install it from Skaendo's Slackbuilds.

Reference: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/building-latest-lxqt-0-14-in-slackware64-current-4175647708/#post5998981

How do I get LXDE?
Get it from Ponce. He provides prebuilt packages and SBOPkg queues:

http://ponce.cc/slackware/

Here is the discussion thread:


 * LXDE desktop for slackware - testing

How do I get the latest JDK?
Either use the SlackBuild in extra/java to build the Sun JDK package, or download an OpenJDK package from Alien Bob.

How do I tell slackpkg to not replace Alien Bob's packages?
Alien Bob's KDE and multilib packages replace many stock Slackware packages. You'll have to blacklist them to prevent slackpkg from reverting them.

To do so, put the following in /etc/slackpkg/blacklist:


 * [0-9]+alien

How do I get a newer Firefox?
Slackware-stable includes Firefox ESR, while Slackware-current includes the latest.

On Slackware-stable, the easiest option is to use the following script to download and package the latest Firefox binaries:

https://gist.github.com/ruario/9672798

How do I figure out dependencies for Slackware packages?
The truth is that you're not supposed to. The first time you logged into your new Slackware installation, you received an email explaining, among other things, Slackware's approach to package management:

"Slackware is designed around the idea that the system should be a complete installation kept updated with any official patches. This avoids the mess of dependencies that some other Linux based GNU systems face."

How do I figure out dependencies for third party packages?
Repositories such as SlackBuilds.org and Slacky.eu list dependencies for each package. If you need to install several SlackBuilds.org packages in order, then queue them in sbopkg.

Why do you use Slackware if you need to figure out dependencies?
As you've seen above, this is (to a large extent) a misconception. See also:

Package and dependency management shouldn't put you off Slackware

Why does Slackware have TeTex and not Tex Live?
The official answer is that Tex Live is too large to include.

See here:
 * http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/tex-live-in-slackware-635217/#post3122767

You can get Tex Live from third parties such as SlackBuilds.org and Robby Workman, or directly from https://www.tug.org/texlive/.

=Setup=

How do I create a UEFI boot USB?
See here:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/easiest-way-to-make-a-current-uefi-boot-usb-4175551386/#post5409238

Which groups do I need to belong to?
When adduser asks you this question, press the Up cursor key. It will automatically populate the list.

Typically, you want to belong to:
 * audio - access to audio devices
 * cdrom - access to cdroms/dvds
 * floppy - access to floppy drives
 * plugdev - access to flash drives
 * video - access to framebuffer devices (/dev/fb0)
 * power - allows users to control HAL suspend, hybernate, and shutdown
 * netdev - allows users to control wicd for wireless networking

The correct list sometimes changes with Slackware version upgrades, so see CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT for updated information.

How should I set up networking (wireless or otherwise)?
Slackware provides NetworkManager. Turn it on. There's a note about this in the email you get the first time you log in as root:

Read the following too:
 * http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:network

How do I get a graphical boot sequence?
Please see the following How-to: Slackware-Guides-Graphical_Boot

How do I get CPU frequency scaling?
Change "CPUFREQ=battery" to "CPUFREQ=on" in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.

Please remember that very CPU-intensive applications, such as Adobe Flash, will not perform well with a downclocked CPU.

How do I set my default web browser?
Some options here:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/how-to-set-default-browser-700564/#post6002604

=Audio=

How do I get audio working?
The initial checklist goes something like this:


 * 1) Is your user account a member of the audio group?
 * 2) Have you run alsamixer to set your volume levels, which may be muted and/or zeroed by default?
 * 3) Have you run alsactl store to save your volume settings?

Carry these out before asking this question, and when you ask, mention that you've done so.

Other steps, such as setting module options or creating an asoundrc file, might be required in special cases.

How do I get set up Pulseaudio?

 * 1) Install Pulseaudio and alsa-plugins
 * 2) Put the following in /etc/sound.conf or ~/.asoundrc:

 

=Bluetooth=

Where do I start?
If all you want is the most direct route to getting bluetooth working under a window manager, try out the Blueman gui tools distributed with Slackware.
 * blueman-applet - Gives you a system try icon with access to all the other blueman tools
 * blueman-manager - A nice gui for managing the pairing of your devices
 * all other blueman - You shouldn't have to run them directly. They will be called for appropriately from blueman-applet/manager

That's Nice, but I want to do it from the command line
The old way is to use root access with hidd, hcitool, obexftp. It 'works' and is fine if you don't do a lot of bluetooth. However, I wouldn't try to pair your mouse with it and use it on a regular basis. The new way is through D-Bus/Hal. Neither is within the scope of an FAQ.

=X and Desktop=

How should I set up an NVidia card?
Use the SlackBuilds.org packages: nvidia-kernel, libvdpau and nvidia-driver: installed in that order.

If you're using NVidia's installer on -current, see here:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/the-latest-nvidia-linux-driver-release-4175608923/page7.html#post6005347

How do I get Slackware to boot straight into X?
Edit /etc/inittab and replace:


 * id:3:initdefault:

with


 * id:4:initdefault:

How can I avoid crashes when I log out?
This happens to some people who use KDM.

Uncomment (remove the hash from) the #TerminateServer=true line in /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc to solve it

How do I keep my GTK theme when I'm not in Xfce?
Either run xfsettingsd in the background, or use a GTK theme switcher. Examples are gtk-chtheme and LXAppearance.'

How do I make my Qt applications look like my KDE applications?
The following applies to Slackware:

KDE and Qt programs look bad when in a different window manager

Symlinking /usr/lib64/kde/plugins/styles to /usr/lib64/qt/plugins/styles (on a 64-bit installation), or /usr/lib/kde/plugins/styles to /usr/lib/qt/plugins/styles (on a 32-bit installation) works.

How do I make KDE 4 faster?
Just wait for strigi's indexing operation to finish. Disable strigi and nepomuk if you don't want to wait; the options are in KDE's System Settings.

How do I make my Arial font look like an Arial font?
Slackware, being a commercial product, cannot ship with Microsoft's core fonts for the web. These include Arial, Courier New, and Times New Roman. Instead, Slackware displays Liberation fonts (Liberation Sans, Liberation Mono and Liberation Serif, respectively) in their place.

To change this, you need to install Microsoft's web core fonts from a third party repository such as SlackBuilds.org, remove the Fontconfig file doing the substitution (it's /etc/fonts/conf.d/60-liberation.conf), and run fc-cache to refresh Fontconfig.

Where is my Adobe Helvetica font?
Disabled.

Details and explanation are in the patch applied:


 * source/x/fontconfig/fontconfig.font.dir.list.diff.gz

How can I make my fonts look better?
Start here:


 * Optimizing Slackware Linux's Fonts

=Applications=

How do I get MP3 support in Amarok and/or H264 support in Firefox?
Install the gstreamer plugins:


 * gst-plugins-bad
 * gst-plugins-ugly
 * gst-ffmpeg

Amarok, Firefox (the version included with Slackware) and other applications should then have full multimedia support.

How can I watch DRM'd Flash (e.g. Amazon Prime and paid Youtube) videos?
You need HAL, which has not been included since Slackare 13.37. You can choose to do one of the following:

a) Install the HAL packages (hal and possibly hal-info) from Slackware 13.37. Make sure HAL is running by starting /etc/rc.d/rc.hald.

b) Install hal-flash

See here for more information, including a link to a test page:

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/multi/flash-player-11-problems-playing.html

=Slackware64=

How should I run 32-bit software in my 64-bit installation?

 * http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/multilib/

How can I get my 32-bit software to see my GTK theme?
First build and install 32-bit compatibility versions of the GTK engines that your themes use. To build one for murrine, for example, first build a normal 32-bit package (a 32-bit Slackware installation running in a virtual machine is useful for this). Then move it to your 64-bit installation and run convertpkg-compat32 on it to create a 32-bit compatibility package. Install that package.

Set the GTK_PATH environment variable to /usr/lib/gtk-2.0 before launching 32-bit GTK programs. Its default setting of :/usr/lib64/gtk-2.0, by contrast, is correct for 64-bit programs.

The launchers for Adobe Reader (acroread) and Realplayer (realplay) are shell scripts, so you can edit them and add "export GTK_PATH=/usr/lib/gtk-2.0" to their beginnings.