Episode: 2384
Title: HPR2384: Slackware in Scotland
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2384/hpr2384.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 02:07:20

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This in HPR episode 2,384 entitled Sackwear in Scotland, it is hosted by Andrew Conway
and is about 57 minutes long and currently in a clean flag.
The summer is, when it comes to Scotland and talks to Andrew about Sackwear 14.2 a year after release.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15, that's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at an honesthost.com.
Hello HPR listeners, it's Andrew Conway here also known as McNally and I'm joined
by a special guest.
Here is Benny from Switzerland.
Probably don't know me because I only record like one episode a year back again.
Yes and you're known online and vice-president as Navigium?
Yes, because the name I just randomly picked from a Latin dictionary.
What does it mean?
I think it means both.
It was back when I started university I had to do a course in Latin because before I studied math I started with philosophy.
Then I had just this Latin dictionary lying around and I had to figure out the handle and just open the random page and point it around the bird.
I ended up to be in Navigium.
Could you mean a lot worse?
Plenty of unpleasant body parts, for example, that have Latin names.
I don't know whether they are just in a regular Latin dictionary.
No one made for medicine.
Yes, and any addiction would be one, don't we?
Anyway, we're not here to talk to you about Latin.
As I mentioned that Benny is sat here right next to me and previously we recorded on a episode for HPR about Slackware.
But that time we were in Switzerland and I was here in Scotland and now we're both here in Scotland because you've been traveling around in a bike.
Yeah, on a bicycle.
On a pedal bike.
I do like motorbikes but this time it's not that easy to pack for a flight.
That's true.
Yes, I can imagine you have to bike a long way to get to Scotland.
Anyway, so what we're going to talk about is more Slackware stuff.
It's a little bit out of date because we've just been discussing when the last Russian Slackware came out and it was almost exactly a year ago.
In fact, just over a year ago, first of July 2016.
Exactly.
But in Slackware time this is just recently, right?
Exactly, it's a theological time scale.
If you're an arch Linux user, you are to Slackware what maybe a fruit fly is to an elephant.
Yeah, more or less.
You live in a different time scale.
Yeah, so the other thing is I have to confess that I only installed Slackware 14.2.
I've only gone from 14.1 to 14.2 in this last week mainly because Benny told me he was coming and I was hoping we would do this.
And I thought it might be an idiot to actually install it before we discussed it.
Usually, usually it's good to know what you talk about.
I actually installed it right when it came out because I went in holiday.
I went cycling obviously last summer too in Iceland.
And I brought my laptop and I thought it would be a good idea to just upgrade to Slackware 14.2 before I go there.
Because it's Slackware so you just upgrade and everything works.
It's not like with Oracle Linux, you just wait until after the holiday because it breaks everything.
Well, I can't go into that.
I can't go into that.
Arch users, I'm sure, will understand it.
I used Oracle Linux only for like one year or something and it kind of broke monthly.
But I had one, I tried to run a server of reasons that best known to myself with Arch and it broke straight away because a broken parallel package.
It happened to enter in that very night that I installed it.
But by the next day it was working again to be fair.
But we'll get a lot of comments on this episode by Arch users.
Yes, yes.
You're different flying.
Do you remember?
Indeed.
So the reason I didn't install it back in the first of July 2016, I think I was already on holiday.
And I probably didn't have all that great internet.
And also I think it was a very busy time for me.
So I had a stable laptop that was working.
I was just going to go with that.
Even when I go back from holiday.
And I didn't really have any reason to upgrade.
I had because Firefox in 14.1, which was an extended service release edition of Firefox.
The Google applications were not supported on anymore.
And there were problems attaching files through the browser.
Yeah, so that was one indication that I was using quite a lot of data software to be honest.
So it was to high time the thing up with it.
Anyway, so I am now.
At least in like where time scales with it.
We'll do a year by.
So I guess the first thing to say as in my case, anyway, the installation was as boring as could be there was dead easy.
It's the defreshing storage and actually upgraded to the fresh and so nothing exciting happened and nothing difficult happened.
What was your opinion?
Yeah, I think it was about the same.
I was only a year ago, so I don't exactly remember the details, but basically what.
I think I also did the fresh install and didn't upgrade.
I think I on the laptop I did the fresh install.
And on the desktop, I just moved from the slackware current to the slackware stable.
Which basically means when current hits 14.2, I just stopped following current.
And everything works anyway because it did before.
So it's going to change anything.
Yeah, because it's quite an overnight change to go from the last slackware current to the new release slackware would be just a few packages really.
I think in this case, it wasn't even anything.
Which is an entry in the change lock that says that's now 40.2.
And there are like this images to download.
But if you're already in current, you were already on the slackware 14.2 the day before.
Yeah, so basically highly on exciting.
The other thing I would add is that I couldn't get the USB stick method to works.
Was to use an ISO hybrid and I did eat the ISO hybrid ISO image on my memory stick and it didn't work.
I just brought a DVD instead, but that was a very minor inconvenience.
But well, it could well be the USB stick that was 40.
Yes, I think I did one install from a USB stick and it all worked.
It could be the USB stick.
What I can tell you is from putting the DVD into the machine to sitting at the login prompt of the fully installed and operational slackware 14.2 operating system took 21 minutes and 7 seconds.
So we're pretty fast and that includes time I would have spent reading some documentation along the way because slackware does reward actually reading some documents, doesn't it?
You do read the readmays, you don't just launch them.
I don't think it was anything particularly interesting in the readmays to be honest.
I thought I'd better read them anyway just in case something for contrast.
At the same time, my son's PC upstairs was getting Windows 10 update that took the best part of two entire days to do during which time he couldn't play any of his games.
So there you go. You want to do Windows 10? Go right ahead.
I usually do a full disk encryption install so I have to read the readme file anyway because it's not that straightforward to do a full disk encryption.
As in straightforward as in you just click in the install or do a full disk encryption but the readme files quite good.
You just walk through the readme file and everything works.
I've not tried that yet, I need to ask something. I really should do, but as my laptop really leaves my desk, I have not too that worried about it, but I still should still do it as a matter of peaceful.
I do a full disk encryption on every machine, even on the desktop, just don't know why.
No, it's a sensible thing to do, I just don't know.
It's also good when you have to discard your hard drive, you don't have to delete the whole drive for several times and overwrite with zeros and rend data because it's all rend data anyway.
That's true. I actually sat on the front door step recently with all, I was cleaning up my parents' house and I had forget how many PCs there were, but I had something like 30 hard drives that I don't extract from the PCs.
I extracted all the data of them and I just sat with a hammer smashing it.
Yeah, they're surprisingly hard to smash.
This is some of them.
I heard a drill, it's quite effective.
Just drill holes into the hard drive.
That was much fun smashing it with a hammer.
Yeah, definitely.
Anyway, you can also look for high buildings and throw them off the roof.
For the IT department in our school, usually those with servers.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
You're in school holidays.
You have to make sure there's nobody stood underneath.
Yeah.
Anyway, back to Slackware.
One question about INSO, I wasn't about to ask, what did you use? Did you legacy biosmode or UEFI?
Legacy biosmode.
Yeah, there was no particular good reason for that other than my laptop was set up that way.
It's a Dell XPS 13 that came with the Ubuntu and that is how it was set up when it came.
I don't know why Dell did it that way.
So I just carried on doing it the same way that Dell had set it up with the Ubuntu.
Oh, yeah.
I resized the partition.
I didn't do that, but you could interpret that as an admission of laziness in my part.
Well, I did both, because on the Chromebook I used, I've got a replaced firmware.
The core boost firmware with an image that contains sea bios.
So it's legacy bios anyway.
There is no UEFI.
And this worked as you'd expect.
And the UEFI one worked also out of the box, but you have to...
You have to install...
It's like where it's still in Lilo.
Yes, Lilo.
I call it Lilo.
Yeah.
And there is ELILO, which does UEFI.
Yes, that's right.
Solar automatically tells you to use ELILO and it quite works out of the box.
You could also replace it with Grub, which is in the extras, no?
I think it is, yeah, you can use Grub.
I don't know if I've ever used it the slackware, but...
Me neither.
Initially, I did have Grub on the slacktops.
Of course, that's what it came with.
And I did set up to boot the slackware from Grub, that did work.
But then I just know Lilo much better than Grub.
So at some point, I just stopped using Grub and used Lilo, just because I know it better.
No, no, no, particularly good reason.
Yeah, so I guess we should also see what changed in slackware.
And there's actually been some interesting changes, not that I really know it from installation as a user.
But if you look under the lid, there have been a few changes, haven't there?
Yeah, well, not too many.
As you said, there were basically no changes that you'd notice as an end user.
It's a few new versions of software, but nothing, nothing dramatically different.
No, Firefox, which would work with Google applications.
For example, I think KD is still KD4, right?
I'm not using KD, but I think it looks like KD4.
I think there are packages of KD5 around.
I tried it once on a slackware current.
It looks quite okay, but I've never been a KD person.
Yeah, I don't really use much of KDE, but it's default, and I'm quite happy with it.
No, my way around it.
So, again, not that fast to be honest, as long as it works.
And let's me do what I want to do.
Do we really care what desktop I'm using?
I think most of the changes have to do with, as probably everyone is still...
I mean, so aware that slackware still uses like RC script and no system D to boot.
And some of the changes are just like work around to avoid system D.
One of them is they had to replace UDev with EUDev, which is to my knowledge developed by Chentu,
which also does... they boot with OpenRC, which is also something different than a system D.
Slackware doesn't use OpenRC or anything, they just use plain BSD RC script.
That's to my knowledge.
Yes, that's right.
I mean, you've got to seem knowledge as I do of UDev, which is that it avoids system D and comes from Chentu.
Yeah, but that's about all we know about it, but I thought I'll just mention it, but we can't tell you the difference.
I'm not sure whether there is even a difference.
Well, I think that's sort of the point, as it's supposed to be a drop-in replacement.
Now, what seems to be good news is that, at least so far, I haven't noticed.
And I never noticed any applications wanting system D or even Pulse Audio on slackware, except with the one exception,
that the game VVVVVV, like there's five V's, or there's six, I can never remember.
It's like a retro platforming game you may have seen.
When I installed that on slackware, I think it was 14.1.
It wanted to see that Pulse Audio was there, but didn't actually ever use it.
So I had to install the Pulse Audio package, then I would play the game.
And then when I finished playing the game, I'd install the package again.
And there was some staff, but you know, it wouldn't work with them.
But there was Pulse Audio, there wasn't... that was a system D.
And the point being that I never missed not having Pulse Audio, even though every other Linux distro was using it.
And still to this day, I don't think there's any application that will refuse to work without system D.
But you've gotten a longer experience.
I've never tried the GNOME 3.
And I know whether GNOME 3 is still works without system D.
But I think the gentle people do some kind of fork of GNOME that still works without system D.
Yeah, well it's like we're dropped no more long time ago back in the GNOME 2 days.
But I think I'm pretty sure in the release notes it did mention that there's something called drop plane.
Oh yeah, yeah, you can still use.
So it must still be possible, but I actually don't know anyone in my circle of very limited circles.
It's like the Phil Sliders that uses GNOME in Slackware.
So I really can't come with it. I've never tried to use it.
I've just never been that festival GNOME and they can't be bothered going to the effort of installing it in Slackware.
But I think it is feasible.
It's still doable.
Well, but this leads us back to the one.
The second big change is Pulse Audio now comes with Slackware 14.2.
That's right, yes.
So that is there. So I hopefully don't have to install it every time I want to play VVVVVV.
That's one small advantage.
But what was the reason that they put Pulse Audio in?
Apparently there was a Bluetooth library which wasn't supported anymore without Pulse Audio.
So they had to either stop using Bluetooth at all in Slackware or include Pulse Audio.
So in this case, it was just a sensible decision.
You can't have no break existing that doesn't support Bluetooth on devices that do have Bluetooth port.
Yeah. I have to confess, I've never really used Bluetooth.
Although I noticed when I started up Slackware 14.2, I'm using KDE, I haven't changed any settings.
I bizarrely have two Bluetooth applications in my toolbar.
You know, a little bit, whatever you call that, a little bit to the left of the clock where sort of little indications of running applications are left for you.
Yeah, but two Bluetooth icons.
Yeah, I think the one is an applet, like the Blue Man applet or something.
And the other one is the one that comes with KDE.
Yeah, so I still wouldn't have missed Bluetooth.
I don't think so. I use it my phone a lot.
I've never had course to use it in my laptop yet.
But I think I'll try now.
Yeah, I'll tell you this.
I think I should try.
I just sent a file from my laptop to my phone a few days ago.
I didn't even know before that my laptop has Bluetooth and port.
I just looked at what's the application called.
It's RF kill.
RF kill.
And it showed me two devices, one Wi-Fi and one Bluetooth, so I figured I'll have Bluetooth.
I didn't have the services, the Bluetooth services enabled, enabled those to use it.
It's also another RC script, RC that's Bluetooth.
Oh, right.
Yes, that's right. I actually had to do that.
Actually, I was trying.
No, I know you come to mention it.
I did have to transfer a file by Bluetooth on this laptop under Slack with 14.1 to my phone.
I did do it.
You're right.
Actually, I have done that once.
And I know I've done that.
Even though I said a minute ago that I didn't ever do it.
Because I tricked with wrong Benny, but I did say earlier on, it's very slow.
So how would I know it was very slow if I never noticed it?
Yeah, true.
So I have to have once.
Yeah, it was an APK file that I would get on my phone.
That's exactly what I used it for.
Yeah.
Because I use on the desktop by use Raccoon.
Yeah, it's called Raccoon.
That's a Joe application that helps you download APKs from the Play Store.
Oh, right.
There are a couple of APKs I use.
There are nothing afterwards that are proprietary.
Obviously.
One is the official application of the Swiss Railways.
Because they sell tickets over this one.
And sometimes I'm just too late to get a ticket at the station.
So I just sit in a train and hope I get a ticket before the train leaves the station.
Because otherwise you're not allowed to buy a ticket over the app online.
They keep trying to do that in Scotland, telling you you have to have a ticket before you board the train.
But they never penalize you for it.
Yeah.
The first time it costs like 100 Swiss francs, which is.
Wow.
Around 80 pounds.
Yes, I can see.
And the second time it costs you even more and then more again.
That's a lot.
I think probably it's fair to say that you also generally better train service than we have here.
No, there are services too.
Actually, I know that because I've been to Zurich and the trains were extremely punctual and very clean.
Yeah.
Yeah, they are.
They are.
I live in the place where I live on the train line.
They're the worst trains in Switzerland.
Almost every fifth train is a few minutes late.
So a minute is not in that no seconds?
Yeah, it's even minutes in this case.
Yeah.
And the main reason is that's the train line that leads to Italy.
A lot of trains run through Italy and then to Switzerland.
So you're brilliant Italians.
No, no.
At the station, they always tell you the train is late.
The reason for this is something that happened abroad.
Oh dear.
So if there's any Italian arts linux listeners, we do apologize for everything.
Even if you're only Italian or an arts linux.
Oh, yeah, sorry.
Don't be that long.
Anyway.
So overall, despite that fairly big change to the sound system.
I have to say that I installed the Audacity package.
I think I got it from Slack Bills.
Stuck it on.
I mean, Benny was here.
He watched me open the application, hit record.
Had to fiddle a bit with the microphone levels, but you know, a big deal.
Otherwise it worked fine.
Thanks for using also.
Yeah, it looks like.
I don't know.
Maybe there is some layer of post-olio that pretends to be also.
Yeah.
It must be that.
Yeah.
Because it did say that it's what you said and that's what I said in the notes.
But also is there.
And it's all right.
The post-olio is really just a layer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anyway, so it's all working fine.
As far as I know, we've done a test recording and it was working fine with that.
Yeah.
So this basically leads us to the second topic we plan to talk about.
As Slack, you mentioned Slack Bills.
You mentioned it.
We installed it as audacity from a Slack Bill.
And we were going to discuss tools that we used to install things from Slack Bills.
Yeah.
So maybe you could run me through your way of installing things from Slack Bills.
Well, I mean, when I first discovered Slack Bills, I would download the Slack Build.
Then go and download the source tarball and just run the Slack Build.
We've got to read it first and run it.
And maybe we should tell people what's the source.
Or because I mean, if you know free BSD ports or package source and net BSD or
for arch users, our user archives, it's about the same.
It's just like a collection of build scripts that help you build a package for your operating system.
In this case, Slackware.
Yeah.
So it's kind of so.
Indeed.
So you don't, there's no binary package that you download.
What you download, you don't have a little tiny tarball that contains a Slack build script
and some other metadata files.
And then it's up to you to go and get the original source tarball.
And most cases, it just compiles it and creates a stackware package and you install it.
Nothing else to it.
Yeah.
A few cases you might want to go into the Slack Build script and set some compile options.
And in a few cases, there are patches that get applied along the way.
But that is part of the Slackware philosophy is that you don't really use patches
unless it's a very good reason to.
And I think SlackBuilds aims to follow Patrick Valkardin's approach and he invented SlackBuilds, obviously.
So with that...
Did he?
Yes, I think so.
Yes, I saw Slackware patches.
Oh yeah, that's how it didn't like SlackBuilds.org.
No, that wasn't her platform.
But the concept of a SlackBuild script was just...
I mean, I don't know if you even called them SlackBuilds scripts originally.
He just used build scripts to build packages.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But after all, it's just like basically a shell script that builds a package.
Yeah.
It's all out here.
It's just a shell script.
Yeah.
Exactly what it is.
Anyway, so that's the background.
So rather than...
You know, we're doing lots of clicking around in your browser.
You can go in the command line.
So I would usually log on this...
Login SSU to root.
And then run this application called SBOPKG, SBOPackage.
It's not very easy to configure.
And then...
It's got kind of curses.
Samey user into a graph...
Samey graphical user into face.
But I quit like curses into faces.
So we're happy with that.
And you can search all the different scripts that run the SlackBuilds site.
I think it downloads a mini archive cache into your machine.
So it doesn't have to go and talk to SlackBuilds every so often.
But you have to sync it with the SlackBuilds site.
And then I search for a package I want.
We would need a little bit of belt as an info option,
which will tell you which dependencies it might have.
Very often there are no dependencies.
And in some cases there will be a few dependencies.
Very often again, I'll have already got those,
because I've installed other packages.
And if I have them, then I have to then add those to the queue.
And the dependency packages.
And I say execute a queue.
Downloads it, compiles it, installs it.
And very rarely is there a problem.
Maybe occasionally an MD5 some doesn't check out or something like that.
But that's not SlackBuilds fault.
I don't know who's fault that is, but it does happen.
Did you hear?
I think it's actually usually it's at the upstream,
where it provides a source code.
There would be packages, things up in the automated,
or slightly unusual way that breaks the SlackBuilds way
doing things like that.
I don't know, though.
But anyways, that's in my modesty.
The dependencies are usually mentioned in the readme file
that also explains.
And the readme file, basically, you don't just install SlackBuild
without reading the readme file,
because it always contains useful information.
It contains variables you could set to kind of change the way,
change the way the SlackBuild works.
A lot of Python packages need the,
there are variable Python 3 equals yes
to build with Python 3 instead of Python 2.
And sometimes you need to run a few commands
before you install the SlackBuild.
For example, demons that use special users or special groups
they run under, you need to create the groups
and this doesn't just happen in the background
that usually you have to create those,
because that's also a bit slackware.
If you also want to know what you did,
there is no magic behind the whole packaging system.
That's true.
If something goes wrong,
it shouldn't be too much for surprise to you,
because at some point you did it.
Usually, whenever a SlackBuild doesn't build,
not always, but often I just realized
I didn't read the readme close enough
and I didn't overread something
that should have paid close attention to.
Then it just doesn't install or doesn't build.
Actually, I have to, it's really, really
that I've had problems most of the time.
Actually, it's definitely annoying when it doesn't work,
just because I expect it to work.
But like you say, usually,
with something that's gone wrong,
I do feel like it's my fault for not paying attention.
That's true.
Yes, always read the main Slackware.
I've found SlackBuild.org and SPU package
really, really beneficial.
I mean, a few times when the dependencies,
actually only one time,
I think dependencies really got up my nose.
I found it difficult.
And you found that as well with PanDoc
requires Haskell. Haskell comes in a bit of a zillion little bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you just need to be built.
But the solution to that,
which I always felt a bit cludgy was the Q-Files,
which you load up.
And that kind of passes,
I think it's called Info.
It's the info file that comes in the SlackBuild table.
And that contains a sort of machine readable
or bash script readable sort of strings,
which says,
these are all the dependencies you need.
And the Q-Files have been called that one big lump.
Is this in the info file?
I thought it was only mentioned in the readme file.
No, no, the readme file,
all by convention,
always was supposed to mention it.
But then that is a separate file.
It's a name for all.
I think, I think so.
I need to double check that.
I'm sure it's true.
But it was put into allow dependency automation,
making it more easy.
But anyway, so the Q-Files were an effective solution
and they worked.
Although I was a little bit worried that they didn't get synced.
It was up to me to download the latest versions of the Q-Files.
It wasn't automated.
There would be sync deliveries to Slackels.
So it always felt like a bit of a...
There is a Q-Files generator you can use as...
Oh, is that right?
All right.
I think it's...
SQG, SQQ.
Oh, yes, all there is is.
It's like we're a Q-Files generator.
SQG.
Yeah, SQG.
And then we just specify what package you want
to be able to Q-Files for.
But that's the main reason why I started using SBO tools
instead of SBO PKG.
Well, no.
Basically the main reason is...
I have to go back a bit.
The reason why I use SlackWire is...
I like to use open or freeBSD on my machines.
But I use a lot of hardware which isn't supported
by either OpenBSD or FreeBSD.
Especially...
Wacom Pen Support.
Ah, right.
There are no drivers for those
and I use those basically daily for work.
SlackWire is just the one distribution
that feels very much like FreeBSD.
And SBO tools is close to some port
to installation tools you find on FreeBSD.
And basically, you get...
You not only get one tool,
it's like a tool set of different tools.
There is SBO Snap,
which is the same as Port Snap on FreeBSD.
I think it's called...
Yeah, it's called Port Snap on FreeBSD
which does nothing...
except download the collection
of SlackBuilds.
The first time you run Port Snap Fetch
and then you run Port Snap Update
like you have to get the newest version of the SlackBuilds.
And then there are different scripts like SBO.
The most important one is SBO Install,
which basically just installs a SlackBuild.
It also parses the info file and the readme file
and goes through all the dependencies
and kind of...
for every dependency,
asks you whether you want to install this one too.
And also, if it finds options in the readme file,
like the one I mentioned before,
Python 3 equals yes.
Then it asks you whether you want to set some options.
Also, if it finds a line in the readme file
that starts with a hash,
it assumes that this means it's the root shell hash
and that you need to execute something
before installing the...
No, before building this SlackBuild,
then it asks you whether you want to automatically execute this command.
I think the main point for me is
it doesn't do anything in background automatically.
It also always asks you whether
do you want to execute this?
Yes, no.
Do you want to set variables?
Yes, no.
Then you set them manually.
And unlike SBO package,
it's not cars as based.
No, it's plain.
I think it's written in Perl as the equivalent in FreeBSC.
I think it's also Perl.
But I don't know anything about Perl,
but I don't mind it.
You don't need to do any Perl to use it.
Yeah, exactly.
It's on Slackware.
It's there anyway,
it's installed anyway.
You don't need to install Perl first
because it already comes with Slackware.
So I found that this makes life a bit easier
without losing control.
That's why I prefer SBO tools at the moment.
Yeah, so I can certainly see the attraction of it.
I think one thing,
I sometimes like,
I do find myself getting a bit annoyed
with the car's interface.
I think it might be
to meet better actually,
to be just working entirely on the command lane.
Yeah.
The other application I use to maintain Slackware
and that you do as well,
is the Slack Package Slack PKG
and also its plug-in Slack Package Plus,
which allows you to,
the original Slack Package just dealt
with official Slackware repositories,
which didn't give you very much beyond the,
we're fairly big,
original install.
Well, it's less than that,
including the source code,
isn't it?
Eight gigs.
It's more like two and a half gigs.
Which is quite a lot of packages.
It comes with Parallel,
it comes with GCSE,
and Python,
and various,
S, S, V, A, and Git,
and everything.
All the basic stuff that I would expect
and some weird,
and that kind of six stuff,
like X, V, as well.
But anyway,
the point of the BSD game.
And the BSD games.
Yes, and the,
yes, because we were discussing,
what is his name?
Claudio Miranda.
Did an HPR recently
that I've listened to that you,
he said you're going to listen to
about open sourcing,
the colossal key,
the venture game,
which I used to play as a young boy in the 70s.
It's a good HPR,
so they're recommending that.
Anyway, that comes with Slackware.
I don't know if it's,
it's not the open source version,
it's one of the other versions
that we may not have the source code for.
But,
maybe somebody should,
create a SlackBuildance,
submit SlackBuilds.org for the open source version.
Yeah.
Or we can compare,
whether,
how it differs to the one in BSD games.
Anyway,
that's big degradation there,
where did I go?
Um,
er, yes.
So,
er, we're talking about,
yes, using Slack Package.
Um,
so that just as a visual repository
is in Slack Package Plus,
allows you to use other
non-official repositories,
and the mean one I use,
which,
although technically,
it's non-official,
it's alien bulb.
Yeah,
it can be used.
Er,
he's a,
one of the key people in Slackware,
you know,
like, if there's a number two guy,
he's the one.
Yeah.
Maybe Robby Workman,
I'm not OK.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway,
without,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
erm,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
er,
like PKG clean clean system or clean install or something
which removes all the packages that weren't installed through sources from from
like PKG and then you get like a curses interface to select
you have to type that to the uninstall and also on the other side
and SPL PKG SPL PKG SPL PKG can be used on the
command length SPL PKG dash i and the package name then
installs this nice field without
the curses and that's my mind you're absolutely right yes
yes so um yeah so i think that's uh that's covered all the things we want to discuss
about uh about slack where maybe is anything else you wanted to mention
yeah we had one thing that's still open we uh plan to talk about how we
manage why fine yeah sorry yes on the unslack wire
because we both use quite different tools
yes so maybe again you you go first and you
tell us okay well i originally used just the tools that came
with slack where which is essential with the RC script system
um but recently i think it was when i was taking my laptop
out and about more than i do now but and i wanted a user interface so i could
look at more easily at what wifi um what wifi stuff was
networked were available and and uh enter the passwords and all the other
fairly options um so i ended up using uh wicked curses for that
but on my desktop machines i just i didn't um i didn't use it so i
the wicked not wicked curses wicked is um it's not actually a
official part of slack where it's um in the extra but so it's like on the
DVD or in the download ISO that you get um but it won't be installed by default
you have to go and install manually so it's the one that's spelled
we i cd w i cd and now slack where it does come now
isn't used to but now comes with network manager
which i have tried to use but i didn't go on with particularly well went back to
wicked but wicked um so it's a demon that runs
and like i said earlier there's a curses interface you could use that
or you could use the little sort of app that sits in the system
system trade up as a word i was looking for you system trade that sits next to
the clock it appears there i just like it with no windows or a map or
uh just click on it uh opens up and shows you what wifi
network's are present that you can connect to um although i've had a slight
problem with my xps 13 in that when i put it to sleep and wake up again
sometimes it doesn't automatically connect to the wired network
which it should do instantly um and then i can't get it to connect via
little by clicking in the little thing in the system tree but if i go into
wicked curses and the command line it connects even without me telling it to
it just doesn't i don't know why that happened that wasn't slack where 14.1 i
don't know i don't think it that i don't think that's happened to me yet
it's slack where 14.2 so uh yeah so that's how i do it so
so what's the reason you don't use network manager what
did you install wicked instead um i i don't i had some problem i don't
remember to be honest but when i went to 14.1 i tried it
and i couldn't configure something the way i wanted it to
it would likely have been um i think i i don't know for sure but it was
it's possible that was that when my laptops in the house
i want it to be static ip when it's connected to the wired network
but i want it to be dynamic when it's connected to the wireless
oh right and i i think that it could have been my fault but i think i had some
problem setting up in network manager and it kept getting confused
or i kept getting confused to be clear i can't but i don't honestly remember it
was a while ago but i already knew wicked so i went back to wicked and it just
worked i got very quickly set up exactly the way i wanted
um yeah so that was it yeah so so how do you do things?
yeah depends one when i'm like now when i'm traveling i just act away the
network manager script and use the like the three i can to
join wireless networks sometimes but usually i
basically roam between different Wi-Fi networks and
they're always the same so just want it warm and want it work
want it warm if you want yeah exactly exactly
and basically i just use a wpa
supplicant config script which contains like the details for
all those those networks and if you run the wpa
supplicant it basically just sits in the background
and tries to authenticate against one of the networks in the list
from basically it goes through from top and
from top to bottom so the most important you want to put the most
important ones at the top of the list and the less important ones like the
the local cafe or even sometimes i don't bother with
network manager when i travel i just add another network block
wpa config for for the campsite and just add a little
command that's the campsite in rakewig
works and then when i notice yeah the password is
you know camping 2015 probably no valid anymore edges
camping 2017 maybe or delete delete the entry
yeah and then from from there it's basically quite easy you just use the
rc.inet1.config script or config file which
configures the rc.inet1 script and there you just tell
to tell it to start wpa supplicant on the
wifi interface you can also configure
different interfaces so what you what you did would be
perfectly possible to configure there wired
interface to be static with a static ip
and use the hcp and wpa
supplicant on the wifi interface
and then basically wpa a supplicant just
authenticate against the wifi and then the hcp
gets the ip and sets everything up the works
quite well even if you switch between different
networks also suspend to resume has never been a problem
always resumes the connection
there is actually there is one downside if you
boot the computer and no wifi networks
are available from from the list it will time out
and it takes some time you have to wait for like 30 seconds or something
but you can edit the table can you i mean is there a way of doing that
never never try probably you can yet but you don't want to set it
too low because sometimes it's just low to
authenticate because maybe your router sits in
another room and it's just it's busy for example in
local cafe or something but i usually i mean i don't
reboot the computer that often anyway usually just
suspends and resumes again suspends again
the only reason to reboot the computer is
ever now the battery and don't notice
yeah that's that's the last time my laptop got rebooted was because i
put it to sleep took it in holiday and then didn't use it for several days
exactly i think it's out found the room there's more battery where i start
than the red row battery i mean if it runs low on battery
while you work it just suspends and you plug it in and it comes back
but if it runs low on battery during suspend then it just eventually stops
working yeah i think and i don't know if you must be
we'd sit this up and then slack wear. But the windows laptops I've had do this weird thing is
if you've had them in suspense then and then they're really low in battery they'll wake themselves up
and hibernate themselves because it's all right because the difference is hibernating right to this
so I think one time I was like in an airport or something and my laptops it was just all
spontaneously just when started buzzing you know because it was quite noisy fans and stuff and I was like
whoa what's with it's like I'm coming to life just somewhere through security or something
you know and and and of course it was that it was it was low in battery and it was hibernating
yeah but I've not had that with I didn't listen to quite irritating because I don't want my
computers turning themselves on while they're in the back. No no me neither because the other thing
is you one time it went wrong and you open up your bag and find that it's like this glowing red
thoughts yeah this is kind of ventilation in the bag so yeah so you know I and of course
windows had screwed it up and and yeah it wasn't hibernating properly it was like you didn't work
didn't work yes yes yes would you like me to close this window and it's not exactly very useful
when it's when it's closing in your bag but I mean to be fair I've not even tried not even tried
that and it's got a sense for feature to have is that you switch from spend to hibernate that is
that that makes sense I don't know if it works I'll have a look and never and never bother to set
up hibernation anyway or even try whether it works out of the box yeah we need to make you need
to have swap space and a lot of times these days but I usually still do you still do I still do but
you know a lot of memory is so huge and laptop slightly less than yeah my swap space is
generally always empty yes but it is I mean heart rides are huge too so it doesn't doesn't matter
that's true that's true yeah so I don't I need to have a look at that because I to say I do use
rc.init one scripts on desktop machines that I have because there's a static IP and there's no
absolutely no need for anything but for some reason years ago I got out the habit of using
the wpa supplicant but that's put again that's possibly down to me being slightly lazy and
not reading the documentation I didn't seem to work it and be recommended to use that by someone
so I don't know I don't know why but maybe go back and look at that because I'm like you I very
really take my laptop to places that it's not been before it's great reading it and even when I do
if I'm staying for a week in a holiday house I did a few weeks ago you know first thing I could do
get there and edit a few days yeah edit a file that's what what I usually do except for when I
mean if you travel around for example cycling you go to campsite and you're on this campsite for like
12 hours hmm I don't want to edit the file every 12 hours again no delete this again
well you could do it this way so yeah still works but yeah it's one one I think camping you know
you have to minimum yeah I think you have to be very efficient when you're camping do it because
you know there often there is no place to charge the laptops that you have to
use as little battery as possible that's true so yeah so everything the WPA itself we can come
through files still a waste of battery yeah pressure pressure pressure you must be able to you
know I'm thinking about it you could must be something you can connect to your bike that could
charge a battery that would do your phone in your laptop yeah I've got a dynamite in the front
wheel hop so I always wanted to never I think there are those things that you can connect to the
dynamite and have a USB port on the other end to charge you can't charge like a laptop obviously
but a phone or something small would be feasible I think these days there are even brands of bicycle
where they have built in USB ports in in the bike wow only charging ports whenever you cycle
and the dynamo produces energy during the day you don't need a light yeah you can charge
your cycling a human being cycling produces a bow so a hundred watts something of that order
so it's quite a lot it would be you know of course it would be yeah but usually I tried to put
this energy into velocity and covering covering distance that's true it might charge
things it makes it make it easier but on the plus side you could you know yes you're certainly
having to pedal hard and you exercise yourself more but then then you can you can justify
the extra calories of another pint of beer or pleat of chips yeah that's exactly the reason why I
ride steel frame bicycles is that they're heavy so you need more calories to to move them
you get your drink for beer
indeed yes so there you go hard at first hard at first you know you could reason to drink beer
is to keep your laptop charged or so you use steel frame bicycles with USB ports and you'll get
to drink okay so well you're about to leave Scotland shortly you've got cycle to Edinburgh
so you're in Glasgow we're talking just my house just outside Glasgow and where I live just
and you're going to cycle along the canal to Edinburgh tomorrow yeah yeah exactly and then
I have to pack the bike because it goes into a bag you have to have to bag your remove pedals
remove the handlebar I also I even removed the racks who fitted in the bag
but they won't check they won't allow you to check in a bike that's just like
ready to ride yeah so yeah I'm sure that you mentioned before it might come out in a different
shape the one yeah exactly yeah that's that's a steel frame bike yeah but it's still
got disc brakes and those discs have to be like flat to work
yes then end up like bent after a flight I mean it's not that important on this flight but
on the flight from the problem to Edinburgh was quite important then yes yeah we can get very far
yeah yeah yeah where you make worries yeah well I was thinking we make cold as HPR episode
slackwear in Scotland and maybe one day we'll have a slackwear in Switzerland yeah yeah yeah yeah
be great yeah yeah okay well I was great talking to you Benny yeah thank you yeah and well
let's wrap this up yep so you could buy to all our HPR listeners yeah thank you for listening
thank you for listening to the end for those who did yes especially Italian arch Linux users
or as I said Italians yeah yeah whatever Italians and fruit flies
let's just leave it there all right goodbye everyone bye bye
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