Slint Handbook (14.2.1)

The installer can prepare the drive where Slint will be installed or let users do so if they wants more customization. It includes a documentation.

Slint is accessible to visually impaired users, with speech and braille, from installation to usage in a console as in graphical environments.

A wide assortment of software for servers, desktops, and laptops is installed in all Slint systems, which include several graphical desktop environments: MATE and optionally KDE, LXQt and MATE. All graphical environments provide easy access to all applications and system operations, with auto-mounting of removable devices, plus notifications of available updates of installed software, immediate Internet access, halting, rebooting, switching users and DE.and hibernating the system. Slint is also fully fonctional on the console.

The language chosen will be used for internationalized applications.

The Slint Dashboard centralizes access to hardware and system settings, packages, system tools, documentation and utilities.

Slint ships with many applications out of the box to create, edit, view and convert documents in various formats, communicate by email, text and audio chat, play audio and video, send and receive documents peer to peer, edit audio, video and graphical documents, develop applications. It is fully usable as a server on a console and using one of the several included desktops.

Many applications are accessible to visually impaired users, a wide choice of TTS and associated voices is included, if you still need others they are easily installable, usable both in a textual environment (console) as well as on the desktop.

Several in-house tools ease administration and configuration of your Slint system.

Many more applications are easily built installed as software packages through a simple command or a few clicks. Thousands of software packages are at your fingertips!

Slint users are notified about upgrades of installed packages as soon as available, easily installed upon request. This keeps your system safe.

Default preferred applications settings are provided and can be easily customized.

The Slint installer provides a complete installation including the MATE desktop. It allow to also install other desktops: KDE and/or LXQt and/or XFCE.

Slint being based on Slackware, we tend to provide a new Slint version shortly after the release of a Slackware version.

However Slint follows a "semi-rolling" release models, meaning that during the life cycle of a given version, in addition to updates as security fixes and major bug fixes, some software are selectively updated to bring enhancements, and added to bring new features. This is the case for software contributing to make Slint accessible to the blind, like screen readers.

We recommend that users switch to a new version as soon as possible after its release. So far we have been able to provide instructions and helper scripts allowing to upgrade instead of installing from scratch a new release. We will do our best for that to stay possible with future versions, even though a full backup of users' files, followed by a an installation a new and a restoration of users' files can be easier, especially for a desktop or laptop usage.

The latest version of the Slint distribution is 15.0

The latest installation ISO image is always available in this directory

The file name of the ISO indicated below is just an example, that you will adapt to the current name when downloading.

If you are running Windows, an Internet search with as argument "check sha256sum windows" will tell you how to proceed.

If you are running Linux you can download the ISO image and its sha256 checksum typing:

To check the integrity of the downloaded files type this command:

The result should be : OK
Else, redo the downloads.

You can use either a DVD or an USB stick as installation media.

Dedicate a computer or at least a drive to Slint makes installation easier and is thus recommended. Then, skip this step and proceed directly to run the installer.

But you can also share a drive with an already installed operating system like Windows, Mac OS, *BSD, or another Linux distribution.

Then you will need a free space for Slint at the end of the partition table of this drive (after the last partition). At least 20G is needed for the system itself, but you will need also some space for user files and install other software. Shrinking the last partition of the drive can be done after having started the installer typing Linux commands if you are a Linux power user. This can also be done by the installer in Auto mode if following conditions are fulfilled:

Else, you will need to make room for Slint before installation using gparted or from Windows (recommended if Windows if installed). However, under some conditions Slint can do it for you.

You can let the installer partition the target drive for you, easier for Linux newcomers and if you are not acquainted with the command line: then skip directly to Start of the installation. Else, read on.

If possible install Slint in its own drive.

You may also install it in a drive shared by another system, but then preferably if booting in EFI mode, so that each system, having its own OS loader, will be independent from others and their updates. Then you need to free some space on the drive to install Slint. You can use the 'freespace' command of the Slint installer to do that if the last partition of the drive is has an ext2, ext3 or ext4 file system, else do it from the already installed system.

If possible, allow the machine to boot in EFI mode and set up a GPT (GUID partition table) for the target drive, for maximum flexibility.

The installer uses the GRUB software for both EFI and Legacy booting.

Installing Slint needs:

In case of a GPT, we recommend setting both a BIOS Boot partition and an ESP for more flexibility, allowing to boot Slint in EFI as well as in Legacy mode.

You can also dedicate other partitions for specific use cases.

Creating other partitions is optional. If you want a swap partition it should have the type Linux swap.

You can create partitions for Slint either before or after having started the installer.

If you are not accustomed to Linux you will probably find easier to do it before starting the installer. We suggest to use gparted to do that. Gparted can shrink existing partitions to make room, as well as create new partitions in the freed space. If you do not have a system that supports Gparted (Microsoft Windows) you can use Gparted Live.

To create and format partitions after having started the installer, you can use the partitioning utilities it includes: cfdisk, fdisk, sfdisk, cgdisk, gdisk, sgdisk, parted. The utilities with "g" in their name can handle only GPT, parted can handle DOS partition tables as well as GPT. fdisk, cfdisk and sfdisk can handle DOS partition tables. In addition, wipefs (to erase previous partition table and file system signatures) and partprobe (to inform the kernel of a partition table changes) are available. The lsblk utility displays information about block devices and partitions.

To format the partitions the installer includes all mkfs utilities. You need to format them yourself if not yet done so that the installer detects which are available at the beginning of installation.

If need be, setup the firmware of the machine to boot off the DVD or USB stick that you have prepared.

Insert the installation media (DVD or USB stick) and reboot your machine. Blind users will hear a 'beep' when the boot menu is displayed.

Start the installer just pressing Enter.

The installer will first probe you sounds cards.

This can help setting a working one as default, and also is used for speech during installation used by some blind users.

If the installer finds more than one sound card it will say for each:
press Enter to choose this sound board <sound card id>
Press enter as soon as hear that, to confirm that the proposed sound card is working. This setting will be saved in the new system in /etc/asound.conf.

At the next step, when asked you will confirm (typing s) or deny (just pressing Enter) that you want speech during installation. Braille is always available during installation.

You will then choose, confirm or change the language used during installation. Then all screens will be in the chosen language if the translation into this language is complete.

If you need to append additional kernel parameters to the boot command line, before pressing Enter do what follows :

For instance to configure the speakup driver for your hardware synthesizer you could type a kernel parameter like:

You can also include in the boot command line the settings for your Braille device, in this form:

For instance to install with a Papenmeier device connected through USB with a French text table type:

In any case, as there is no timeout, booting will only begin when you press [Enter].

Speech and Braille will be available at the beginning of installation.

If you are acquainted with the command line, you may skip this topic.

The main installation menu is displayed below:

As soon as this menu is displayed, you have the hand on the installation process.

You read the screen and type commands in a virtual terminal. The installer includes several virtual terminals sharing the same physical keyboard and screen, that can be used in parallel.

The installer starts in the virtual terminal 1 named tty1 but you can switch to another one. For instance you can switch to tty2 by pressing Alt-F2 then Enter to activate it and later go back to tty1 by pressing Alt-F1, without erasing information displayed in both terminals. Alt-F1 means: press and hold the Alt key then press the F1 key.

This can be useful to continue reading the documentation during installation: for instance you can switch to tty2 to begin installation, switch to tty1 to continue reading the documentation, then switch to tty1 again to proceed to the next installation step.

This can also be used to consult the glossary while reading other documents.

The fourth virtual terminal or tty4 displays messages that provide information useful for debugging, otherwise it is not used.

The installer has several modes of interaction with you, the user:

The installation process begins when you type 'start' (without the quotes).

The installer first probes the drives, their sizes and partitions and the free space on them.

It then first asks you if you have prepared the drive where you want to install Slint as described above in Create partitions for Slint.

The installer can prpose you set up mount points for partitions shared with or used by Windows to allow access them from Slint and also for Linux partitions outside of the Slint system you are installing. these partitions, if of type Linux should have one of the file systems btrfs, ext4, f2fs or xfs, else exfat, vfat or ntfs.

If the drive is removable and connected through USB, the installer can make Slint portable, allowing you to use it on any computer able to boot off an external USB drive.

The drive can optionally be encrypted, to protect your data from theft if the drive or computer is lost or stolen. As there are important associated caveats, carefully read the document Encryption first.

You will review your choices before installation actually begins and be offered to either confirm them or go back to the beginning of the process.

After confirmation the partitions are created if not yet done, then the base packages are installed, which takes a few seconds.

Last, remove the installation media and reboot to start your new Slint system. You can display a preview of the boot menu before rebooting.

All done, remove the installation media and reboot to start Slint.

In Auto mode the installer proposes to encrypt the drive where it installs Slint, if you dedicate it to Slint. If you agree, at each boot the GRUB boot loader will ask you the passphrase that you will have typed during installation to unlock the drive, before displaying the boot menu. Be aware that unlocking the drive will take a few seconds (about ten seconds).

Having an encrypted drive prevents the steal of data it contains in case of loss or theft of the machine, or of a removable drive. But this won’t protect you if the computer stays running and unattended, only if the machine has been switched off completely!

During installation the Slint system partition will be encrypted, and also the additional partition that you may request.

A Slint system (or root) partition will the be named: /dev/mapper/cryproot once opened, if it has been encrypted.

This is shown by this command:

Which gives an output like:

This command instead:

gives:

/dev/sda3 is now a "raw" partition that includes the so called "LUKS header" that you will never need nor ever should access directly. It hosts all that is needed to encrypt or decrypt the partition /dev/mapper/cryptroot, which actually hosts your data (in this example the Slint system).

To avoid weak passphrases the installer requires that the passphrase include:

GRUB assumes that "us" keyboard is in use when you type the passphrase. For this reason, if during installation you use an other keyboard map, before asking the passphrase the installer will set the keyboard map to "us", and after having recorded it restore the previously used one. In this case the installer will also spell each typed character of the passphrase, as it may differ from the one written on the key.

The application cryptsetup is used to encrypt the drive. To know more type after installation:

and to know even more read: this FAQ.

Here are the first tasks to perform after installation

In this document, all text after a # character are comments of the suggested commands, not to be typed.

A window is a rectangular area associated with an application. Windows can be moved, re-sized, maximized, restored reduced, closed (terminating the application it handles) using the mouse or keyboard shortcuts.

To allow having a lot of windows opened in an orderly fashion, the graphical environment provide several work spaces and allow to switch between them. Each work space will display the same desktop and panels, but windows can be placed in specific work space or in all of them. This setting is available with a right click on the top edge of the window. Switching to another workspace can be done clicking on its position on the bottom panel of the screen, in the work space changer, as indicated below.

The desktop encompasses the whole screen, on which other components can be be put, in case of Mate and as shipped in Slint a top and a bottom panels, and four icons which from top to bottom allow to open in windows:

Windows of application you start as also put on the desktop.

Mate includes two panels, which presents themselves as slim rectangular horizontal areas, one at the top and one at the bottom of the screen.

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Tab allow to cycle between the desktop, the top and the bottom panels

Pressing Alt+Tab allows to cycle between the windows on the desktop.

It presents, from left to right:

It presents, from left to right:

The window managers are configured in Slint to be usable without changes. However you can reconfigure them to your liking. The way to do so varies from window manager to window manager. For more information, do an internet search.

We will end this introduction to Slint’s usage by presenting the Slint Control Center. You can display it from the application menu on the top panel or clicking on its icon in the desktop or typing qcontrolcenter in a "Run…​" dialog raised with Alt+F2

The goal of the control panel is to gather applications that are useful for system administration, documentation, and settings in a consistent fashion in all window managers. By clicking on a category in the left menu, you can display the corresponding applications in the right pane. We will present them in table format. This will give us the opportunity to present the administration tools that have a graphical user interface as well.

Most administrative tools should be used with administrative privileges. You will be asked for the root account password in order to launch a tool.

You can type commands in graphical mode as in console mode, if you open a window with a terminal in it. In Mate you can just press Ctrl+Alt+t, or click on the mate-terminal icon on the top panel, or open a "Run…​ " dialog pressing Alt+F2 then typing mate-terminal in the small window that opens.

Most of the information below about the command line and the shell in Console mode also apply to typing commands in a terminal. You can close mate-terminal pressing Alt+F4 as with any other window.

We present here the default key bindings for the Compiz window manager and the Mate desktop, and how to customize them.

root is the conventional name of the "super user" which have all rights to do administrative tasks, including those that could harm or even destroy the system.

You can (but this is not recommended for beginners) log in directly as root. To do this type root as user, then root’s password. To inform you (and warn you about the associated risks and responsibilities), the prompt will look like this:
root@darkstar:s~#
the character # (number sign, also commonly named hash) indicates that the commands will be typed as root (not as regular user), with the associated rights, but also risks and responsibilities.

If you are already logged as regular user, you can "become root" typing:
su -
then pressing Enter. In this command, su (which stands for "Super User") is the name of the command, and the character - (hyphen-minus, also named minus) tells that you are opening a "login shell": you will first be asked root’s password, then be directed to its home directory /home/root as if you had logged in as root at startup. This will avoid that you inadvertently write files in your home directory as regular user (/home/didier in the example) which cause issues later.

Almost all keys listed below are located on the numeric keypad. The Insert or 0 key on the keypad acts like a shift key. For instance, Ins 2 means "hold down the Insert key like a shift key and press 2". Keep numlock off to use Speakup.

Scope: these key bindings can be used with hard synthesizers and with espeakup, and also with speechd-up. However setting the pitch or the speech volume using key bindings is not available when using speechd-up.

First keys to remember:

Keys used for screen review:

Other keys:

These key bindings (for US keyboard layout) don’t need a numeric keypad. If you have one, use the speakup desktop keys easier to use, especially if you use another keyboard layout than US.

The CapsLock key acts like a Shift key.
For instance, CapsLock 2 means "hold down the CapsLock key like a shift key and press 2".
Keep numlock off to use Speakup.

Scope: these key bindings can be used with hard synthesizers and with espeakup, and also with speechd-up. However setting the pitch or the speech volume using key bindings is not available when using speechd-up.

First keys to remember:

Key used for screen review:

Other keys:

In Slint software is provided in the form of packages. A package is a bundle of files provided in a compressed archive file, put together to provide all that is needed to run the software. Packages are included in the installation ISO and stored in remote servers from which they can be downloaded and installed. Installing a package means extract the files from the archive file and copy them to some directory of the system.

Installation and removal of software are recorded in a database made of text files in these directories:

The files in the directory record information about the packages, mainly its content: the list of files it includes and where they are installed.

The main commands to manage the packages are listed below. All of them have associated man pages.

These commands require administrative rights, associated to a specific account named 'root', for which you have specified a password during Slint installation.

To issue a command as 'root', first type su - then enter the password for root and type the command.

Commands below can be run from a graphical terminal or in a console, but gslapt that only works in a graphical environment.

The packages shipped in the installation ISO come from the repositories listed in /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc

Do yourself a favor: read the comments in /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc and /usr/doc/slapt-get-0.10.2t/README.slapgetrc.Slint in the installed system.

After having installed Slint, you’ll be notified of updates of installed packages coming from repositories listed in /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc

You can install additional packages using the command slapt-get or the graphical application gslapt, if stored in a repository listed in /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc

slapt-get and gslapt provide a search feature that helps you finding packages.

Keep your system safe installing the software updates provided by Slint as soon as they’re available.

All updates are listed in the ChangeLog: http://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/ChangeLog.txt

After Slint installation or any change in the file /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getr run this command once:

To synchronize the local list of available package with that of the repository, this command is automatically run every two hours:

You can also run it manually

This of course requires that the machine be connected to the internet.

To download and install the upgraded or rebuilt packages run as root the following command:

Alternatively you could also use gslapt, a graphical front-end for slapt-get.

To get new packages listed in the ChangeLog as "Added", type:

or to make sure you have installed all packages shipped in Slint, including those added to the repository after you installed Slint, type:

On the desktops, a small icon is displayed in the notification area of a panel (the top panel in MATE) to notify of available software updates. Just make a left click on it and follow the instructions mentioned there.

Be aware that some packages are blacklisted in /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc, i.e. can not be automatically upgraded or installed.

New kernels are provided whenever necessary, either to bring security fixes or enhancements.

Usually no manual intervention from the user is necessary when this happens, but it can be useful to know how the kernel upgrade is done and what to do if something unexpected occurs.

Several packages include files associated with each kernel, namely: kernel-generic, kernel-modules, kernel-source, kernel headers. kernel-source and kernel-headers include files used to build software, only kernel-generic and kernel-modules are needed to run a Slint system.

The package kernel-modules ships files called modules, which are pieces of code that are "plugged in" the kernel to provide a specific feature or handle a specific hardware.

As soon as both a kernel package and the associated kernel-modules package are installed, the script /sbin/wrapupgradepkg builds an initrd associated with this kernel (with modules taken from the package kernel-modules) and installs it alongside the kernel in the /boot directory.

Then previous kernels (not in use at time of upgrade) are removed.

Then the script updates the GRUB configuration file /boot/grub/grub.cfg, read by the OS loader to build the boot when booting.

This boot menu will then include at least two boot entries each indicating, to indicating a kernel and its associated initrd to use. From the top:

This provide kind of a "safety net" in case Slint wouldn’t boot with the new kernel: in this case just arrow down once when the boot menu is displayed to start Slint with the previous kernel

You can preview the new boot menu before rebooting, typing as root:

Then an emulated or "fake" boot menu is displayed, with the same layout as the real one which will displayed at boot.

You can navigate in it with the down and up arrow keys to highlight (put the focus on) a boot entry of which you can display the details pressing 'e'. You can go back to the menu pressing Escape.

To exit from grub-emu press c then type exit and press Enter.

If the application you want is not installed and also not available in one of the repositories enabled in /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc you could make a package for it, using build material provided by volunteers @ https://slackbuilds.org. To know how-to proceed, read https://slackbuilds.org/howto/ and https://slackbuilds.org/faq/

The packages built this way should be compatible with Slint.

Two applications allow you build and install packages using the build material provided at https://slackbuilds.org: slapt-src and sbopkg. Unless you be accustomed to sbopkg, we recommend that you use slapt-src, faster to be acquainted with. However, both should work and provide the same results and should be used as root.

We will describe slapt-src in more details.

pavucontrol stands for PulseAudio Volume Control and is a graphical application. You can start it from a terminal or application menu, or doing a right click on the sound mixer icon on the top panel of Mate. Actually it allows more settings than just the volume control, take the time to explore all its features.

You can also use volume control applet in the notification area of the panel: a left click allows to adjust the volume, a right click gives access to other settings and allows to start the pavucontrol mixer.

alsamixer is a ncurses application, providing a semi-graphical user interface.

To use it type: in a console or in a graphical terminal:

then:

The command is of the form:

For instance to set the main volume to 70% type:

To know more, type one of these commands:

sam allows selection of the sound card to work on when there are more than one such device in your machine.
When there is only one, it directly presents the different mixers for configuration.

All selections, be it sound cards, mixers or a given feature of a specific mixer are selected by scrolling through the available options using the up and down arrows, then entering on the desired one:
q leave the selection list and/or quits.
Shift-q exits the program from anywhere.
F1 Displays any extra information if available.

When the name of the desired option is known, one can instead press its first letter. First-letter navigation is case-insensitive. That will then take you to the first selection starting with the pressed letter. Pressing the same letter again, will move you to the next option starting with that letter ifmore than one option like that exists. Repeating the letter will cycle among all those options starting with that letter.

The settable features of a mixer can be listed by pressing f1.
They are presented as a selection list, showing briefly all relevant information, e.g. "playback volume down from 84 percent" is the option to lower the playback volume setting of the playback volume. As you can see, it also tells you what the current setting is.

These itility are similar, with comands in this form:

For instance to set the volume to 70% for the default sink type one of these commands:

To know more, type:

Both of these command line applications control a running PulseAdio daemon.

To know more:

Just make the file /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa executable. As root:

At startup, this script will restore the previous sound settings if they were previously stored, else will set default volumes and store them, so that they will be restored at next reboot.

If you don’t want that this script to set the default volume type as root:

You can change these default sound levels with alsamixer or amixer then typing as root:

Then at next startup the script will restore them.

To know more: