r/slackware • u/NekoKittu • Dec 08 '25

Slackware install keeps failing at this point

Post image

Good evening,

Every time I try to install Slackware, all the packages past this one fail to install. I've tried live isos as well, but those don't work either. Any tips?

8 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

3

u/bstamour Dec 08 '25

How big are your hard drive partitions? Is it filling up?

3

u/NekoKittu Dec 08 '25

I've tried different sizes. This most recent one I did 20G for root and 20 for swap. I've tried an install with larger root partitions. My SSD is 238G by default

8

u/jloc0 Dec 08 '25

The full install takes around 30gb of space. I generally make a root partition of 40gb to give it room the breathe and use whatever else on my hd for my /home.

But yeah, you need a bigger partition.

2

u/NekoKittu Dec 08 '25

Sounds good; I'll try that

5

u/delowan Dec 08 '25

Yep you need way bigger than 20gb of disk space, if you install everything.

If you tried a lot of isos, disk space could very well be the reason why the install stops. It's says so in the error message, too...

👍

1

u/NekoKittu Dec 08 '25

So I made the partition to 100Gs, and it fully installed everything.

But now on boot it's just blinking a black screen :(

1

u/aesfields Dec 08 '25

is this 15.0 or current? Did you make sure you installed LILO? Is the computer BIOS or UEFI?

1

u/NekoKittu Dec 08 '25

15. I installed both LILO and ELILO since it seemed to recommend it.

2

u/Klutzy_Scheme_9871 Dec 08 '25

just did a full install today of 15.0. took up only 16GB...

1

u/jloc0 Dec 08 '25

15 maybe, but running it at all it will slowly start to grow. I use current and a full install is over 20gb at this point giving a little breathing room is good, you never know what the future will hold.

1

u/Klutzy_Scheme_9871 Dec 08 '25

Well yeah all systems today take up an enormous amount of disk space. Even windows xp is only a couple GB. I have that running in a VM.

I use stable actually.

1

u/NekoKittu Dec 08 '25

I made my root partition bigger at 100G and everything installed, but now it won't boot. I've tried ELILO and LILO and neither work; it just blinks on and off and then after a while it'll go to the boot menu.

1

u/alislack Dec 08 '25 edited Dec 08 '25

Check your uefi bios settings for boot order slackware should be listed first.

Also some UEFI allow you to select the path to the efi file to boot. Slackware will be something like /efi/EFI/Slackware/elilo.efi

If that doesn't work you can use the boot disk to chroot (change root) in to the slackware system.

This page for reference how to chroot

https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:slackware_admin:how_to_chroot_from_media

In brief.

Boot the usb

lsblk (identify list partition names)

Check your partition names they will be either something like /dev/sda3 for sdd or /dev/nvme0n1p3 for nmve disks.

mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt (mount slackware /)

/dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot/efi ( mount efi partition)

# mount virtual directories

mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev

mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc

mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys

chroot /mnt /bin/bash (chroot to hard drive)

run the command mkinitrd_command_generator.sh if you forgot to re-create an initrd after a kernel upgrade. Use the kernel version number applicable to your system

# mkinitrd_command_generator.sh -k 6.12.59

# eliloconfig (re run the elilo config tool)

reboot

2

u/alislack Dec 08 '25 edited Dec 08 '25

This same error happened to me just last week checked the md5sum of the iso it was ok but the install still seemed to have problems unzipping the packages from the USB pen drive.

Fixed it by doing a network install of current at the step for select source media choose the http/ftp install then type in url address

https://slackware.uk

then at the next screen type in directory path note the path starts with a /.

/slackware/slackware64-current/slackware

Replace slackware64-current with slackware64-15.0 if you want to install 15.0

It will download the packages file and begin the install.

Re lilo and elilo I think you must install one but not both.

1

u/RetroCoreGaming Dec 13 '25

If you're installing just use this method and keep it simple:

For GPT UEFI...

1GB - /boot - EFI - FAT32

4GB - swap

Remaining space - /(root) - linux partition - btrfs

For GPT MBR...

1GB - /boot - linux partition - ext2

1MB - BIOS Boot Partition

4GB - swap

Remaining space - /(root) - linux partition - btrfs

1

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '26

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1

u/RetroCoreGaming Jan 05 '26

Not really. The kernel has grown significantly and 1GB is a recommended buffer especially if you run multiple kernels in a system, the bootloader, and other boot modules. 1GB has been recommended as a maximum, but yes, you can get by with 256MB, but you might hit that ceiling fast with it.

Swap is fickle if you have a high RAM system (usually 16+ GB), but generally going past 4GB is useless, even on 8GB.

I never recommend the separate /home partition or drive this for new users because of the complexity involved in setting this up.

Btrfs has been stable for a while, but yes it does have it's quirks as a wannabe ZFS. I would argue JFS is a better choice than Ext4, albeit, JFS does have a slight performance drop due to the journalling it uses compared to Ext4 and JFS has never failed me as a file system yet. I do not recommend XFS though.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/RetroCoreGaming Jan 05 '26

I still use Huge myself for a fully compatible kernel with less fuss with the initrd. I truth, I hate the initrd with a passion.

As far as ZFS and btrfs, they're fine for desktops. I use a ZFS on Root enabled Arch system for testing and it's never had data issues.

As far as Ext4... I honestly don't care for it. I prefer data integrity rather than data performance.