Install and Boot the Linux Mint Kernel on Slackware

Warning

Do note that this procedure is HIGHLY discouraged. While booted into Slackware with the Linux Mint kernel, I face some issues such as

• Spotty trackpad and drawing tablet support. When the drawing tablet is plugged in, the trackpad starts to misbehave or not work at all.

Other problems that I can’t recall at the time of writing also exists. Expect buggy performance, and please do not do this on production devices.

Preface

Since I upgraded my laptop from kernel version 5.14.1 to 5.15.12, sleep (suspend) stopped working. I switched all the power actions in KDE from “Sleep” to “Hibernate” as a workaround. However recently I tested Linux Mint on this laptop, and sleep worked as expected, so I wonder if this has something to do with the kernel or kernel modules.

To test if this is the case, I swapped the Linux Mint kernel and modules onto Slackware and booted it. Magically, sleep started working. This is a guide on how I made it work.

Specs

• Laptop: MacBook Pro Late 2013 (MacBookPro11,2)
• CPU: Intel Core i7-4770HQ
• RAM: 16 GB
• Network card: Broadcom BCM4360
• Slackware version: -current w/ kernel 5.19.6
• Linux Mint version: 21.1 “Vanessa” w/ kernel 5.15.0-47
• Bootloader: ELILO

Procedure

In Slackware

• Partition your Slackware box and create (or make sure there is) a partition larger than 20GB.
• Download the Linux Mint ISO.
• Install Linux Mint on the partition you created. Linux Mint would also install a working version of GRUB.
• Reboot.

In Linux Mint

• Select Linux Mint from the GRUB boot menu.
• Install all updates with apt update and apt upgrade.
• Make sure every piece of hardware works under Linux Mint. For me I had to install the Broadcom Wi-Fi driver (broadcom-sta-dkms) to make Wi-Fi work.

After making sure everything works and suspend is working correctly, reboot.

In Slackware

[Note] This part assumes you use ELILO, the bootloader shipped with Slackware as the current default. If you use GRUB or other bootloaders, procedures may differ.

• Mount the Linux Mint drive, graphically or by executing as root mount <device-partition-name> <folder> (e.g. mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/mint).

  (From here on I’ll assume the Mint drive is mounted on /mnt/mint.)

• Switch user to root and change directory to /mnt/mint.

  $ sudo su
  # cd /mnt/mint

• Copy the initrd and vmlinuz into the appropriate EFI folder. If you’ve upgraded Linux Mint previously, there may be more than one kernel and initrd; copy the newest version. For me they’re with the suffix 5.15.0-47-generic.

  # cp boot/initrd.img-5.15.0-47-generic boot/vmlinuz-5.15.0-47-generic /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware

• Copy the kernel modules to Slackware.

  # cp -r lib/modules/5.15.0-47-generic /lib/modules

• Change directory to your EFI folder. For me it’s /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware.

  # cd /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware

• [Optional] Rename the Mint initrd and vmlinuz.

  # mv initrd.img-5.15.0-47-generic initrd-mint.img
  # mv vmlinuz-5.15.0-47-generic vmlinuz-mint

• Add ELILO entries. Edit elilo.conf with your favorite editor (mine is vim).

  vim elilo.conf

  It should look something like this:

  chooser=simple
  delay=1
  timeout=1
  #
  image=vmlinuz-generic-5.19.6
          label=current
          initrd=initrd.gz
          read-only
          append="root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda4 vga=normal ro"

• Append an entry for the Mint kernel and initrd at the bottom of the file.

  image=vmlinuz-mint
          label=mint
          initrd=initrd-mint.img
          append="root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda4 vga=normal" 

  The appended file looks like this:

  chooser=simple
  delay=1
  timeout=1
  #
  image=vmlinuz-generic-5.19.6
          label=current
          initrd=initrd.gz
          read-only
          append="root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda4 vga=normal ro"
  
  image=vmlinuz-mint
          label=mint
          initrd=initrd-mint.img
          append="root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda4 vga=normal"

• Save the file and exit.

After installing Linux Mint, GRUB automatically takes precedence over other bootloaders. We need to fix that with efibootmgr.

• Run efibootmgr for a list of bootloaders.

  # efibootmgr 

  Output:

  BootCurrent: 0000
  Timeout: 5 seconds
  BootOrder: 0000,0001,0080
  Boot0000* slackware-15.0+       HD(1,GPT,651aedc3-99fa-6447-b0bf-537afd5c66e6,0x800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\slackware-15.0+\grubx64.efi)
  Boot0001* Slackware     HD(1,GPT,651aedc3-99fa-6447-b0bf-537afd5c66e6,0x800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\Slackware\elilo.efi)
  Boot0080*       PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1c,0x4)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Sata(0,0,0)/HD(2,GPT,60b362a4-e270-4224-bad3-d5b1345c85db,0x64028,0xe991198)/VenMedia(be74fcf7-0b7c-49f3-9147-01f4042e6842,17a3baf0909199449864a58758401b69)/File(\F3A00EC0-6D2B-4ACB-A25D-3C0BF980C36B\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi)
  BootFFFF*       PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1c,0x4)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Sata(0,0,0)/HD(2,GPT,60b362a4-e270-4224-bad3-d5b1345c85db,0x64028,0xe991198)/VenMedia(be74fcf7-0b7c-49f3-9147-01f4042e6842,17a3baf0909199449864a58758401b69)/File(\F3A00EC0-6D2B-4ACB-A25D-3C0BF980C36B\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi)

  Here we can see the ELILO entry at Boot0001. Other entries include a GRUB install at Boot0000, and Mac fallbacks at Boot0080 and BootFFFF.

  Take note of the BootOrder (0000,0001,0080 in mine), as it would be used later.

• Make the ELILO entry take precedence. Edit the boot order with:

  # efibootmgr -o 0001,0000,0080

  Here I swapped 0001 and 0000 in the previous BootOrder value. This varies with every computer.

  For example, if your ELILO entry is at 0004, and your BootOrder is 0000,0005,0006,0001,0002,0004,0080, than you should run:

  # efibootmgr -o 0004,0000,0005,0006,0001,0002,0080

• Run efibootmgr again to make sure everything is right.

• Reboot.

Booting the new kernel

• After pressing the power button, spam any letter key (j would be sufficient) until the ELILO boot prompt appears.

  The boot prompt looks like this:

  ELILO boot:

• Enter mint on the boot prompt and press Enter.

At this point, your system should be booted with the Mint kernel. Test if sleep works; if it does, congratulations!

Bonus: Making the system boot the Linux Mint kernel by default

• Do this as root.

  $ sudo su

• Edit elilo.conf with your favorite editor.

  # vim /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/elilo.conf

• Move the Linux Mint entry to the top, right below the ELILO settings. For me, before editing it looks like:

  chooser=simple
  delay=1
  timeout=1
  #
  image=vmlinuz-generic-5.19.6
          label=current
          initrd=initrd.gz
          read-only
          append="root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda4 vga=normal ro"
  
  image=vmlinuz-mint
          label=mint
          initrd=initrd-mint.img
          append="root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda4 vga=normal"

  After editing it looks like:

  chooser=simple
  delay=1
  timeout=1
  #
  image=vmlinuz-mint
          label=mint
          initrd=initrd-mint.img
          append="root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda4 vga=normal"
  
  image=vmlinuz-generic-5.19.6
          label=current
          initrd=initrd.gz
          read-only
          append="root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda4 vga=normal ro"

• Reboot and test if the Mint kernel automatically boots.

標籤：slackware

2022-11-28

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