This document presents Mini Slint

Table of contents

1. What is it.
2. Get it.
3. Transfer it to a device.
4. Run it in a device.
5. Run it in a Qemu virtual machine.
6. Install it yourself.
7. Look into minislint in the image.
8. Use it in VirtualBox or VMWare.

1. What is it.

minislint is a small Slint system already installed, in the form of a
single file called an "image", that can be used as a virtual disk or
copied to an USB stick, a hard disk or SSD to run Slint without having
to install it. This image is compressed, to speed up its download.

Albeit small, minislint is internationalized, accessible with Braille
and speech as soon as started, connected to the web, allows to surf with
lynx, email with mutt, play music with play. It includes all you need
for configuration and packages management in its 197 installed packages.

It can be started in EFI as in Legacy mode and the boot menu includes
four entries. From top to bottom:
Slint Linux
Advanced options for Slint
Detect and boot installed operating systems
Instructions for operating systems detection

So if put in an USB stick it can also rescue another installed system.

2. Get it.

All files mentioned in this document are in this directory:
https://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/minislint/

From Linux you can get them all at once typing this command:

lftp -c mirror https://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/minislint/

All files including this document will go locally in the directory
minislint. All further commands will be typed from it, so go there:

cd minislint 

The compressed image is: slintmini64-14.2.1.3.a.raw.lz
You can check its integrity typing from the minislint directory:
md5sum -c slintmini64-14.2.1.3.a.raw.lz.md5
The output should be "OK".

Before going further, expand it typing:

lzip -d -k slintmini64-14.2.1.3.a.raw.lz

This will take one minute or so. You will then use the expanded image,
named slintmini64-14.2.1.3.a.raw

3. Transfer it to a device.

This device can be a hard disk or SSD (possibly USB attached) or an
USB stick (maybe an SD card, if your computer can boot it).

The transfer needs whole device, so you can't use a spare partition or
the free space on a drive.

First, start your computer where you have minislint, then link the
target device to it, for instance plug it in if it is an USB drive.

Then check *very carefully* its name in the running system typing:

lsblk -l -o name,size,fstype,mountpoint

BE VERY CAREFUL: all the data in on the target device will be
irrecoverably lost. Don't select the wrong device!

As an example will assume that it is named /dev/sdd.

To transfer the image to the device, type:

cp slintmini64-14.2.1.3.a.raw /dev/sdd && echo "Done."

This takes several minutes, wait patiently until you get the output:
Done.

Then enlarge the root partition so that it uses the free space on the
device, typing as root:

mount /dev/sdd3 /mnt # you may choose another mount point.
mount -B /dev/ /mnt/dev
mount -B /proc /mnt/proc
mount -B /sys /mnt/sys
chroot /mnt enlargelastpart

Note: the shell script enlargelastpart is also stored in the directory
minislint, so you can read it. 

4. First start.

Regardless of how you installed it (on bare as told above or in a Qemu
virtual machine, cf. the next chapter) Mini Slint starts in console mode
as no graphical environment is yet installed. Brltty and espeakup are
running, so blind users will have speech and braille to log in.

Here are the initial settings and the commands allowing to change them,
mentioned after an a '>' character. All should be typed as root.

The user 'root' has the password 'slintroot' > usersetup
The user 'user' has the password 'slint' > usersetup
The locale is en_US.utf8 (LANG=en_US.utf8) > localesetup
The console keymap is 'us" > keyboardsetup
The hardware clock is set to UTC > clocksetup
The time zone is set to Europe/Paris > clocksetup
The network is configured by NetworkManager > netsetup
The hostname is darkstar, the domain name mini.img > netsetup
A selection of services is started at boot > servicesetup
The system starts in console mode > login-chooser

If you want to start a graphical environment directly, first complete
Slint as indicated below, then run login-chooser.

All other settings can be modified as soon as you start Slint.

To get the updates if any since the image was built, type as root:
slapt-get --add-keys
slapt-get -u
slapt-get --upgrade
slapt-get -i dotnew
dotnew # To handle possible changes in configuration files

Now, let's convert mini Slint to a complete Slint. This is not mandatory
but highly recommended.

To install all packages found in a complete Slint, type these commands:

slackware="a ap d e k kde l n t tcl x xap xfce y"
slapt-get --no-dep --install-set $slackware
slapt-get --install-set slint extra

You may exclude 'kde' of the list if you won't use it, it is heavy. and
hardly accessible with speech (hopefully the next version will be more
accessible).

Download and install several hundreds of packages takes a while,
possibly many hours! If you have a slow internet connection or for any
other reason, you may split the list in sub-sets and run the commands
for each.

Once Slint is complete, before starting a graphical environment choose
which one to use typing as regular user:

session-chooser

This setting applies for both ways to log in: from a console a well as
using a display manager. Reminder: you choose that way typing as root:

login-chooser

To know more, read the docs! To access it, type:

slint-doc

The documentation is also available on line at this address:
https://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/doc/ 

5. Run it in a Qemu virtual machine.

Pre-requisite: have Qemu installed (it is in Slint) and be acquainted
with it. First, enlarge the image typing as regular user:

qemu-img resize -f raw  slintmini64-14.2.1.3.raw 20G

This will increase the size of the image up to 20G, which leaves 4G
available for your data beyond a full Slint installation. Adapt this
value to your liking, keeping enough free space on the partition.

To start the virtual machine, type

sh minislint.sh

then press Enter to boot Slint.

The script minislint.sh is also stored in the directory minislint. 

Initially you will have less than 200M available in the root partition
/dev/sda3. Expand it to use all the space added to the image. typing as
root:

enlargelastpart

After that you can use Slint as if it had been installed in a physical
device, as described above.

6. Install it yourself.

If instead of running slint mini pre-installed in the image you can
install it youself.

Just follow the instructions in this document:

http://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/README.installation

But instead of the big ISO it mentions, use:
slintmini64-14.2.1.3.a.iso
also found in the directory minislint. This is the one used to install
minislint in the image, creating the partitions with the command 'auto'
before running 'setup'.

7. Look into minislint in the image.

To browse the root partition of minislint in the image, type as root:

partx -av slintmini64-14.2.1.3.a.raw
mount -o ro /dev/loop0p3 /mnt

Before typing "mount", check the output of "partx", which will list the
partitions as part of a loop device. Here we have assumed that this
device is named /dev/loop0 so the third partition is /dev/loop0p3.
Then you can browse /mnt to check the content of the root partition,
which is the third one.

The /dev/sda1 is only used by grub for booting in Legacy mode, /dev/sda2
for booting in EFI mode.

When you are done, umount the partition then free the loop device:

umount /mnt
partx -dv /dev/loop0

8. Use it in VirtualBox or VMWare.

Raw images intended for Qemu can be converted to a format suitable to
it on VirtualBox (format vdi) or VMWare (format vdmk), type:

qemu-img

to know the syntax to use.

Didier Spaier, Paris
Mardi 21 janvier 2020