When logging in locally the first thing you will see on the screen is the keyboard map selection prompt. When logging in remotely the first thing you will see is the command prompt without a keyboard map selection prompt. Nothing is very wrong because that's how it's supposed to work, and I apologise for not making it clearer to understand.

From your screenshots I'd say your TERM is messed up. Try setting the terminal emulator to 'linux' to see if it fixes your issue:
Although this shouldn't be a problem, it won't hurt anything to do this.

If you have DHCP enabled on your network, then add this to your /boot/cmdline.txt file:

If you do not have DHCP enabled on your network, then add this to your /boot/cmdline.txt file (where <IP_ADDRESS> is the one you specify and want to use - e.g. 192.168.1.23):

Obviously you'll select an IP address that's suitable for your network. It's explained on this page, there's no need to Google for this information unless you want to. Hope this helps.

So ssh is enabled and ports are open in the installer by default? If not, can you post a link to such a tutorial that explains how to enable it if I can't enter any command? If it is enabled and ports are open by default: how can I find out what the address I have to connect to is (without running any command)?

Edit: ignore this post. After reading Exaga's last post I got that I can enable it by changing the files on the SD card on another computer

You can view the web panel on your home router / gateway and look for devices connected to the local network. If there is a network connection, the default host name is "Slackware". The Sarpi site has information about how to boot the installer with dhcp enabled. I am not 100% sure, but I believe the installer will launch a minimal SSH daemon you can connect to provided there is an active network connection.

I think this is the page: https://sarpi.penthux.net/index.php?p=preinstall

Yes. That's pretty much what you do. Edit the /boot/cmdline.txt file on your SD card before booting the Raspberry Pi with it. Then you can set a keyboard map and configure eth0, etc. and it should just work. I'm still intrigued by your original problem. If you find out what the cause was and how you solved it please let me know.

Ok, so changed the file (set the IP address to 192.168.1.23), connected an Ethernet cable, booted the installer and tried to connect:

I will try to install raspberry pi os to figure out if something is wrong with the SD card or the machine itself.

You'll need to set an IP address that falls within the range that your network is using. 192.168.1.23 was just an example and might not be appropriate for your particular setup. If you're using DHCP or you can set static IPs 'per device' on your router then this may be a better option. DHCP is the less time and effort method. So, if you are using DHCP then just use 'nic=auto:eth0:dhcp' in your /boot/cmdline.txt file. Then you can log in to your router to see which IP address it has assigned to the Raspberry Pi and use "ssh root@<IP_ADDRESS>" to log in to it.

'root@slackware' isn't going to work unless you have modified your /etc/hosts file to point 'slackware' to the IP of your Raspberry Pi. The system needs to know which IP address 'slackware' relates to. It's not automatic or something that will just work without setting it up first.

Incidentally, I wouldn't be able to use 192.168.1.23 on my home network because my router is set to work on a different IP range. You might want to log in to your router and check to see which range it is using in order to know which IP addresses are available. You usually have to set a static IP address on a router by using a device's MAC address - so it knows which IP to assign to it each time it's requested by the device when it boots. As I said, DHCP is the easier method and if it is available then use it just to save time.

Thanks for the additional information!

In the meantime I have flashed "Raspberry Pi OS" to the SD card, and it works perfectly. So I don't think the SD card, machine or keyboard is the issue.

OK cool. Then you have eliminated these from being the cause, or part, of the issue(s).

It's unfortunate that I don't have a RPi4 8GB to play with or I would do some testing. It certainly works on the RPi4 4GB as expected. Perhaps you might want to test it by setting a max 4GB RAM value in your /boot/config.txt file before booting:

I doubt this will make any difference but it's worth verifying. Did you also set your TERM to 'linux' in case that was somehow messing things up?

Also, it might be prudent to find out what Raspberry Pi OS is using as settings and compare it with Slackware ARM. I often do this for various reasons.

I haven't looked further into it so far. But got a few other questions:

"Raspberry Pi OS" is provided as an image that can be flashed to the SD card, no installation required. Is there a reason why "you/we" don't do the same for Slackware? It seems to be quite convenient.

Now that I have an OS running: is there an Option to install Slackware from that debian based OS? In theory, I would just need a working "installpkg" right? Then I could create a new Slackware root partition, install all packages to it, chroot into the new root and test it. If everything works, I could delete the old root partition and increase the new one.

This is because the Slackware Installer enables the proper and complete set up of the OS in such areas as file system type, partition layout. None of these can be done elegantly (or in some cases at all) with a prebuilt image.

As far as I can tell, most of the other distributions don't offer an installer because the installers for those OSs are GUI-based which isn't convenient for installing headless.

The official Slackware AArch64 installer works fine on the RPi4 installing using the virtual console (USB keyboard, HDMI monitor), over the UART/serial or SSH. If you want to put this on hold until January, drop mozes@slackware dot com an email and I'll give you the private repo access so you can test it out before it's made public.

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The reason why Slackware is not distributed as a pre-built image is because the correct way to install it on any compatible computer hardware is via the Slackware installer, as it is intended by Pat and the Slackware Team - who are the developers and maintainers of the operating system software. You may find that some 3rd party distributors do provide pre-built images (especially on the ARM platform) but you will not find them from official sources, or the SARPi Project. Convenience is all well and good but Slackware is a distribution where “simplicity” is preferred over “convenience.”

Yes, there is more than one way to get Slackware ARM running on the Raspberry Pi devices. Take a look at SlackDocs - Slackware ARM on a Raspberry Pi 4 page "Manual install method without a Raspbian image" section. That should give you enough pointers about what you're looking for.

In case you're interested the same thing happened to me today as I followed the "SARPi Project - Slackware ARM on a Raspberry Pi" instructions. I switched to virtual console 2 as a workaround (where the keyboard worked properly) so I could run setup.

I'm certainly interested in anything that may be broken or not working as expected. Could you elaborate on which 'same thing' happened and possibly offer a little more clarity? Thanks in advance.