I followed this guide. My 8GB RAM Raspberry Pi 4 booted the installer just fine. Selecting the keyboard map also works. Then I wanted to partition the SD card. First it seems that the input is read correctly, by this I mean that if I type fdisk the word fdisk actually gets displayed after the prompt. However, when I hit enter I get something like
The string displayed after "command not found" is different every time, even if the actual input is the same. It seems random, and it does not matter what I type. The length of the string also does not correspond to the length of the string I typed but is either shorter or has the same length. So if I type "a very long command" I sometimes get
and sometimes I get
Note that those are examples, I can't remember the actual strings.

That's very odd. The 'bash command not found' error could be because the PATH is missing or incorrect, or the command doesn't exist. Strange that 'setup' works and allows you to run the TUI to set a keyboard map. However, if you followed the SARPi tutorial then setting up partitions comes before running Slackware ARM 'setup'. It's best to follow the guide in the order that it appears on this page, or else you might run into problems. Really don't know how to advise you other than doing that.

No, "setup" does not work. Choosing the keyboard layout is the first thing I am prompted for when I run the sarpi installer, after that I get told that I should partition the disk now with e.g. fdisk which does not work. Any other command, including "setup" does not work as well. At no point, any input is passed correclty. I don't think that the PATH is the issue.

Could it be that there is an issue with the encoding? If the installer expects to get ASCII but gets UTF-8 instead, it would explain the issue

OK. Understood. Then I'd better double-check the latest RPi4 installer.

[EDIT] tested 'sarpi4-installer_slackcurrent_23Dec21_sp1.img' on the Raspberry Pi 4 [4GB] and it's working as expected. First I set the date. Then I used 'cfdisk' to create /swap and / partitions. Then I ran 'setup' and set a keyboard map, formatted the partitions, and now I am currently sat looking at the 'SOURCE MEDIA SELECTION' dialog box. So, this installer seems to be doing exactly what it's supposed to do.

Maybe try re-flashing the installer image to your SD card? It could be just a corrupt filesystem.

Note the contents of: /etc/profile.d/lang.sh

[Line 6-24]

"en_US.UTF-8 is the Slackware default locale" and "the old Slackware (and UNIX) default, which is 127-bit ASCII". Modern Slackware uses UTF-8.

I'm not sure if I get what you are trying to say... First, how can you be sure that this is true for the sarpi installer as well? Second, this seems to be a bug (or me using the wrong installer for the system) so something works differently from how it is supposed to work. So I'm not sure how you can rule out that there is an issue with encoding from citing how something is supposed to work...

I don't say that this is the issue, it was just a guess. Something must cause the issue.

I just saw your edit to your first reply right now. I will ref lash the SD card and try again later today.

I assumed (wrongly, it seems) that because you'd mentioned UTF-8/ASCII that you'd changed the locale, or were perhaps using putty to login remotely that had the wrong locale set. But then you wouldn't be prompted to set a keyboard map before running 'setup' if you were logging in remotely. So, whatever is causing the problem is unclear. If you believe the locale is incorrect then enter 'export LANG=en_US.UTF-8' as the first thing you do after logging in and see if it works for you. Or try logging in remotely, as I do, and see if it makes any difference.

I built and tested this installer on 22-23 December 2021 and it worked perfectly, and still does for me when I tested it again today.

Did you try a different keyboard? a different SD Card? Are you "under voltage"?

UTF-8 is the default for Slackware, but not 14.2. It has the stuff you need to enable it on 14.2 but 15.0 will have it enabled by default. Lots of people have been testing current and the installer. There should be no issues with having UTF-8 enabled.

Maybe your locale or keyboard is set incorrect?

Did you verify the installer image with a checksum before writing it to the sd card?

Just downloading the installer and flashing the SD card again did not help. If I understand Exaga correctly, I should also not be prompted to set the keyboard layout before I run setup... So something seems to be very wrong.

I attached two photos of my screen, one shows the keyboard layout prompt and the other one shows the actual problem. Maybe this helps to help me

Attached Thumbnails

   

I will try a different keyboard tomorrow, but it works fine on several other machines... I have to check if I can find a second SD card.


If you mean the layout: it does not matter what I choose there. It is a german keyboard but even with an us layout (and me figuring out where the letters are) I have the same issue. As you can see in the attached screenshot, the correct text gets displayed after the prompt, but something different gets passed to the shell.

Yes, it is correct.

Try booting up and connecting to it over ssh from another computer. To see if it is just your keyboard, if its the installer, or something else.

Other than that, I am unsure.

I do know that the key map prompt right after you boot up is normal in Slackware arm. I haven't used x86_64 for a while so it may have changed there too or not.

How can I connect to the machine via ssh?

There are a lot of tutorials online that will help you out with OpenSSH.

Basically, connect the ethernet port of the Raspberry Pi 4 to a router and connect to your Raspberry Pi remotely using something like putty, or the ssh command. Once you are connected, there is no password required. You will be logged into your system and can run "setup".