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Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop?

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  Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2026-06-21 17:28 -0300
    Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> - 2026-06-22 09:58 -0400
      Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2026-06-25 02:58 -0300
        Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? kaukasoina3dore73js4@sci.fi (Petri Kaukasoina) - 2026-06-25 10:29 +0000
          Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2026-06-26 02:05 -0300
            Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? kaukasoina3dore73js4@sci.fi (Petri Kaukasoina) - 2026-06-26 05:57 +0000
              Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? kaukasoina3dore73js4@sci.fi (Petri Kaukasoina) - 2026-06-26 07:34 +0000
        Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> - 2026-06-25 10:21 -0400
          Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2026-06-26 02:02 -0300
            Re: Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop? jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> - 2026-06-26 09:57 -0400

#35632 — Opinion on Acer Tower 18L Desktop?

Anyone have an opinion on whether this computer would or would not be
good for Slackware 15?  Any known problems with installing,
partitioning disk or anything?

Acer Tower 18L Desktop

Intel Core i5-14400 - 1TB SSD - 16GB RAM

SKU # TC-1785-ES12

I've usually upgraded from one used box to another newer used
one.  Trying to avoid buyer's remorse when looking at a new one.  I
haven't done an install on a very recent machine, may not know
pitfalls despite being a long-time Slackware user.

Tnx,
-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

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#35634

Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:

> Anyone have an opinion on whether this computer would or would not be
> good for Slackware 15?  Any known problems with installing,
> partitioning disk or anything?
>
> Acer Tower 18L Desktop
>
> Intel Core i5-14400 - 1TB SSD - 16GB RAM
>
> SKU # TC-1785-ES12
I would not try to put Slackware 15 on that or any new machine from the
last 5 years or so. Go with Current, and use grub. From what I've read,
you can shut off secure boot with those so you should be mostly OK. The
other places to get bit are if the wifi chip will do AP mode (if you
care), if the system has usable virtualization (got bit by that myself
once) and the GPU. Since it's Intel you should be OK. Newer machines
want some type of framebuffer on boot. We had a thread on LinuxQuestions
about this topic a month or so back (something about booting on
non-legacy systems). The hardware out today is not what 15 expects.

https://slackware.uk/people/alien-current-iso/slackware64-current-iso/slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso

Ex:
dd if=/var/tmp/slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=512 status=progress

Personally, I'd get a system76 or something made for Linux so you know
everything works well and out-of-the-box. Those mass-made big box store
systems don't have interchangable parts. Once I tried to get a new fan
for my HP. Just one fan. It was a non-stardard size and didn't fit. If
the PSU goes, you're out of luck. Most of PCIe lanes will be used. 

-- 
PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356  7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
       "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

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#35636

jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> writes:

> Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:
> 
>> Anyone have an opinion on whether this computer would or would not be
>> good for Slackware 15?  Any known problems with installing,
>> partitioning disk or anything?
>>
>> Acer Tower 18L Desktop
>>
>> Intel Core i5-14400 - 1TB SSD - 16GB RAM
>>
>> SKU # TC-1785-ES12

Thanks for the reply, jayjwa.

> I would not try to put Slackware 15 on that or any new machine from the
> last 5 years or so. 

Slackware 15 was released just over 4 years ago (Slackware 15.0
release notes. Wed Feb  2 18:39:59 CST 2022) so that doesn't seem
quite right.

But the "newest coolest hardware" problem is just why I posted the
question.

> Newer machines want some type of framebuffer on boot.

I don't' know enough to know how/why that's a problem. I've never had
to think about framebuffers. I'm old enough (see .sig) to remember
having to struggle with mode lines in .xinitrc but I've never had to
think about framebuffers.  Linux and X just did what it's supposed to.
At boot, won't a new system have a framebuffer available in hardware?

> We had a thread on LinuxQuestions about this topic a month or so
> back...

Okay, let's see what that was...I've been to LinuxQuestions
before. Now, using the Firefox distributed in Slack 15 32 bit, but
now I get,

    Your browser does not support the security verification required
    by www.linuxquestions.org. This can happen if your browser is
    either too old to support the latest security features...

which is exactly the kind of crap I'm trying to deal with.  Neither
Firefox nor Seamonkey have a recent 32 bit release.

> Go with Current, and use grub.
>
> https://slackware.uk/people/alien-current-iso/slackware64-current-iso/slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso
> 
> Ex:
> dd if=/var/tmp/slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=512 status=progress

Thanks for the pointer.  I had no idea where to find that. The mirror
sites seem to have it (and other distros) as separate files rather
than an ISO.

> From what I've read, you can shut off secure boot with those so you
> should be mostly OK.

New hardware with Windows installed will prevent me from forcing
legacy MBR setup?  That's what I did when I installed Slack 14.2 32bit
on my Acer 64bit laptop a decade ago.


> The other places to get bit are if the wifi chip will do AP mode (if
> you care), if the system has usable virtualization (got bit by that
> myself once) and the GPU. Since it's Intel you should be OK.

I don't know anything about any of those.  the Acer 18L doesn't have
wifi.

> The hardware out today is not what 15 expects.
> 
> Personally, I'd get a system76 or something made for Linux so you know
> everything works well and out-of-the-box.

I'm pretty keen on "buy local".  I don't think I want my support to be
in Denver.  They do say,

    System76's firmware partly disables the Intel Management
    Engine; the Intel Management Engine is proprietary
    firmware which runs an operating system in post-2008 Intel
    chipsets.

which is, AFAIK, the main potential pitfall in Window-installed
systems.  Not entirely sure that switching from their Ubuntu to
Slackware would be altogether straightforward though.

I'm a decade or more beyond taking any pleasure in what has now become
an onerous task of mastering a whole new domain of technology.  BTDT,
(literally) have the sweatshirt.  But I still want the versatility and
non-authoritarian posture of Slackware.




-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

When you're in your 80s, just being old is a half-time job. -- Stewart Brand

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

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#35637

Mike Spencer  <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>I've been to LinuxQuestions before. Now, using the Firefox distributed in
>Slack 15 32 bit, but now I get,
>
>    Your browser does not support the security verification required
>    by www.linuxquestions.org. This can happen if your browser is
>    either too old to support the latest security features...
>
>which is exactly the kind of crap I'm trying to deal with.  Neither
>Firefox nor Seamonkey have a recent 32 bit release.

You should upgrade all packages from
https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slackware-15.0/patches/packages/

You will find the 32-bit browser packages there:
mozilla-firefox-140.12.0esr-i686-1_slack15.0 and
seamonkey-2.53.23-i686-1_slack15.0

The version numbers are the same as in the 64-bit -current.

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#35643

kaukasoina3dore73js4@sci.fi (Petri Kaukasoina) wrote:

> Mike Spencer  <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
> 
>> I've been to LinuxQuestions before. Now, using the Firefox distributed in
>> Slack 15 32 bit, but now I get,
>>
>>    Your browser does not support the security verification required
>>    by www.linuxquestions.org. This can happen if your browser is
>>    either too old to support the latest security features...
>>
>> which is exactly the kind of crap I'm trying to deal with.  Neither
>> Firefox nor Seamonkey have a recent 32 bit release.
> 
> You should upgrade all packages from
> https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slackware-15.0/patches/packages/
> 
> You will find the 32-bit browser packages there:
> mozilla-firefox-140.12.0esr-i686-1_slack15.0 and
> seamonkey-2.53.23-i686-1_slack15.0
> 
> The version numbers are the same as in the 64-bit -current.

That's curious because the Seamonkey website doesn't offer 2.53.23 in
32 bits.

Ell, okay, good!  Thats an improvement from SM 2.53.21 (that I downloaded
from Seamonkey and am running in the unpack dir) and a bigger improvement
in the (more frequently updated) FF 91.5.1 (Slack 15 distro).

Despite 25 years with Slackware, I've never used slackpkg. I need a
little reassurance or direction here.

The slackpkg manpage says:

   INSTRUCTIONS
   [...]
   ACTIONS
   [...]
      upgrade
         upgrade installs the most recent official version of the specified
         package(s).

but there's no example command to show correct syntax, lacking which
"the specified package(s)" is ambiguous. Is this right?

   + Download seamonkey-2.53.23-i686-1_slack15.0.txz in /path/to/

   + enoch% su

   + enoch% slackpkg upgrade /path/to/seamonkey-2.53.23-i686-1_slack15.0.txz 

to have the distro-installed Seamonkey replaced with 2.53.23?

I've always avoided commands that, run by root, promise to do a bunch
of system stuff when the documentation isn't tediously explicit.

Possibly revealing more ignorance than I should: I never thought to
look in a dir called "patches" for software packages.  I assumed that
would hold diff output for patching source.

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

When you're in your 80s, just being old is a half-time job. -- Stewart Brand

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#35644

Mike Spencer  <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>Is this right?
>
>   + Download seamonkey-2.53.23-i686-1_slack15.0.txz in /path/to/
>
>   + enoch% su
>
>   + enoch% slackpkg upgrade /path/to/seamonkey-2.53.23-i686-1_slack15.0.txz 

It's better to upgrade everything from patches/ because it's possible that
for example seamonkey has been built against some other upgraded package
there.

Either download every *.txz package from patches/ and then as root,
'upgradepkg *.txz'.

Or you can use slackpkg to do it automatically. No need to download packages
manually. Uncomment one 15.0 mirror from /etc/slackpkg/mirrors, for example
https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slackware-15.0/, then 'slackpkg
update' and then 'slackpkg upgrade patches'.

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#35645

Petri Kaukasoina <kaukasoina3dore73js4@sci.fi> wrote:
>Uncomment one 15.0 mirror from /etc/slackpkg/mirrors, for example
>https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slackware-15.0/, then 'slackpkg
>update' and then 'slackpkg upgrade patches'.

A warning: you may want to blacklist the kernel packages by uncommenting the
lines in /etc/slackpkg/blacklist referring to the kernel packages. Then the
kernel will not be offered for upgrade.

(If you really want to upgrade also the kernel, you may need to build
initrd and at least you need to fix the boot loader.)

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#35638

Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:

>>> Acer Tower 18L Desktop
>>> Intel Core i5-14400 - 1TB SSD - 16GB RAM
>>> SKU # TC-1785-ES12

> Slackware 15 was released just over 4 years ago (Slackware 15.0
> release notes. Wed Feb  2 18:39:59 CST 2022) so that doesn't seem
> quite right.
It might work. But 4-5 years is forever in computer science and an
operating system released in '22 is mostly going to support hardware from
pre-22 (because new support almost certainly wasn't added on release
day or even release month). Any issues present in the year 2022, 23, 24,
and so on have most likley been worked out by now. 

>> Newer machines want some type of framebuffer on boot.
>
> I don't' know enough to know how/why that's a problem. I've never had
> to think about framebuffers. I'm old enough (see .sig) to remember
> having to struggle with mode lines in .xinitrc but I've never had to
> think about framebuffers.  Linux and X just did what it's supposed to.
> At boot, won't a new system have a framebuffer available in hardware?
This is before X or any GUI starts.

>> We had a thread on LinuxQuestions about this topic a month or so
>> back...
Here's the threads I was thinking about:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/slackware-15-0-graphics-stack-and-kernel-configuration-4175763360/

Mostly that one, but this one also has some info:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/[installer]-improving-build-install-sh-for-more-better-native-gpu-driver-drm-support-besides-simpledrm-4175763703/


> New hardware with Windows installed will prevent me from forcing
> legacy MBR setup?  That's what I did when I installed Slack 14.2 32bit
> on my Acer 64bit laptop a decade ago.
If you want to dual boot with modern Windows it will be UEFI with secure
boot. I personally won't even try to do secure boot with Slackware, so
off secure boot goes for me. UEFI is what's in use now. 

> which is, AFAIK, the main potential pitfall in Window-installed
> systems.  Not entirely sure that switching from their Ubuntu to
> Slackware would be altogether straightforward though.
Correct, but the chances they'd include hardware that doesn't work with
Linux would be approaching zero since they are a Linux-focused company.

-- 
PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356  7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
       "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

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#35642

jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> writes:

> Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:
> 
>> New hardware with Windows installed will prevent me from forcing
>> legacy MBR setup?  That's what I did when I installed Slack 14.2 32bit
>> on my Acer 64bit laptop a decade ago.
>
> If you want to dual boot with modern Windows it will be UEFI with secure
> boot.

Gak!  No.  I don't want ever to see Windows. In the past I've done
that by deleting all the HD partitions.

> I personally won't even try to do secure boot with Slackware, so
> off secure boot goes for me. UEFI is what's in use now. 

So you have a GPT-partitioned HD?  Is that something that is easily
ealt with during Slackware installation?  Using grub?  Never used
grub.  Is grub the default app when installing 64 bit Slackware?
Trying to avoid a snakepit of learning all about GPT, UEFI, secure
boot and perhaps other stuff I don't evenknow the name of.

My inclination is to revert to "legacy" MBR boot.  Do newer systems
make that impossible?


-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

When you're in your 80s, just being old is a half-time job. -- Stewart Brand

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#35647

Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:

> So you have a GPT-partitioned HD?  Is that something that is easily
> ealt with during Slackware installation?  Using grub?  Never used
> grub.  Is grub the default app when installing 64 bit Slackware?
> Trying to avoid a snakepit of learning all about GPT, UEFI, secure
> boot and perhaps other stuff I don't evenknow the name of.
Yes. You make an EFI service partition, usually /dev/sda1 (or similar),
which is of filesystem type FAT32. On this filesystem, you place the
bootloader and, if using elilo, the kernel and initrd themselves. Grub
can "see" into Linux filesystems so you don't need to do that with
Grub. The EFI service partition (ESP) lays on /boot/efi/ on a running
system. It looks like this (showing Grub in use on Current):
 file /boot/efi/EFI/slackware-15.0+/grubx64.efi
/boot/efi/EFI/slackware-15.0+/grubx64.efi: PE32+ executable for EFI (application), x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), 4 sections

/dev/sda1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)

Though elilo is the default as of right now, it is unmaintained, and for
some people, it stopped working. This was around kernel 6.1 if I recall
from memory. Grub isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. Usually
it's just 3 commands to install it on a single boot system. It can do alot
but you only need a small fraction of its ability on a basic Linux
system.

It's human nature to stick with what we know, but UEFI is what's around
now so it's best to learn it. Years ago I felt the same way but took the
time to learn. This is what I used:

https://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/

The date is aways back but the information is relavent today. There's
alot of information there but you only need about 30% of it. 

> My inclination is to revert to "legacy" MBR boot.  Do newer systems
> make that impossible?
Some systems might not have it. On others it's called "CSM",
“Compatibility Support Module”. MBR is hacky and I think you'll like
UEFI if you give it a chance. Modern system, especially ones that come
with Windows, will already have the ESP created for you. You can just
use that and delete the Windows stuff off of it. The last few machine
I've bought have been setup this way. 

-- 
PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356  7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
       "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

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