Tools for Slackware

Scripts to install the latest web browsers

Here are some scripts that make it easy to be up-to-date on web browsers for Slackware64-15.0 and -current. These find and download the latest versions and make a Slackware package of them. Optionally, they will also install the package when using the -i flag. Thanks to Ruari Oedegaard for the idea and writing his scripts for Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox, and Chrome .

latest-chromium-ungoogled.sh, a script to download the latest ungoogled chromium, make a Slackware package of it and, optionally, install the package.
latest-librewolf.sh, a script to download the latest LibreWolf, make a Slackware package of it and, optionally, install the package.
latest-tor-browser.sh, a script to download the latest Tor Browser, make a Slackware package of it and, optionally, install the package.
latest-waterfox.sh, a script to download the latest Waterfox, make a Slackware package of it and, optionally, install the package.

Some useful tools for running Slackware on 2012 Apple MacBook Pro laptops

The 2012 MacBook Pro (macbookpro9,2) laptops are excellent hosts for Slackware. Since Apple abandoned the hardware in 2020, the 2012 MBPs have been available on eBay for very reasonable prices, often running between $50 and $150 for machines in good to excellent working condition. These units can be upgraded to 16 GB of RAM for a still reasonable price and to a 1TB SATA hard drive or a 2TB SATA SSD for reasonable price. Unfortunately, the stock Slackware installation doesn't include some important drivers for Apple hardware. The stock SMC controller doesn't allow setting thresholds for the battery charge, so it will always be charged to 100%, shortening the battery's lifetime. And, there isn't a daemon for controlling the fan speed, so the CPU will thermally throttle unless the fan comes on. The below tools should work on other Apple hardware besides the 2012 MBP. The Broadcom BCM4331 is supported by the stock kernel, but only on the 2 GHz wifi channels. The broadcom-sta driver, wl, unlocks the 5 GHz channels, at the cost of tainting the kernel. The SDHC card reader works, albeit somewhat slowly, if the kernel is passed the sdhci.debug_quirks2=4 option at boot time.

Slackbuild for Chris Osgood's AppleSMC-next patch to the Linux kernel's applesmc driver to allow the System Management Controller to set the maximum charge level to which the battery will be charged. This will increase the battery life. This also works with kernels that use cryptographically signed modules.
Slackbuild for Andrew Gaul's mbpfan, a daemon to control the fan speed on MacBook Pro computers.
Slackbuild for the broadcom-sta driver that works with kernels that use cryptographically signed modules. If you're not using signed modules, then it's better to use the broadcom-wl build on SlackBuilds.org or AlienBOB's broadcom-sta SlackBuild. You'll also need the Broadcom firmware.
A ~/.gkrellm2/sensor-config for a reasonable set of sensor readings if you're using gkrellm.
A /etc/sensors3.conf file for the 2012 MBP.

Other useful tools for Slackware

Slackbuild for packaging Craig Rowland's Sentry Tools logcheck script.
Slackbuild for packaging leetronics's infnoise software for the Infinite Noise open hardware true random number generator USB dongle. The package includes udev rules for automatically starting and stopping the daemon when the USB dongle is inserted or removed.
Slackbuild for packaging the Adobe 35 fonts for PostScript. (Fonts not included!) These and other PostScript fonts are no longer available for purchase from Adobe.
Slackbuild for making a Slackware package for bzt's usbimager minimal GUI app for writing compressed disk images to USB drives. A nice replacement for Balena Etcher.
Slackbuild for making a Slackware package for stapler, Fred Wenzel's rewrite of Philip Stark's pure Python alternative to the pdftk toolkit. Requires the pypdf2 library.
latest-vuescan.sh a script to find and download the latest version of Ed Hamrick's VueScan scanner driver and repackage it into a Slackware package. Invoked with the -i flag, it will also install that package.