Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: forge

I had to fix the Slackware 15.0 git repository

June 28, 2026 / / 3 Comments

Recently, and unexpectedly, I noticed a lot of errors in the output of the script which populates the git repository for Slackware. Specifically, when it updated the “15.0” branch which tracks the updates in Slackware 15.0.

I did an evening of troubleshooting and fixing. Somehow, the root user had dumped a copy of Slackware-current in the checked-out directory containing the Slackware 15.0 branch of the git repository. The script errors were caused by the inability of the non-root user running the script, to delete all the root-owned files that were suddenly there.

I was out traveling (to the ISC’26) with my team and did not have the time to fix this earlier.

Now I have fixed https://git.slackware.nl/current/log/?h=15.0 which I mirror as https://forge.slackware.nl/slackware/distrodevelopment/src/branch/15.0 by deleting the faulty commit (which contained all of Slackware-current), replaying the three good commits that came after and then salvaging the actual update from the faulty commit.
It means that the 4 new commits (actually the same commits but with a new hash) look a bit weird compared with all the others. They were manually fixed.

What this also means is: I have re-written the git history. If you cloned this repository from either of the above repository URLs (pure ‘clone’, not ‘clone –mirror’) you need to do a hard reset:

$ git fetch origin
$ git reset --hard origin/15.0
$ git fetch --prune --prune-tags origin

If you cloned this repository in the Slackware Forge, it’s considered an independent copy. It will not update of its own. You will have to sync or reset manually.

If you actually are mirroring the repository https://forge.slackware.nl/slackware/distrodevelopment then your next “git remote update” will most likely just bring your mirror back in sync without a need for further interaction.

I have also double-checked that any script that touches this git repository when doing updates is not clashing with another instance.
Sorry for any inconvenience.

Updated ‘ktown’ packages, and a heads-up

May 8, 2026 / / 46 Comments

Time for a KDE Plasma6 package refresh.

On KDE’s announcement page, the releases of KDE Gear 26.04.1 and Frameworks 6.26.0 were announced yesterday and today. Since OS packagers have early access to the source tarballs, I had everything compiled and ready for days and could simply push everything into my ‘ktown’ repository today.

I also updated okteta to the new release 0.26.27 (unfortunately still Qt5 based).

Get the new packages from https://slackware.nl/alien-kde/current/latest/ (NL), https://us.slackware.nl/alien-kde/current/latest/ (US), or https://slackware.uk/people/alien-kde/current/latest/ (UK).
Or use their rsync URI’s for commandline downloads.

And a heads-up:

I went to the spring conference of the NLUUG (the Dutch Unix User Group) yesterday . My old colleague (from 40 years ago) and friend Jeroen Baten gave a demonstration of setting up and configuring Forgejo. This is a software forge software which is stewarded by Codeberg e.V in Germany. A fully open source, constraint-free and European alternative to Github or Gitlab. Absolutely relevant given the current political climate where the Orange Clown and his Big Tech billionaire minions try to control the whole world from a US “me! me! me!” perspective.
That same conference also had a presentation from a Dutch government team that maintains their software on code.overheid.nl which is also running Forgejo. It’s really cool to see that finally the Dutch government acts (somewhat) on the commitment to favor open source and open standards above commercial and closed software.

It made me decide that Slackware software projects need a space for their  code that is never in danger of being abused for AI training or where repositories are deleted and access revoked simply because the Orange Clown demands it. The final push to decide that I need to get my own projects off Github came recently when I read this: VS Code v1.117.0 automatically adds GitHub Copilot as your co-author.

My commitment: I am going to setup a Forgejo instance below the slackware.nl domain.

At first, I will work on getting the git repository server up and running with moderated creation of user accounts. Projects that can show a relevance for the Slackware Linux community will get an account. I will be using Keycloak for Identity and Access Management (IAM). Rather conveniently I already have a full setup guide in my Slackware Cloud Server series: https://blog.slackware.nl/slackware-cloud-server-series-episode-2-identity-and-access-management-iam/

The fun will not stop there. I also intend to allow runners and workloads on the Forgejo instance. That will give projects a chance to create CI/CD pipelines for their code. I will be offering Slackware 15.0 and -current Docker containers (64bit but also 32bit) for these runners and will also ensure that the Docker images are re-generated after a ChangeLog.txt update in the Slackware tree.

It’s a lot of ambition but this is something I really want to do. The process will likely end up as another article (or two) in the Slackware Cloud Server series.

I cannot give a timeline, it depends on the complexity of setting up the Docker infrastructure for the Forgejo runners. The git repository server with Keycloak should be rather straightforward. I’ll move my own projects from Github to Forgejo ASAP of course.

When I have updates you’ll hear it first on this blog!

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