3rd party repos / compiling
 

Hi,
This is kind of a general question but I am new to Slackware (I am coming from Debian), and would like the learn the `Slackware way', which, obviously, is quite different from the `Debian way'.

I know there are quite a few 3rd party repos around, and as I am a Debian person, it would be natural for me to use them. Still, I am curious if it is generally recommended to use them or to compile and build packages yourself. I am sure the opinion is bound to be divided but I would like to hear your opinions on that. Let me also say that I would not like to use packages managers, at least not before I learn the system relatively well.

Thanks!

Welcome to the LQ Slackware forum!
You can compile and build your own packages, but, I prefer using official Slackware packages. If I want to install applications not offered with the Slackware install CDs/DVD I will download and build packages using the build scripts at slackbuilds.org.

You *should* use the package manager in Slackware, and I would recommend it above anything else. However, the package manager included with Slackware is much simpler (and very different) than the Debian package manager. It does not resolve dependencies and cannot be set up to automatically download packages. The best way (in my opinion only, of course) to install applications in Slackware is to compile applications and create Slackware packages that can be installed with Slackware's package manager (`installpkg packagename` should do the trick).

I have posted several times about this and won't type it out again (check this post, for example), but I prefer either writing SlackBuilds manually (see here) or using SlackBuilds from slackbuilds.org (or, to a lesser extent, slacky.eu). You can also try gnashley's src2pkg if you want, which I haven't tried but has been extremely highly rated from basically everyone that has used it (I haven't seen a negative review yet). It attempts to automatically compile applications and create a Slackware package that you can install (but you can also pass parameters to the application as well if you want to customize it).

Using Slackware's package manager together with Slackware packages makes it easy to install, upgrade and remove packages. If you just perform a blind `./configure; make; make install`, it could be difficult to upgrade or remove the application, and it makes it difficult to track which files on your system are from which packages. If you use the package manager, almost all of your files can be traced to one package based on the listings in /var/log/packages. It's very convenient. :)

Thanks!

Sorry for the misunderstanding. When I said I did not want to use package managers, I was thinking about things like Slapt-get (here are my Debian habits showing again). Of course, I *do* use installpkg, upgradepkg etc. It most definately is a package manager, and, from what I have noticed so far, a very good one indeed.

Thanks for all the remarks. Wish me luck with Slackware ;-)
Klapaucius

I personally use Slapt-get at this moment in time with my 12.1 install. The slackware pkgtool is a very simple and effective method however. Occasionally you will need to build from source when you cant find a .tgz slackware package. But generally it all works out well.

Many thanks for the feedback. I am currently learning how to build packages with SlackBuild scripts, and I must say it looks rather promising.
Best,
Klapaucius

Please post back here if you have any questions. As I previously mentioned I highly recommend the slack build scripts at slackbuilds.org. Robby et al have scripts for lots of interesting programs.

http://www.slackbuilds.org/