help with installpkg
 

well not really help so much more as is there any paticular point to using it? as i understand it seems to replace the fucntions of ./configure and make etc..is this true? or does it just copy files? whenever i have run it with a .tgz it has copied some files but nothing morem the program i wanted wasnt accesible after runningf the installpkg for it.

just looking to understand what it does a little more thats it really :P

The point of using installpkg is that you can remove/upgrade/manage your packages afterwards (pkgtool). And it is not a replacement for compiling from source. The Slackware package (.tgz) contain binary /precompiled software and not source (except the kernel-source package). But not all .tgz files are Slackware packages.

Compiling your own software and creating a package from that can be done by using checkinstall. It creates a Slackware package for you and installs it. You will see that specific package appearing on the list of installed packages using pkgtool.

like rotvogel says, it removes/upgrades/manages packages for you. when you install a source package, you have to keep track of the location of all the files that were installed to remove them. it is a pretty big task. so for application management it is real handy.

i normally like to use installpkg if i can get a tgz, however, like rotvogel, i use checkinstall when installing from a source package to help me manage my apps.

you can think of tgz as slackware's equivalent of an rpm.

ahh isee, i was downloading source and installing if it were a tgz, which would explain a few things. that also answers my other question of how do you remove packages installed by source :P

so in short, to make a slackware compatible package to install i use checkinstall, unless of course a slackware .tgz is available.

thanks very much!