you got it: please, read at least the man pages for them, I think all your questions regarding those are answered there.

Fair enough. This thread is solved in any case. I will start new threads if I have any more questions after reading a bit more about Slack in general.

The pkgtools (installpkg, upgradepkg, removepkg, etc.) make up the official package management suite. slackpkg is a front end that is supported and included in the base install (adding on niceties like network installation). It is hard to think of an Arch equivalent but in the Debian world I guess dselect/dpkg = pkgtools and apt-get = slackpkg.

swaret is an alternative (to slackpg) front end, with no official support in Slackware (it isn't included). I'm not sure that it is all that popular these days (in fact I am not even certain if it is actively maintained). Personally, I'd give it a miss.

Sbopkg is an unofficial (and hence unsupported) front end to Slackbuilds, similar to how Yaourt (and other similar utils) provides seamless access to the AUR. It is very popular and I would certainly recommend it myself! ;)

sbopkg is the tool to use if you like stuff from the slackbuilds.org repository. Not official, but my guess is it only uses the slackbuilds.org repository and builds/installs the packages with the stock/standard pkgtools that come with slackware:

slackpkg/installpkg/updatepkg/pkgtools is the stuff that comes with slackware.

swaret is new to me to, but the dependancy-checking might interfere with the non-dependancy checking formerly mentioned. I can't really tell.

*edit* to late*

sbopkg uses slackbuilds.org by default, but it can also be pointed at a local directory or a git repository if you'd rather follow a particular branch or a private mirror.