Need information about compiling and installing packages on Slackware
 

Hello fellow slackers,

I am in need of some more clear information about compiling and installing various applications in Slackware. I mean, i am not that new in Linux world, but i am not used to having to check for dependencies on my own and making Slackware packages myself. Things i would like to know more about and would be these:

a) is there some magical way you use to find out what dependencies a package has? I would appreciate as much information in this field as much as i can get. As now if i download source of some application i have completely no idea about what it needs from my system to function properly or where to look for this information. I think there should be more "correct way" than goggling for it...

b) I know about nice site SlackBuilds.org that it is, but lets say i want to install application A, and there is written, that application A requires application B, which requires application C, and this one needs application D. So now i have to spend good half of a day getting and compiling dependencies for one application, i mean common there has to be a quicker way to do this... at least some tool that would let me build some kind of ques that would be processed automatically or some kind of trick... So if you know some focuses under your sleeve, then please oh please do share :)

c) I would also like to know more about optimizing Slackware for boot time and general performance (but it's not that important, there are a lot of walls of text about this in Google world).

I am searching forums and web for this information for about a week now, and I am still unlucky as most articles are very hard to understand, or does not cover the topic's i care for or i am just doing something wrong. So here i am all at your mercy :)

Hi,

You could do a search here on LQ for 'Slackware package dependency'.

Alien Bob said it well;

This topic comes up all the time!

:hattip:

Thank you for a quick reply, yes i am searching LQ with all the key words i can think off, i do get a lot of results, way too many, can't possibly read them all and if i do read them closely i still do not find anything that i really want... still trying however.

I am familiar with Slackware packages containing no dependency information, but what i want to know, is how do i determine what i need to have, if i am to build software from source. Also some extra info about configuring it in order to get rid of useless things would be awesome too.

Cheers

Slackbuilds.org lists all the dependencies that are needed for any app that is not included in Slackware on their website.
If you are compiling a program that is not on slackbuilds.org, then the README or INSTALL file in the package that you download, or the packages website, will tell you what dependencies are needed.
Your prayers have been answered by fellow Slacker Chess Griffin. Check out his awesome sbopkg:
http://sbopkg.org/
This will automate the compiling of packages from slackbuilds.org.
You should be running the generic kernel if you are not already. See the README in the boot directory for how to create an initrd and run the generic kernel.
Note that this will not give a huge performance increase though.

Almost always a source packages will include a README, INSTALL or some other file that indicates necessary existing libraries and the like for it to successfully build and run. Also, most, if not all, include a configure program that can be executed with configure --help | [pg | more | lp] detailing all the optional flags you can use when executing configure. Too, if you don't have something installed that's required, configure generally will fail with a message about what that might be. And, finally, if a package comes from a web site, there's a good chance that there will be a list of needed libraries and the like to successfully compile the package you're interested in (building GRASS, for example, is an interesting exercise in installing lots and lots of stuff you never heard of).

A Truly Good Thing is src2pkg [http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...nload/src2pkg/) that creates Slackware packages from source by executing configure, make just as you would from the command line; you wind up with a Slackware *.tgz that you can install or upgrade. A plus is that src2pkg will also take apart and build a Slackware package from an *.rpm or *.deb package that some folks seem to feel are the only way to package source code and they don't provide a *.tar.gz, sigh.
Mostly, in my experience anyway, if you've done a "full" install of Slackware you're going to have almost everything you'll need to begin with. Every so often you'll run up against something that requires wads of applications or libraries and, well, that's just the way of it (again, GRASS as an example -- took quite a while to get all the extra stuff built and installed but it did build cleanly and efficiently with either libraries from SlackBuilds.org or with src2pkg so I can't complain too much).

Boot time? Well, throw some RAM in it first then, if you've got a fast processor (mine happen to be 3GHz, 4G RAM and 2.something GHz dual-core and 3G RAM and it takes longer to start KDE than it does to boot 'em so I dunno). Keep in mind that these things aren't Suns or Crays, they're miserydos compatible and that's pretty much the way of it. A PC platform is just not going to be blazingly fast when compared to (much more expensive) "real" computers; ya gets what ya pays for and you can't expect a $500 PC to compete with a $20,000 32-processor SPARC platform with terabytes of memory and a light-piped backplane.

Anyway, welcome the the wonderful world of, "Gee, I think that application might be userful..."

Hope this helps some.

Thank you all for all the fine answers, i am currently trying out sbopkg and it seems truly awesome, kind of makes you feel that you actually got a package manager on Slackware :)

And I'll try src2pkg too, sounds like something i want to have :)

Well i sure do not expect my Amd Athlon 4400+ x2 with 2 gigs of RAM to become a super uber turbo fast supercomputer just because i installed Slackware on it, i am only hoping for some little advises on how to remove some bloat from my Slack :) I already got rid of all the kde4 and all the c**p that is somehow related to it (i am very sorry for harsh words, i do not mean to offend Kde4 fans, but i truly hate the thing... it's just personal). Also i have compiled my own vanilla kernel and had a look in rc.M so i am just wondering if there are any places left to look at :)

Now to sum up all that I've learned:

If i download a source for some software, the first place to look is README and INSTALL files, then applications homepage (is there is one) and or Google, so this way i should find all the needed things before i compile it. Then i should run ./configure --help to see what i can enable or disable. Also it better to use src2pkg to compile/generate slackware package for easier management of installed software.

As for using packages from SlackBuilds.org sbopkg: http://sbopkg.org/ is truly awesome, I've just installed gparted and all it's dependencies in just one command, it's exactly what i needed.

Well that more or less covers me, so again thank you all for your effort, it helped a lot :) I think i can mark this Thread Solved now, as the main questions are more than answered :)

Hi,

Slackware has always had a package manager!

Slackware® rc init tour document is guided tour through the Slackware® init process, guided by the scripts and man pages.


Just a few links to aid you;

Slackware® Essentials
Slackware® Basics
Linux Documentation Project
Rute Tutorial & Exposition
Linux Command Guide
Utimate Linux Newbie Guide
LinuxSelfHelp
Getting Started with Linux
Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
Linux Home Networking
Virtualiation- Top 10

:hattip:
The above links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

Here is a 1 hour presentation on package management in Slackware from 2005

You may also be interested in the Slackpack Package Manager from Mystical Groovy:
http://slackpackpkgman.wordpress.com/
Slackpack is a graphical package manager for Slackware. I have not used it myself, but there is a long running thread about it here at LQ that you can read up on:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...anager-758501/