New slacker with package questions

kkennedy · 04-11-2004, 07:17 PM

I've been nervous about it, but I finally decided to take the plunge into slackware 9.1 this weekend. I considered myself an intermediate Linux user until this weekend. Now, I'm walking around with my chest out, filled with geek confidence. Actually, I still consider myself an intermediate user, but I learned a lot this weekend. I got Slackware installed and running, and even solved several problems along the way (thanks, in part, to these forums). Slackware with Dropline GNOME, rocks!!!!

A couple of package tool questions:
1) Is there a way to list all of the currently installed packages? This would be helpful when trying to decide whether to use "installpkg" or "upgradepkg".
2) I realize that the pkgtool doesn't resolve dependencies, but does it tell you what packages you don't have when you try to install a package without the necessary dependencies? If not, how do you know what packages to get and install to allow the program to work?

Thanks in advance.

win32sux · 04-11-2004, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Is there a way to list all of the currently installed packages?

you could use pkgtool's "view" option to see everything installed... i'm not sure how to list the packages at the command line though, a la "rpm -qa"... i'd also like to know how to do that...

Quote:

I realize that the pkgtool doesn't resolve dependencies, but does it tell you what packages you don't have when you try to install a package without the necessary dependencies? If not, how do you know what packages to get and install to allow the program to work?

slackware kinda expects you to know about the dependancies before you actually install the packages... usually this is done by reading the documentation, experience, etc.. by default, slackware won't help you with this... however, if you do the very recommended "full install", you shouldn't have any worries until you install something unofficial...

but if you really want to automate package dependancies and stuff on slackware (even with unofficial packages), you could try something like swaret, slackpkg, or slapt-get:

http://www.swaret.org

http://slackpkg.sourceforge.net/

http://software.jaos.org/

i hope this helps...

=)

Toth · 04-11-2004, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kkennedy
I've been nervous about it, but I finally decided to take the plunge into slackware 9.1 this weekend. I considered myself an intermediate Linux user until this weekend. Now, I'm walking around with my chest out, filled with geek confidence. Actually, I still consider myself an intermediate user, but I learned a lot this weekend. I got Slackware installed and running, and even solved several problems along the way (thanks, in part, to these forums). Slackware with Dropline GNOME, rocks!!!!

I'm glad you like it ^_^

Quote:

A couple of package tool questions:
1) Is there a way to list all of the currently installed packages? This would be helpful when trying to decide whether to use "installpkg" or "upgradepkg".

Code:

# ls /var/log/packages

To search if a specific package is installed:

Code:

# ls /var/log/packages | grep packagename

Quote:

2) I realize that the pkgtool doesn't resolve dependencies, but does it tell you what packages you don't have when you try to install a package without the necessary dependencies? If not, how do you know what packages to get and install to allow the program to work?

Well, as mentioned above, the best way is to read the documentation and find out what libraries the package depends on. However, a quick and dirty method that usually works (though not always) is to run ldd on a binary. For example, if you want to find out what libraries are needed for gaim:

Code:

$ ldd `which gaim`

It will let you know if any libraries are missing. If they are, you can probably tell which package is missing by the name of the library. In the event that you cannot, check out the MANIFEST.bz2 file on a slackware mirror to see which package that file belongs to.

ringwraith · 04-11-2004, 09:01 PM

Also when you build a package, often if the compile fails it will say you are missing library foo, so you can then install it. Or when you try to run a binary package from console, it might fail and say you are missing library foo.

Slackcare · 04-11-2004, 11:21 PM

kkennedy /var/log/packages lists all the installed packages on your box. Second if you install a package and something doesn't want to work, and you ran the program, say from a menu entry like clicking on the icon in a menu like Kde, type the name of the program in a terminal, and when it won't run because it is missing something it will tell you. Now most of the time it will be libraries that are missing like having it say libesd.so Then all you need to do is paste that name into Google and start surfing. Google will show you results, and all libs are listed as --> lib, then the name of the library, as in this case esd, which is the enlightnement sound daemon. Now this is the way to go about this as a Slacker, and LEARN something. After all if your going to learn Slack this is what its all about. Slackware isn't some auto update Debian distro, and if you use that, then your missing the point of Slackware, and those that teach you these things are too.

J.W. · 04-12-2004, 03:07 AM

kkennnedy - if you're using KDE, you can use KPackage (from the "K" button (like the start button), go to System, then KPackage). I likewise use Dropline, and recommend it highly. I think it does a really great job of simplifying the task of downloading numerous useful packages. Furthermore, personally, I've never run into any dependency issues when running a Dropline upgrade. If you do happen to install a new package and it has a dependency problem, the error message will specifiy what package and what version you need. Should that happen, one great place to find packages for Slack is: www.linuxpackages.net Welcome to LQ, and great choice in terms of picking a distro. -- J.W.