Hi Forum

Now that I Have a working Slackware64 13 system, I want to know a few things... :-)

IT'S NOOB ATTACK TIME.... loll

1.) What commands do I use to install a package in Slack ( in debian/*buntu is gdebi, in Fedora/RHEL/CentOS is rpm... )

2.) Is there any similar tool to apt-get/yum in Slackware...? I have heard something about swaret/slapt-get/gslapt ... what are these, how does one use this, do they solve dependencies...?

3.) Being a mechanical designer/engineer, I use a lot of open-source applications, like Gnumeric, BRLCAD, Scilab, Octave-QtOctave, Paraview, GMSH, OpenDx, VisIT, OpenFOAM, Code-Saturne, Code Aster, Salome Platform, NetGen...

Excepting OpenFOAM, Salome-Platform, Code Saturne, and Code Aster which have some rather complex build systems ( some of them can be compiled from source using icc/ifort/mkl from Intel Development toolchain...)
Which of these are already packaged in Slackbuilds ( packages in Slackware repositories, righ...!? ), and which of those will I have to compile from source...?

4.) are the development libraries ( header files for compilation: in Debian they are called the *dev packages, in RHEL/Fedora they are called *devel... ) for building blocks of these i refered to in #3 available in the repos...? ( lapack, blas, arpack, scalapack, spooles, gsl, gts, omniorb, openCascade, scotch, med, hdf, python, numpy, scipy, vtk... etc ) ?


Thank you in advance for reading this looong, noooobish, thread, but this is what I am... a Slackware newbie... :-)

BRGDS

Alex

man pkgtool
man slackpkg

A useful link: http://beginlinux.com/desktop_traini...age-management
They solve dependencies but not for packages already part of Slackware AFAIK.
Their use is not recommended anyway. See 1)

See slackbuilds.org for scripts and maybe slacky.eu for scripts and packages.
I dont know if all those exist in them though. You are welcome to contribute some yourself in such a case.
No, Slackware doesnt split packages like that. The only split, and some merged Slackware packages are for convenience reasons only. eg. (split) gcc, (merged) tcpdump+libpcap


Enjoy Slackware!

I'd avoid using rpm2tgz unless you are desperate. For third party packages, SlackBuilds.org (SBo) is my first choice. If it is not there I usually make my own. It is not hard and there is a HowTo on the SBo site. sbopkg makes using SBo super-convenient.

You could also look to src2pkg to build more stubborn software. Some of the maintainers at SBo also post their binaries on their websites. Alien's repository is in particular very good, and Eric is on the Slackware development team. You can find useful software like VLC (plays practically any media) there. He also has several useful scripts, so I recommend looking around his site.

I don't know if you do any Electrical Engineering, but there are several simulation programs that run on linux.

Also, get a decent calculator with history - speedcrunch.

Also, check out http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Slackware-Links

Welcome to Slackware! It is a great distro for Engineers!

Hi @Jedi_Sith_Fears, @sahko, @Shadowsnpipes

Thkz for your replies.

I have configured Slack wm to be KDE as root and fluxbox as user.

( using a whole of 400s megs for desktop is just a waste of ram ( just my opinion here...! ))



@Shadowsnpipes :

I do not do Electric Engineering, the closest thing i do is control sysnthesis/design for mechanical systems ( Closed loop stability analysis of controllers, PID's, LQR's, H-Infinity, stuff like that.
I am more into design and analysis of structural systems, and fluid-structure interactions...

( one of my last, call it a challenge, is designing a high power to weight ratio single engined wooden aircraft using a Stirling cycle engine as powerplant... some sort of a re-engineered lightweigt version of a Rei-Sen ( Mitsubishi A6m Zero Fighter ) on steroids... yeah... i know ... I'm nuts... :-) )

This means using a lot of RAM/CPU intensive packages for finite elements analysis of Finite Volumes Analysis, and Heuristic/Gradient based optimizers...

My worhorse packages are OpenFOAM, Salome-Platform, Scilab, Octave, Code-Aster, Dakota, Gnumeric, AVL, X-Foil, Code-Saturne, Syrthes, BrlCAD...

http://brlcad.org/
http://www.salome-platform.org/
http://www.code-aster.org/V2/spip.php?rubrique2
http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/
http://www.cs.sandia.gov/DAKOTA/software.html
http://web.mit.edu/drela/Public/web/avl/
http://web.mit.edu/drela/Public/web/xfoil/
http://research.edf.com/the-edf-offe...ne-107008.html

As well as several other handy programs designed by myself mainly for one dimensional transient analysis of thermodynamic cycles of engines... some sort of baseline parameter optimizers...


i DO NOT USE PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE...

The compiling options of proprietary apps are targeted to make it less prone to reverse engineering, sacrifising "user candy" stuff like memory footprint, and speed in loop vectorization of mathematical function evaluation...

This is absolutely unacceptable... considering that one PAYS ( quite a lot i may say... :-( ) for these apps...

The performance of Code-Aster compiled with the Intel development toolchain, using fine-grained compilation flags is three to fourfold superior to that of MSC.Nastran... the results of Code Aster are certified ISO 9000, it runs all the benchmarks of NAFEMS... Just Like MSCs Nastran does.... :-)

Same line of reasoning applies to Scilab/Freemat/Octave vs Matlab, OpenFOAM vs Fluent/CFX/CD-Adapco, Salome-Platform vs Ansys...


I have already contibuted a new orthotropic material behaviour law to an Open Source Finite elements analysis Development team...

... Like I say, My Slacky will NEVER have closed source apps in it... I do not pay nor use proprietary software...


BRGDS

Alex

Yea, I really can't stand it how you have to pay a bunch of money for Matlab, and then you have to pay more for stuff like the control systems packs. I've never used FreeMat. How does that compare to Octave?

Hi Shadowsnipes

Freemat is a less mature package than the other two... :-)

Which has its pros and cons.. :

FreeMat has a greater compatibility with Matlab scripting Language, than Octave or Scilab ( that script translation fuction of Scilab never convinced me anyway... )

FreeMat has less developed toolbox set than the other two...

Scilab has a powerful emulation of the matlab control system design environment, ( called Simulink, i guess ), called Scicos ( it does not has physical based transfer function blocks like simulink though ( you do not have a DC motor transfer function for instance ) You have to set the constants in the differential equations, and you have to know the physics of what you are trying to model, in each of the blocks of the design gui...

( Makes you think in what you do, before you do it... it is the opposite of User-friendly, it is n00b-Killer... :-D )

Scilab can create executables for your target achitecture that will simulate your system more efficiently that it's interpreted command language...

I think FreeMat does not do this..


FreeMat doesn´t yet have theese features... seems like a nice project though... has lots of potential, with its ( almost !!?? ) full compatibility with Matlab...


BRGDS

Alex

One of my University professors once used a crappy stuff called "Design assistant" that ships in a much purportedly famous commercial Mechanical CAD package...

I won't name it here, the license fea is round 15000 euro per year for industries... :-)

Anyway, this app ( Design Assistant ) uses geometry input from your CAD layout ( components, assemblies ) and makes rough preliminaty sizing calculations, based on imposed loads, torques, restraints and material properties using elementary Strenght of Materials theory...

... man... :-D A single shaft designed by this crap was oversized respective to maximum allowable deflection under load by an excess o almost 20% in its diameter... comparing to a paperback calculation with a handheld calculator and a design formula from Shigley's "Mechanical Engineering Design"...

Is PhD Shigley wrong.... ??? :-D loooolll

... I do ot think so... :-D

And this very same package is used by one european major automotive engineering group... :-)

THIS IS WHAT A GUY PAYS FOR.... :-(

Of course.. the code is closed, there is no peer review, bugs are long-lived, blahblahblablah ...

And manufacturers must sell at a price high enough to compensate for production costs ( software license feas, for instance... ) etc...

Same shitty story all over Microsoft shitty world... :-(


BRGDS

Alex