i just read about slackpkg here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/slackpkg/


apparently this is a tool for downloading and installing new packages and updates. according to the home page, it handles everything (config and installation) by itself, allowing the user to search for packages by name and then automatically download and install.

has anyone used this, or something like this? i'm curious whether this is stable and tested, and whether something like this exists with a nice intuitive GUI. It would make it easier to convince friends to install linux. ideally there would be a program that was linked to sourceforge or something and allowed you to search by name, description etc. and allow the user to simply double-click on programs they liked, in order to install them. does anyone know of something like this?

thanks,

alright, i've been doing some more research and looking into swaret, which sounds pretty neat. however, it seems to be command line only, and from people's suggestions to back-up frequently (and the sheer number of problems posted) i'm assuming that it sometimes doesn't work that well. what are people's feeling on this? is it reliable enough to be put in the hands of someone who doesn't even realize they're using linux? or should it be handled only by those who are eager to learn through experience?

thanks,

i just finished installing slackpkg and it works wonderful. i tried using swaret but i had problems, but i'd definately recommend using slackpkg
its easy to use and didn't give me any problems

why would you want someone who doesn't even know they are running linux to be able to install software on the system??? that could be tragic... only root is supposed to install software, and root is supposed to be someone that knows what he/she's doing...

i don't use swaret or slackpkg or any other automated package manager on my slackware, but i understand the concept and i'm sure there are some decent GUIs out there for them if what you want is something more newbie-friendly...

if you want beautiful gui tools to convince a newbie friend to install linux, then slackware's probably not the best choice for a distro... it doesn't come with ANY gui tools for system administration, unlike distros such as mandrake, suse, etc. whose main selling point is exactly that: their beautiful gui tools...

hmm, those are good points. i'm just afraid if i install mandrake and gnome/kde that the 4-year-old laptop won't run very fast. i know that slackware and fvwm or something similar would allow me to create an environment usable by anyone. big icons, easy-to-navigate menus. the downside is that the user could only do things i had set up for them to do. that's why i was wondering how easy to use slackpkg and swaret are. the user may at some point want AIM, or whatever, that I haven't anticipated.

however, the more i think about it, the more i think you may be right. i'll have to give mandrake a shot and see if i can get it running fast enough.

thanks for the advice,

slackpkg is a text based tool, almost like swaret. its doesn't even come close to being a GUI based tool

obviously... but you can install a GUI on your text-based tool...

like, for example, if you want a gui for swaret:

http://kswaret.sourceforge.net/