Okay I'm a little bit confused. I've been reading up on Slackware for awhile now (I'm going to install it on either another partition or another HD just to test it out) and I'm a little confused. Does the whole installpkg system work with any .tar.gz or .tgz file that I can download anywhere or are there certain versions of them available for Slackware only? Also if the previous thing is true, if I install a .tar.gz without using installpkg does the package still show up in pkgtool?

ok the tgz packages for slackware are special slackware versions the normal tar.gz packages you can download from most programs are mostly source packages and you have to compile them the slackware tgz packages are already compiled and just need to be installed if you installed a package it shouldnt be in pkgtool but you can have a look at what is installed at /var/log/packages there are all packages listed which are installed on your slack box read more about the slack package system at www.slackware.com

You can also convert an rpm file into a slack .tgz package with the command rpm2tgz if don't exist a slack pkg...

Also with CheckInstall (http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/index.php) it's fairly easy to build your own slack packages from source. It's nice if you can't find a precompiled program but still want to be able to remove/upgrade/etc things easily.

Good Luck.

Checkinstall is my religion. I almost always prefer to go for the source and use checkinstall.

I've used rpm2tgz a couple of time, though, and it worked. I hear it's not 100%, though.

"Does the whole installpkg system work with any .tar.gz or .tgz file that I can download anywhere or are there certain versions of them available for Slackware only?"

*.tgz is actually just a variant of tar.gz. You will find the occasional *.tgz that is *not* a Slackware package. But it's almost always a Slackware package, and that's just a precompiled binary. And you can't install source tarballs (tar.gz and the stray non-Slack .tgz and all the rest such as tar.bz2) with installpkg.

"Also if the previous thing is true, if I install a .tar.gz without using installpkg does the package still show up in pkgtool?"

No. With checkinstall it does.

So, find a .tgz, make sure it's a Slackware package, download, 'installpkg' and it's installed and recorded in /var/log/packages. Find a .tar.gz and compile it, install with checkinstall, and it's just like a package. Find a tar.gz, compile it, and do 'make install' and it's not recorded - it's just like compiled source tarball. *g* To remove either of the first two, do 'removepkg'. To remove a source tarball, cd to the source directory and (if you still have it and it happens to include an uninstall script) do 'make uninstall' or something like. Otherwise, you have to do it by hand.

Sorry for redundancies and omissions and inaccuracies regarding the rest of the thread. I just wanted to plug checkinstall and compiling from source, basically. *g*

Wow, thanks a bunch guys! I've seriously been looking into Slackware (I downloaded the ISO's already and all I need to do is backup some data and I'm on my way) and this was the only thing about it bothering me a bit. But it seems the package management system is, IMHO, a lot nicer than the Red Hat one, it seems like I have more control, I like that. Anyways once again, thanks for all your input.

no problem have fun with slack :=)

You'll find that you get a lot more control in all aspects... Not just package management

-Shade