I am trying to learn how to find and install additional software in
Slackware 14.1.
I realize these are very basic questions, please be patient with me.
Searching this site.
http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/sl...1/PACKAGES.TXT
I find an index of packages.
Is this the complete list of available, official packages? Or are all these packages included in the install?
Does all additional software packages come from, Slackbuilds or
Alien Bob?
Looking through Slackbuilds, I see they have a lot of packages that look interesting.
I realize I will have to do a lot more reading to learn Slackbuilds,
but perhaps someone can point me in the right direction. I'm just not sure where to start.
Thank you for looking.

Just a quick question, any particular reason you went with 14.1? Slackware released 14.2 just about two months ago.

Slackbuilds.org is the go-to place for software for most Slackers. AlienBob is also an excellent resource.

If I can't find what I'm looking for at either of those two places, I usually just compile from sources, which really isn't all that difficult, except for the whole searching for dependencies thing. (When I started with Slackware, there was no Slackbuilds.org. I learned a lot about dependencies.)

You may find this link helpful: http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sla...lling_software

Welcome to the wonderful world of Slackware, the Distro of Iron. It always works and never breaks (unless I break it myself, of course).

3 members found this post helpful.

Those packages are all part of the install. If you choose the default, it will have everything installed except for the stuff in extra/ and the stuff in slackware/kdei/ (internationalization of KDE isn't selected by default).

Most packages will need to be installed from other sources. Eric (Alien Bob) provides packages on both his server and Slackware's server, but, while the list is long, it certainly won't cover all packages. Most people will install stuff from slackbuilds.org (commonly called SBo), but SBo doesn't provide packages, they provide a script (called a SlackBuild) and links to the source to build a Slackware package that you can install yourself. They'll list any dependencies that package requires (and they're all required to be available on SBo), along with any optional dependencies.

There's a few other repos out there, some will package SBo's offerings, while others will do their own. Be wary of installing pre-compiled packages from multiple sources, since the dependencies could be different and you could end up putting yourself in "dependency hell" (it won't always happen, in fact, it may not even be typical, but it is a pain to try and work out). I typically install stuff using SBo, with the occasional package from Eric (like Chromium, LibreOffice, and QT5, since they're all big compiles). This way, I ensure all the software is built based on the dependencies on my computer and I won't run into issues with mismatched or missing dependencies.

The easiest way to learn how to use SlackBuilds is to check out their HOWTO link at the top. They provide an example of it and walk you through how to use it. Once you're familiar with the process, then you can look into more automated tools to handle building software, but I'd highly recommend figuring out how to do it manually, because the automated versions won't always work, and it is good to know how to do things by hand if needed.

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One thing that is rare to Linux distributions that is normal for Slackware is that there are really about four different common sources for software:

1. Slackware (the thing you installed)
2. Slackbuilds (most popularly, but not exclusively, available from slackbuilds.org)
3. Pre-compiled binary, or "slack packages", in the form of .tgz or .txz files.
4. Converting pre-compiled RPM files to .tgz with `rpm2tgz`

So you can install some things from the Slackware disc or servers, you can install some things from slackbuilds.org, and you can download and install other things as pre-built packages from other places.

My impression is that "most" slackers settle for a mix of AlienBob packages along with SB.o packages they build themselves. But there are other places. Personally, here is a list of sites I frequent:

http://slackermedia.ml/handbook/doku.php?id=pkg#repo

(and that page actually might be useful for you to read, as it covers package management in Slackware)

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Yes, I have a Slackware 14.1 install CD. I would like 14.2 but the 2.6 gb download is a lot for my limited wifi.
Thanks for asking.

Thank you for the help Frank. There is quite a learning curve involved with Slackware compared to most of the other distro's I have tried but I'm eager to learn. One thing I like is that Slackware forces me to learn the CLI.

Thank you, this is very helpful and answered a big part of my questions.

Thank you, this is very helpful and filled in some more gaps in my understanding of how
Slackware works.

offgrid,

You might find this interesting: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/intr...-repositories/

this is the program: http://slakfinder.org/slackpkg+.html

You just tell the program what repos you want to use and thats it. Personally I add Alien's and rlworkman (Robbie). It also updates and manages the main Slackware repos and uses the same commands as slackpkg (search install etc...). nano /etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf to edit.

Slackbuilds.org is invaluable and saves alot of time. I check Alien and Robbie first then SlackBuilds. You can also add SalixOS /extra as a repo which has many programs from SlackBuilds as binaries.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for the help.