I installed Slackware 14.2 today, actually I've found it great but package installation is sucks. Would you help me?

The way Slackware manages packages is very distinctive. It is not like most distros. There is no automatic dependency resolution for a start. If you really need that, use a distro from the Debian or Red Hat family.

The aim of Slackware is to make things very simple rather than very easy. Package managers like Debian's apt system are hugely complicated and behave like the little girl in the nursery rhyme: when they are good, they are very very good, but when they are bad, they are horrid! If they break, they break badly and it is quite difficult to get them to work properly again.

If you aren't temperamentally in tune with Slackware, that's fine. Linux is about choice. But that doesn't mean that Slackware's "package installation sucks". It just means that it isn't doing what you as a particular individual like package managers to do.

Having said that, you might find slackpkg more easy to use than the lower-level tools. If you think of installpkg as the equivalent of Debian's dpkg, then slackpkg is the equivalent of apt.

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I got it, actually I really like the concept and I'm glad because of Using it, I just have to figure out regarding package installation/management. Thanks for your reply.!

Well you could use Salix (https://www.salixos.org) which is a derivative of Slackware with a package manager (slapt-get) that does resolve dependencies.

there are a number of ways you can if you want approach package management. The first port of call for me is slackbuilds.org thats because you have the chance to read up deps required and nuances . So for instance
clamav:

it tells me where i can tweak where mirrors for virus sigs will come from :
COUNTRY=en ./clamav.SlackBuild

also :i need groups so i run


# groupadd -g 210 clamav
# useradd -u 210 -d /dev/null -s /bin/false -g clamav clamav


What this tells me is that if i were to just get a ready to install package from say slacky and install it ; it would probably go badly since they didn't tell me a few deps at the pkg repo to set up groups.


But if i read up at slackbuilds all about deps and there were no obvious caveats i might if there are
deps and i'm feeling more lazy than usual i might investigate with slpkg:

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1.../?search=slpkg


so for instance say i was looking for a video editor and wanted to compare deps . First i do a general google, look at slackbuilds then:
bash-5.0# slpkg -F cinelerra

Packages with name matching [ cinelerra ]

+==============================================================================
| Repository Package Size
+==============================================================================
sbo cinelerra-2.3 0 K


check bulkage of deps :

bash-5.0# slpkg -t sbo cinelerra
Resolving dependencies... Done

+=================================
| Package cinelerra dependencies :
+=================================
\
+---[ Tree of dependencies ]
|
+--1: faac
|
+--2: faad2
|
+--3: imlib2
|
+--4: libavc1394
|
+--5: libdv
|
+--6: libiec61883
|
+--7: mjpegtools
|
+--8: lame
|
+--9: x264


ok thats too bad I have a couple of those deps already,. What about openshot ?

bash-5.0# slpkg -F openshot

Packages with name matching [ openshot ]

+==============================================================================
| Repository Package Size
+==============================================================================
sbo libopenshot-audio-0.2.0 0 K
sbo libopenshot-0.2.5 0 K
sbo openshot-2.5.1 0 K
conrad libopenshot-audio-0.2.0-x86_64-1cf.txz 1044 K
conrad libopenshot-0.2.5-x86_64-1cf.txz 764 K
conrad openshot-2.5.1-x86_64-2cf.txz 49488 K




ok a bit of choice, lets check out dep bloatage : see image os.jpg

being a minimalist person with ltd space i went for cinelerra


So regarding slpkg (not to be confused with slackpkg) you can install it on stable ; i'm running not so current ...current (5.4.12) and slpkg works just fine. There are a couple of minor tweaks after install including setting stable or current; depending on use. It does have quite good dependecy resolution and not only that using something like :

# slpkg -s <repo> <pkg name>

it will install as i observed "empirically" not only the main package but also the deps as well .

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Did you do the recommended full installation? Hope so.

If you are looking to maintain Slackware 14.2 then slackpkg is the way to go. Read the man pages, for slackpkg and slackpkg.conf. Also read the instructions in the companion files of slackpkg, mirror and blacklist.

If you are looking for packages to install, Alien Bob's repository is a good start. You will need to use pkgtools (installpkg, upgradepkg, removepkg) to manage packages that are not part of Slackware. Be sure to read the man pages for those as well.

Once you get used to use the package managers that come with Slackware then you can branch out and start using sources like SBo (SlackBuilds.org) to build packages.

if you want to look at slackpkg go here:

https://docs.slackware.com/slackware:slackpkg

when you get to the point of trying a slackbuild go for something easy and no deps eg latex2html :


https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1...rch=latex2html

you can have a read of complimentary explanation of latex2html build here:

https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:mi...f_a_slackbuild

Thanks for all replies, I created my strategy about that, I'm searching a package on pkgs.org and I'm fetching the package through wget and installing the package via installpkg

I also don't use official installer.

Boot with AlienBOB live cd, connect to internet, prepare target disk, mount etc.

Then just install the system package by package
ROOT=/target installpkg ... packages ...

It will take forever. You can use slackpkg after exporting ROOT variable. You can even install the whole groups

export ROOT=/target
slackpkg install a
slackpkg install ap
slackpkg install d
slackpkg install n
slackpkg install l
slackpkg install x
slackpkg install xap
slackpkg install xfce

If you already know what packages you want to install, you can avoid the painful manual installation by creating a slackpkg template and use that to install your packages non-interactively.

If I do like export ROOT=/ and slackpkg install i3-gaps, can I use the package on daily user?

Oh, I confused something. You have already installed the system. My bad.

Just use slackpkgplus. You may setup repositories and find most of the things you need.
http://slakfinder.org/slackpkg+.html

You should be aware that packages found on pkgs.net may not work with other packages on pkgs.net. These are provided by multiple people and may require different dependencies than what might be provided with other repos. It really is best to find a repo and stick with it. Many times packages from multiple repos will work without issue with each other (we see this frequently with packages from Alien Bob and rworkman and they usually work with packages from SBo), but there's always the possibility that they may not.

What most people recommend is using SlackBuilds.org (commonly called SBo), which will have you compile those packages for your exact system. While it is recommended to understand how SlackBuilds work, there are many tools that help automate the process of building and installing packages including finding and building all dependencies needed for it.

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for me, the "traditional way" is to use the repository of SlackBuilds.org:
http://slackbuilds.org/

with a tool such as:

sbopkg: https://sbopkg.org/
you get a package from here: https://sbopkg.org/downloads.php
read about what queues are, in order to go around resolving dependencies: https://sbopkg.org/queues.php

or sbotools: https://pink-mist.github.io/sbotools/
it can be installed from SBo already: http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/system/sbotools/

these two are the ones I have used most. There are other tools, such as:

slpkg: https://dslackw.gitlab.io/slpkg
install it from: http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/system/slpkg/

sboui: https://github.com/montagdude/sboui
install it from: http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/system/sboui/

there's slapt-src, but I havenot used it: https://software.jaos.org/ (bottom of the page)

Recently, I've been preparing my own packages repo by the excellent slackrepo (https://idlemoor.github.io/slackrepo/), running a small home server with the packages and I use slapt-get (https://software.jaos.org/) to install them on my home computers.

If you are looking for a trusted repo of precompiled third-party packages, you can take a look at AlienBob's repo, for example:
https://slackware.uk/people/alien/sbrepos/14.2/x86_64/

I would install QT5 from there, instead of compiling it for a day.

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