I'm not really a newbie but am new to various aspects of Linux. I'm currently downloading files for 32 compatibility for my Slackware 64 machine. I've noticed something that I have seen numerous times before.

When downloading / installing a package I get the *.tgz or txz file, however there are always a bunch of smaller files such as *.txt, *.asc, *.md5, *.meta, *.1st. I never download them but wonder if I'm not messing up. In short, what is the purpose of those files and do I really need them. BTW I understand the *.txt is a text file that most the time explains the other files purpose. 8)

Just curious,
Thanks All
Ace

That sort of answers your question really!!

In the case of Slackware, lst files are a recursive (sometimes?) listing of the files in the current directory. MD5 files contain the MD5 hashes of the files you are currently downloading, and asc contains the digital signiture of the files so you can verify if they have been tampered with and who signed the file.

I know asc as a public PGP/GPG key. Not sure how it's used but probably for veryfing a signature of a package somehow.

txt and 1st are text files usually explaining how to install, caveats, user 'manual' etc; the 1st I guess is usually readme.1st and stands for first (readme.first )

md5 contains md5sums and you can use it to verify that the content of the file that you have downloaded is not modified since the last generation of the md5sum. You can calculate the checksum yourself and verify against the checksum in the file (e.g. in Windows) and the program md5sum (available in any distro) can read the content and process all files that are listed in the file to verify the checksum.

The only thing I know about meta is that it stands for metadata; don't know how it's used.

Helpful link