I am looking for a good way to replace the official slackpkg repo. The goal is to have my own private repo which is similar, but not identical to the official repo, and is accessible via slackpkg just as the official repo would be. I think I am basically on the right track, but I'd like any pointers you can offer. Here's what I did so far:

I copied the basic folder hierarchy found below http://mirrors.kernel.org/slackware/slackware64-14.1/. I didn't copy everything, but just populated it with folders slackpkg expects to find. I used Alien's gen_repos_files.sh to generate the lists, using my own signing key. I had to run it several times: once for the repo root and once for each subfolder (slackware64, patches, etc.). Then I changed the slackpkg mirror.

I found that slackpkg checks signatures against ANY key on root's keyring, so as soon as I added my key there, my signatures were accepted. I am assuming I could have a repo where some packages are signed by, say, PV, and others by me, all without modifying slackpkg. [Edit: don't listen to me. /etc/slackpkg/slackpkg.conf has a SLACKKEY variable, which seems to be the right way to change the repo signing key.] My sandbox had only a single file, and things seemed to work (I tried search, update, and upgrade-all).

What I basically want now is to compare this approach to what others have done, and hopefully learn a better way to do it. Note that I have little interest in using other packagers at this moment (like slackpkg+), since my goal is very specific: replacing the main repo.

you can use slackpkg+ and set priorities on repos, so no need to replace everything
there are several tutorials/howtows on how to add a own repo to the list or repos,
I think microlinux is a good starting point to search for information on how ot do this

grep file /etc/slackpkg/mirrors
man slackpkg.conf
HTH

Check out the script's "REPO_SUBDIRS" variable. You only have to run the script once if you define that variable properly.

Eric

I'm using the official repos as well as a series of third-party repos for my MLED project. Here's some basic documentation to get you started, even if you don't use it later on:

http://www.microlinux.fr/mled_installation.php

Thanks everyone! I have another related question.

What is the deal with maketag, maketag.ez (why the same?) [Edit: hardlinked], and tagfile? The best I can tell they have something to do with setup. Am I right to assume that slackpkg ignores them completely?

Tagfiles are useful if (like me) you sometimes have to deal with something like dozens of identical installations. They're like a bone-headed version of Red Hat's kickstart files. If you have a precise idea of what you have to deploy, you can edit a set of tagfiles and then use them during the installation. Watch out for the "tagfiles" selection dialog next time you install Slackware.

Daniel de Kok explains tagfiles in detail in his Slack Basics book.

http://rlworkman.net/howtos/slackbasics.pdf

Thanks kiki!

Is there something like a scripty that generates maketag from tagfile? It actually looks like PV may be editing each maketag by hand...

I only use this script to extract the tagfiles from a Slackware DVD:

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/t...py-tagfiles.sh

The rest is rather something in the line of :1,$s/REC/ADD/g in Vim.

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Wow, this excursion really taught me quite a bit about Slackware. When I started, I couldn't hope that things will turn out so magically KISS, yet scalable and robust. The installer, for example, that gets so much flak in "reviews", is a perfect example of a robust tool handcrafted to perfection. I am very impressed.