Hi all,
How to you update third-party software on slackware? I recently installed Libreoffice and since it is not a part of the official slackware packages, slackpkg wont update it. So how should I keep such packages updated?

Thanks.

Why wouldn't you use the same mechanism that you used to get/create the package you installed in the first place?

The usual way is to run upgradepkg whateverlatestpackage.tgz as root. You need to either do this from the same directory or give the full path to the package. Where you get the package from depends. If you are using Eric's build then you either wait for him to do a new pkg or use his slackbuild or the slackbuild from slackbuilds.org to build the source. Read this

http://www.slackbook.org/html/packag...utilities.html

As your question indicates that you haven't read the documentation that comes on the slackware dvd, I suggest that you do that.

You may want to take a look at sbopkg. It provides an lazy way of using slackbuilds.org and has an update feature.

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If you used a SlackBuild from slackbuilds.org, you can use sbopkg to check for updates and rebuild packages. On the first screen of the curses interface, see the "Updates" option. Alternatively use the '-c' switch on the command line to view a list of packages that are out of date.

Edit: For these to work you will need to have run "Sync" (or '-r') occasionally to ensure the local copies of the build scripts are up to date.

If you used my package, you can subscribe to the repository RSS feed which will keep you informed of any updates: http://slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/ChangeLog.rss

Eric

He clearly has read the official documentation, and then rightly noted that it doesn't apply to third-party packages.


The Slackbuilds website also has a RSS feed for updates if you decide not to use the excellent sbopkg tool.

The link I provided explains that the slackware package utilities can be used to install, remove or upgrade a correctly built slackware package-it doesn't qualify this on the grounds of, or even mention, package origin.

So I have to download an updated third-party software package and then upgrade it using upgrade-pkg? Is there something similar to slackpkg where I can do

slackpkg update
slackpkg upgrade-all

Slackpkg checks a repository (set in /etc/slackpkg/sources) and compares installed package versions to the ones on the repo. As your upgrade is for a package that was installed locally, not from a repo in your sources list, you can't use slackpkg to upgrade it.

I recommend that you either manage upgrades individually (this is ok if you only have a few 3rd party packages installed) or get to know slackbuilds.org

You can get sbopkg from here:

http://code.google.com/p/sbopkg/

This will allow you to install/remove packages built from slackbuilds.org. It has an update tool that updates all packages from the slackbuilds.org repo. That said, not all of the packages in slackbuilds are updated quickly, so this is not a reliable way of getting updates on time. To be sure of the latest version you would need to check manually and inevitably learn to use a slackbuild to build packages locally, I strongly recommend that you read the slackbook pages on package management if you haven't already.

1 members found this post helpful.

How did you install libreoffice? If you went through slackbuilds.org or Alien Bob's packages, you should have a libreoffice file in /var/log/packages. Acquire a new package the same way then use 'upgradepkg.'

If you used a different installation method you should uninstall it first if that's possible, then build or download a new slackware package and run 'installpkg' on it.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you all. I will look at slackbuilds and sbopkg. That answers my question.
I had installed Libreoffice by getting the source, and not through slackbuilds.

If you installed it from a source without using a slackbuild script then you'll need to uninstall it before doing anything else.

1 members found this post helpful.

Here is how i installed-upgraded LibreOffice ;

download packages from LibreOffice ;

tar -xzvf version of libreoffice;

su - ;

cd /home/myname/ version of just downloaded untarred , libreoffice;

ls;

cd RPMS ;

rpm2tgz *.rpm ;

installpkg *.tgz ;
or;upgradepkg *.tgz if previous version installed.

So far so good...busby