Managing Slackware64 Multilib with compat32pkg
 

According to the tutorial on slackbook.org, Adding Multilib Capability to Slackware on x86_64 Architecture, it is possible to manage multilib updates with compat32pkg. I have already installed multilib following the quick and dirty instructions.

If I install the compat32pkg after the fact, will the compat32pkg tool find those packages automatically? I am trying to decide if I want to use compat32pkg or slackpkg+ to manage the compat32 updates.

If you plan to use any of the other features of slackpkg+, like being able to search Eric's own (huge) repository of software, then I'd stick with slackpkg+ so you only have to use one program. In fact, just because it is also able to handle security updates of Slackware itself, it might be best to just use slackpkg+.

Also, compat32pkg has not had any releases since 2013. This doesn't mean it is dead (since Slackware hasn't had an official release since 2013 either), but most people I know use slackpkg+ to manage their updates of both Slackware and multilib (and any other repos that have been added).

There is a bit of a setup learning curve with slackpkg+, but once you have it set up, it is easy to use. I haven't used compat32pkg, but since it is only designed to do one thing (manage multilib), it is probably a relatively easy, straightforward program to use and set up.

Managing Slackware64 Multilib with compat32pkg
 

Thanks for the helpful insights. I will be using slackpkg+ for simplicity sake.

What does it mean when the status of a package is shown as "upgrade" when queried with slackpkg? I ran a "slackpkg install multilib" and it downloaded and installed compat32 packages but it doesn't seem like gcc has been replaced.

What step have I missed to replace all of the gcc packages with gcc-multilib?

Here is a list of the gcc packages and their statuses:


Here is a list of the multilib packages and their statuses:

The upgrade is showing the stock gcc packages getting upgraded to their multilib counterparts. Last time I installed multilib with slackpkg+ the process I used was:

I think the problem is I set it up by running the following script:

Which doesn't edit slackpkgplus.conf so that the following variables are uncommented and read like so:

I then ran:

I now have a slackpkg+ maintained multilib system. Thanks for the hint.