I'm starting to venture into areas of Slackware and Linux with which I'm not particularly familiar. I've got part of the way to my requirements, but my mind is starting to glaze over, and I could use some "idiot's guide" type instructions!

I have three machines, running minor variations on slackware64-current. All three have AlienBob's LibreOffice installed, and one has AlienBob's KDE5 installed.

I have a local NAS server, on which I keep a local copy of slackware64-current, LibreOffice and KDE5 - all rsync'd from a mirror here in the UK, via some scripts which I run as needed. So far, so good!

For the basic slackware64, I've used slackpkg to keep my machines updated, but this doesn't work for LibreOffice or KDE5, of course. I've added Slackpkg+, but I'm running into some issues where my knowledge is falling short!

My objective is to be able to run slackpkg, and have it update all the packages installed on each machine. Clearly each one will need a slightly different SlackpkgPlus.conf file, to suit whatever is installed on that machine.

KDE5 isn't a problem. Eric's KDE5 folder on the mirror - and hence on my local NAS - has all the necessary files for Slackpkg+ to work OK - except for one minor irritation, of which more anon....

The big problem arises with LibreOffice. The LibreOffice folder doesn't contain any of the CHECKSUMS.md5 files , nor a specific changelog.txt. The latter doesn't matter too much, and whilst I can create a CHECKSUMS.md5 file from the individual md5 files, Slackpkg+ complains that the .asc .gz and .gz.asc versions are missing. Eric does provide these files in his top level folder, but they cover ALL the files in his repository. Since Slackpkg+ uses the CHECKSUMS.md5 file to decide which files to offer for updating, this means going through a long list of files and manually deselecting most of them! Not quite how I want to spend an afternoon!

Now I know I could run Slackpkg+ with gpg disabled, but I can't see anyway of disabling it for the LibreOffice files only. Or have I missed something?

So:

question 1) How do I disable gpg checking for LibreOffice only, rather than globally?

question 2) If I can't do (1), how do I create the necessary missing md5 (.asc .gz .gz.asc) files?

question 3) which brings us back to that minor irritation on KDE5: The KDE5 folder contains baloo files that are also in the basic slackware64 repository. I assume the ones in KDE5 are "tweaked" versions which are necessary to function properly in KDE5. However, Slackpkg+ keeps trying to overwrite the KDE5 versions with the Slackware64 versions. I can see how to prioritise repositories added in Slackpkg+, but not how to prioritise the KDE5 repository over the basic Slackware64 repository - unless I add the Slackware repository to Slackpkg+. Is this the right thing to do? It seems odd having to add a repository twice! As a stop-gap, I've grey-listed baloo!

I'm sure these will seem like simple questions to some of you out there, but its not something I normally have to get my hands dirty with, and my brain is starting to stall!

Any help / pointers gratefully received!

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Pete

I refer you to the file /etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf where your questions about repository and package priorities are answered. Always pays off to read the provided information.

Your remark "his means going through a long list of files and manually deselecting most of them! Not quite how I want to spend an afternoon" does not make sense at all. The "slackpkg upgrade-all" command will only show you those packages that can be upgraded, it does not show any of the other packages in the repository that you do not have installed.

Hi Eric, and thanks for the reply!

I have spent hours staring at the slackpkgplus.conf file. Perhaps I have been staring at it so long that I can no longer see the obvious! The problem I am having is that my main repository is a local clone of slackware64-current. This is defined in the "mirrors" file for slackpkg, and is the repository I want to have priority - most of the time!

For clarity, my NAS contains three repositories: slackware64-current, libreoffice and KDE5. Libreoffice is a clone of your libreoffice folder, and KDE5 a clone of your KDE5 folder - only the x86_64 versions (I'm not running multi-lib).

The slackpkgplus.conf file appears to be for *additional* repositories, outside of the main slackware64-current ie: (in my case) libreoffice and KDE5. I can see how to prioritise the additional repositories defined in slackpkgplus.conf with respect to each other, but not how to prioritise the slackware64-current repository defined in the "mirrors" file. That is, unless I add the standard slackware repository to the slackpkgplus.conf file. But should I need to do that?

For example, if I download the libreoffice folder from your repository into mine, the only CHECKSUMS.md5 (and associated files) that refer to libreoffice also include all the modified files that you provide for various uses. Slackpkg+ then seems to use that CHECKSUMS.md5 file to provide the list of "upgradable" files. That list seems to have priority over the "official" mirrors file, and offers to upgrade a lot of my files with your versions of them. Now, I don't have any issues with your versions of the files, but for most of them, the standard slackware files will do for my purposes, but slackpkg+ insists on giving me a vast list of files that I don't want to upgrade! I *only* want it to keep track of libreoffice in that repository, and use the standard slackware repository for the rest.

If I don't download your CHECKSUMS.md5 and associated files, then slackpkg+ throws an error and refuses to upgrade libreoffice. If I create a CHECKSUMS.md5 file from the individual .md5 files, then slackpk+ complains about GPG and again refuses to upgrade libreoffice. I can disable GPG globally, but not just for libreoffice, it would appear! Perhaps I need to restrict what slackpkg is trying to upgrade by defining the libreoffice folder? Can I do that? The documentation only refers to repositories and files. Do I have define the actual files, with a wildcard (libreoffice*) ? None of the given examples seem to quite cover what I'm trying to do.

On the machine that I have installed your KDE5 on (and many thanks for that, by the way!) clearly I want to have the KDE5 folder to have priority over the standard slackware files. Now I note that the KDE5 folder contains a version of baloo - presumably it needed some changes to work with KDE5. Fair enough, but even though I have given KDE5 priority in slackpkgplus.conf on that machine, it still offers to overwrite the baloo files with the standard slackware ones! I think I can see how to overcome that one, by defining a specific package's priority, though I haven't tried that yet. I've grey-listed it at present, as the libreoffice issue is more pressing, and applies to three machines instead of just one.

Clearly I've missed something somewhere! Please don't get me wrong. I'm not in any way criticising the way you organise your repository. I'm just trying to get my machine to carry out routine upgrades as simply as possible, and while I'm at it, learn a bit about system management.

I can do all this from the command line, using the standard slackware upgrade tools without any issues. And I can use slackpkg to keep the core system up-to-date without problems. My issues are with automating it all, and figuring out what I'm doing wrong in the configuration of slackpkg+.

Cheers,

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Pete

I didn't go thoroughly into your use case so I cannot provide detailed answer.
However you can have more information about how slackpkg+ works by reading the man pages of slackpkgplus.conf:
The paragraphs about variables REPOPLUS and PKGS_PRIORITY should help you configure them according to your needs. Here's an extract that shows that repositories/packages defined in PKGS_PRIORITY can overwrite official packages (contrary to the ones defined in variables REPOPLUS).

1 members found this post helpful.

Give examples of that "vast list of files" please. There is almost nothing in my slackbuilds repository (the one where you downloaded the libreoffice packages) that would overwrite a Slackware package.
And while we are at it, why do't you post a copy of your slackpkgplus.conf file? Makes the discussion a lot more two-way. Minus the comment lines if you could be so friendly.

@pchristy, to easily cut out all the comments, you can run the following command.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi Eric,

OK, here's my slackpkgplus.conf file (stripped and anonymized!):

and I attach a screenshot of running "slackpkg -upgrade-all"

As you can see, its trying to replace a whole pile of files with "alien" versions. I don't think it can succeed, because those files don't exist in my local repository. Some of the files it wants to replace are my own "tweaked" versions to suit my specific requirements, so I certainly don't want them touched!

All I want it to do is update the libreoffice files when required, but even then, it seems to be trying to install an old version!

As far as I can make out, the list of files is derived from the CHECKSUMS.md5 file. I can create my own version of this file quite easily:

from within the repository, but then I don't have the required GPG keys, etc. I can turn off GPG globally, but not for libreoffice only, as far as I can see.

What am I doing wrong?

Bassmadrigal: Thanks for the tip! I'd already trimmed the file by hand, but I'll certainly remember that next time!

--
Pete

Attached Thumbnails

 

Here is mine if it will help:

Well pchristy, your configuration of slackpkg+ is lacking the PKGS_PRIORITY parameter which determines which packages or repositories have priority over others.
The example configuration posted by mlangdn shows how that parameter looks.

And I hope you looked at that screenshot yourself properly. That "dropbox-client-0.6.1-x86_64-1alien.tgz" which is proposed is part of my Slackware 13.0 package repository! By messing with my repository metadata, you got yourselves into trouble. There is no "libreoffice" repository. And I wonder what you did to the metadata which I generated (CHECKSUMS.md5 and such), to make slackpkg+ think it should offer Slackware 13.0 packages as upgrade candidates.

Hello,

First of all, about your gpg issue, have you tried to run the command below :
Looking at the screenshot, it seems that you have packages installed from alienbob repository for 14.2 but slackpkg+ is not configured to handle updates from this repository, and you've a local repository which only provides libreoffice 4.1.6.

However, there's something which I don't understand. libreoffice 4.1.6 seems to come from alienbob repository for 14.0, but, there are also alienbob's packages like dropbox-client-0.6.1 (for 13.0), or p7zip-4.65 (for 13.0).

That's very confusing.

I guess that you've good reason to stick to libreoffice 4.1.6, and thus, I suggest you to configure slackpkg+ this way to solve your issue :

1. add support to handle alienbob updates from alienbob repository for 14.2
   
2. gives precedence to libreoffice 4.1.6 over libreoffice from 14.2

To do that, you need to make the following changes :

1. Redefine REPOPLUS :

Code:

REPOPLUS=( slackpkgplus alienbob LibreOffice )

2. add reference to alienbob repository into MIRRORPLUS :

Code:

MIRRORPLUS['alienbob']=http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/sbrepos/14.2/x86_64/

3. give precedence to libreoffice from your LibreOffice repository :

Code:

PKGS_PRIORITY=( LibreOffice:libreoffice )

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Seb

1 members found this post helpful.

Correct, and that was going to be the next thing I tried to overcome the baloo / KDE5 problem on my KDE5 machine. But it doesn't explain the next problem:

Yes, I had spotted that, and that is clearly the main problem, but I don't know why. I downloaded the libreoffice x86_64 pkg folder straight off slackware.uk. As you rightly point out, it contains none of the metadata files necessary for slackpkg+ to work. Those are in the top level of your slackbuilds folder. I copied those straight across into my local libreoffice folder (not touched the content of the files), and the result is as you see.

I can make it work by creating my own CHECKSUMS.md5 file, as described above, but then I have to turn off GPG, and I can only do that globally.

The other thing I was going to try was adding libreoffice under the "local packages" near the end of the slackpkgplus.conf file. That indicates that packages used that way do not need metadata, but I'm not sure what other effects that will have. It looks as if that will only work on a locally mounted filesystem rather than over ftp. I can mount my NAS locally using NFS, but I don't usually bother unless I specifically need to access it.

I'm sure I can find work-arounds for my problems, but I'm also trying to understand why my current method is not working. On the face of it, it looks as if it ought to work, but it doesn't. I can only learn from my mistakes if I understand what they are!

Seb: Yes, I did update the GPG, and yes, what you suggest would work. But that would mean downloading everything three times (once for each machine). I'm trying to download the new files onto a NAS, and then update each machine from there. That way I only have to download updates once.

Thanks everyone for your input and patience!

--
Pete

pchristy, is there a major reason why you're only trying to create a libreoffice repo by itself? It would be much easier to just use Eric's whole repo and only install libreoffice from it. If desired, you could rsync the whole thing, but he has enough bandwidth to handle using his server directly.

The reason why the CHECKSUMS.md5 file is only available in the root slackbuilds folder is because that is the root of the repo. libreoffice is just a package within the whole repo. You won't get a CHECKSUMS.md5 file in the libreoffice folder unless you generate your own repo based on his libreoffice package, and that seems like far more work than it is worth... but that's just my two cents.

If you really desire to create a repo based only on Eric's libreoffice, I'd take a look at his gen_repos_files.sh script to create the needed files so you don't have to disable gpg. But, it really would be easier to just add Eric's whole repo, even if you only intend to install LibreOffice from it.

1 members found this post helpful.

Bassmadrigal: Yes, I'm coming to that conclusion myself!

I've managed to get it working (I think!) by mounting my NAS via NFS, and then configuring slackpkg+ to update libreoffice as a local directory, as I described in my last post. That doesn't require any metadata, and it seems to work - at least it doesn't throw up all the other files that I don't want to update. I won't know for sure until the next libreoffice update, but I'm reasonably confident.

Next thing to try is firing up the KDE5 box and seeing if I can get it to prioritise the correct version of baloo. I think I can see how to do that.

As for rsync-ing Eric's whole repository, the local mirror I use doesn't seem to have any bandwidth issues, but I'm a bit out in the sticks! Bandwidth can be an issue out here, hence my desire to minimise downloads as far as is practical!

I think I'm close to a total solution now, and thanks to everyone for their patience and help. But I would still like to understand why my original method seemed to want to "update" my files with older versions. I don't like not knowing, as it may lead me to make a similar mistake in future!

--
Pete

Since I have a solution that seems to be working (as far as I can tell at present!), I'm going to mark this thread as solved.

Thanks to all for your input.

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Pete

could you have made this script more complicated it works for you but hey . simple rsync and mirror install
your other scripts are fabulous my first post sorry. Love your work
cd directory upgradepkg install why so hard pkg? , moment finally joined this rag.
Zuno this is not kiss a config is simple point grep and be done