Each week threads are getting cluttered by useless wars about tools like update managers or Dropline Gnome. It's irritating to read same and same again. I hope this thread reaches smth similar like "What features/changes would you like to see in future Slackware?" or "What is so great about Slackware anyway?" threads did. This thread could help for the interested party to decide whether to use this add-on/tool or not.

E.g. What's wrong/right with Swaret, Dropline Gnome, Slackware current, linuxpackages, checkinstall, etc...

Once you master Slackware's packaging tools, all of the third party packaging add-ons seem like a gimmick.

So, I tend to "roll my own" packages, updating them from time to time as necessary. For example, I am still using (under Slackware-12.0) the same package of Audacity that I created almost 5 years ago. Hey - it fills a need!

I like to keep things simple.

FWIW - at last count, I have added 89 packages to Slackware 12.0. All of them were compiled & packaged by myself at some stage.

Same here, but I do upgrade them once in a while, especially when switching Slackware versions, mostly because incompatibilities do appear (I mean the compiled one needs a certain version of a certain library or even glib).

I have around 73 packages added (about 1/3 are games, 1/3 libraries, 1/3 work/school related programs).

I read too often about Swaret f*cking up systemsNever liked Gnome and trying to get Gnome apps to work on a KDE-based OS like Slackware, is often quite frustrating...
I try to avoid 'em.
Dunno, never tried it
I never understood the resentment that some people have against LP.net. In the past (and even nowadays, sometimes) I get packages there. Had very little trouble with them. Same goes for Slacky-eu. Especially for packages where there is no SlackBuild script available and that are not easy to compile (or with src2pkg), it's handy (not everyone is a programmer, I'm not). That doesn't mean these packages are always flawless, but normally, they do the job.Always loved it, too bad it doesn't work properly anymore. Thanks to gnashley there is src2pkg, which I like too.Etc?
Ah, I know what you mean: Kslackcheck!
Love it.
Should be in Slackware by default.

Oh, and for updates, you can try this shell script:
http://darklinux.net/slackupdate/

It's funny that someone here mention this in a post just as I finished making a similar script myself. The question now is, which script do I trust more ? ... only time will tell.

I do like swaret and linuxpackages.net and especially the italians with slacky.eu - simply because I'm (s)lacking installation discipline.

I usally start with a clean, new Slackware, doing my own packages, but even though it's really simple, I tend to just hack the "configure, make, make install" into the keyboard, because I'm used to it, so swaret helds at least some of my installation mess at bay.

I never had any problem with swaret itself messing up things.

For slapt-get I was too stupid somehow, it never grew to me.

Dropline isn't my favorite Gnome because I had some nasty experiences with de-installation. I stick with GSlacky - specifically, because I like their update cycle and their collection. Garnome is too much of an effort to compile, but nevertheless I like it and it works well with Slackware. I also used Gware, but the last news have been from July 2007, so this was another reason to stick with GSlacky. (Gware seems to have some newer stuff in some directory somewhere, but I was too lazy to actually search for it..)

Slackware current I rarely use, because I update frequently what I really want to have in a very recent version. (Due to my preferences, usally glib/gtk/cairo stuff.) As long as there's no security or hardware or feature issue, I don't care about an ancient apache or an old kernel.


And checkinstall I have to google.

I'll add-on some source, binary packages (games, office, utilities). I used Gnome for Slackware in the past, but, XFce meets my needs now:-)

I'm using -current and have been for a couple of years. I have a cron job which downloads the changelog every morning at 6 am, diffs it with the last one and pops up any changes in a terminal for me to see. It does mean having to tread carefully when updating, and having to read the CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT and the UPGRADE.TXT carefully, but I like to live dangerously

I use slackpkg to update and upgrade, except where I need to download and upgrade manually as the upgrade.txt will say.

I use slapt-get too but I have it pointing at linuxpackages.net - it just saves some time over going there in a browser.

I also roll-my-own kernel, which is pached with vesafb-tng. This is a patch that adds a new framebuffer device and cures the problems caused by the Nvidia driver, which messes up the console when you exit X.

To get out of trouble I have a Slack 12 dvd handy. Usefuly for booting up with to fix problems.

I have around 90 packages that I've compiled myself. I especially like to try out release candidates of Gimp because I edit a lot of photos and like to try new features.

My main terminals are Yakuake which I use mainly for irssi and mutt. For most other terminal operations I use Mrxvt, which is a very light tabbed terminal and useful for compiling/scripting.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

I don't think that's an issue anymore. I'm running the latest nvidia driver which works just fine with vesa. The nvidia Control Panel even sets up TwinView without a hitch. It's as easy in Linux as it is in Windows now...

Same here (although I haven't set up any TwinView stuff. ). The nvidia drivers seem to work perfectly when switching from X to a console (either by exiting X or using Ctrl+Alt+F#).

Ah didn't know they had fixed it yet. They always claimed never to support framebuffer. Must get new drivers..

Yea, check it out. Really nice. I'm just waiting for some coolbits/ntune type of over-clocking now... Other than that, the drivers have reached a comparable level with Windows... Everything just works™

Coolbits has been around for a while - you need to put

Option "Coolbits" "1"

in Device section of xorg.conf, then in nvidia control panel you will have the overclocking sliders.

No kiddin... I'm in the middle of a large gftp upload session but I'll check it out in a couple hours. How slick.

We both learned something new... Can't imagine a reason for wanting to over-clock your card in linux but hey... Nice to have the option.

It would be helpful if "dmraid" was included with Slackware for those of us who have to struggle with RAID controllers from manufacturers who don't support Linux. It's hard enough getting everything to work, and compiling "dmraid" on some other computer first makes things a lot harder. It would be even more helpful if there was an option to "mkinitrd" to include the "dmraid -ay" command in the "init" script for the "initrd".