Slackware package management
 

Hi I recently installed Slack 12.2. I chose to include everything in the install. Now I want to clean up a whole bunch packages that I am not going to need. The pkgtool utility does not give a clear description of what I am removing. For example, a list of package names such kaffeine, Audacity, Amrok etc..

OK, pkgtool does show package names such as Amorak but stuff like aaa_elibs confuses me. Additionally, I can see KAudioCreator on my programs list but not pkgtools.

So there is not only a danger of unintentionally removing important packages but some no possibility of removing unnecessary ones.

Hi
Information about installed packages is stored in /var/log/packages.
For each package there is a file which stores following information:
0) package description (optional)
1) list of files included in package
2) sizes (installed size, compressed size)
3) where package was installed from.

To see what package does, you'll need to view description. You can do it by opening file directly, or by selecting "view" option in pkgtool.

KAudioCreator is part of kde. Most KDE software is bundled (with a lot of other programs) in one or two base packages, those programs don't have separate packages. KAudioCreator is probably part of kdemultimedia package.

There is a possibility of removing unnecessary ones. The problem is that kde stores many programs in one package.

Thanks man, that was very useful!

Oops, I must have removed something important. I just rebooted the machine and I see I have lost KDE. I get "log in to X" and it logs me in with both user and root. But all my desktop icons are gone.

I can get kpgtool up dont know where to install from or what to install.

I have the slackboot disk kpgtool has option to install from current directory or "other"
shows please enter the name of the dir you wish to install packages from: whatever i use to refer to the cdrom is not accepted. /hdc /cdrom....

How can i restore kde???

You can see all the removed packages in /var/log/removed_packages, try to guess which package can cause this kind of problem.

If this can't help, you can send the list of removed packages to us, and we try to guess. Or if you did not delete too much packages install all of them again.

Find kde packages on slackware dvd and install them with installpkg command (as root, of course).

I had the same idé a while ago. Back then I made a full install and used the installation normally for a few weeks. Later I made a script that compared all last access dates of every file in every package. If none of the file had been accessed since I installed my system, I could assume I wouldn't need it. The script then printed the package name to a file called remove.log. If some files had been accessed after the installation, the script would print the packagename to keep.log.

I didn't use this information directly and removed every package in remove.log. I used the file as a foundation for package removing. I kept a lot of libraries and some packages i didn't know was was for.

I would guess this is a pretty nasty way of sorting out useless packages, as some of them are rarely used and could cause dependency nightmare at a later point. It worked pretty well until I reinstalled the system. When I did a reinstall I saved the remaining packages to tagfiles, and used the tagfiles during the next installation process. At that point it didn't work anymore. I was missing stuff after upgrading. Nothing major, but it's still PITA to find the missing packages.

What about none slackware packages such as the free version or real player, flash player..
They don't show up in slackpkg or pkgtools in case i need to reinstall.

I I successfully mangaged to install the latter but difficulties with real player.

I doownloaded RealPlayer11Gold.bin did chmod a+x
then ran the install script and it did seem to agree to licence and install. The icon is undr my program list. But When I try to open BBC radio I get an error

"cold not find appropriate hxplay or realplay in the path to use as an embedded player.

When I try to re-run the install script from console I get error


"realplay shell script should export Helix_LIBS environment variable and be used to launch realplayer"

Script file: /home/siawash/RealPlayer/realplay

this is the realplay file:

#!/bin/bash

# To install this script, create a symlink to it from somewhere in your
# path. Do *not* move the script out of the player directory, since
# it relies on the true location of hxplay to derive the location of the
# player directory

ARG0=$0

# Bugbuggy has been causing a lot of trouble with desktop stability. Disable it.
export GNOME_DISABLE_CRASH_DIALOG=1

if [ "${OSTYPE:0:7}" = "solaris" ] ; then
# Solaris requires this setup to use POSIX utilities.
PATH=/usr/xpg4/bin:${PATH}
fi


if [ -d "$HELIX_LIBS" ] ; then
true
elif [ "$HELIX_LIBS" = "" -a -L ${ARG0} ] ; then
HELIX_LIBS=$(readlink ${ARG0})
HELIX_LIBS=${HELIX_LIBS%/*} # Delete trailing file name.
elif [ "$HELIX_LIBS" = "" -a -f ${ARG0} ] ; then
HELIX_LIBS=$ARG0
HELIX_LIBS=${HELIX_LIBS%/*} # Delete trailing file name.
HELIX_LIBS=$(cd $HELIX_LIBS; pwd)
elif [ -z "$HELIX_LIBS" ]; then
echo "\$HELIX_LIBS is not set"
else
echo "\$HELIX_LIBS points to a directory that does not exist ($HELIX_LIBS)"
fi

export HELIX_LIBS

if [ -n "$HELIX_LIBS" -a -d "$HELIX_LIBS" ]; then
# See if LD_PRELOAD contains any of the sound server libs. If so, remove them.
LD_PRELOAD=`echo $LD_PRELOAD | sed -e 's/\([^:]*libesd[^:]*\|[^:]*libarts[^:]*\):\?//g'`
export LD_PRELOAD

if [ -n "$LD_PRELOAD" ]; then
echo "Warning: LD_PRELOAD=\"$LD_PRELOAD\""
fi

if [ -z "GTK_MODULES" ]; then
# Enable accessibility
export GTK_MODULES="gail:atk-bridge"
fi

while /bin/true; do
# Restart the player if exit code is 10 (player reset)
$HELIX_LIBS/realplay.bin "$@"
if [ $? -ne 10 ]; then
break
fi
done
fi

How would i be able to uninstall none slackware packages such as RealPlayer. It did't come with an uninstaller. I don't see it under pkgtools.

That is kind of the point of packages...
 

To uninstall non-Slackware apps you need to know what files were installed by the original installer, and any other changes made to your configuration - and then remove them.

For non-Slackware apps it is worth the trouble to explore the app's installer and figure out how to install it to a directory structure of your choice and create your own package from there, as it will then contain a complete file list and you would be able to uninstall when needed.

See this page from the helix player faq:
https://player.helixcommunity.org/20...playerfaq.html
As per the faq, Real Player should be installed to /opt/real/RealPlayer. And there should be an uninstall script that you can run in /opt/real/RealPlayer/postinst/postuninst.sh.
Or, as per the faq just do:
I have never used Real Player in linux. I really don't see the need for it. There are many great media players for linux like mplayer, kaffeine, xine, and many others. Check out the multimedia repository at slackbuilds.org.

This caught my eye the other day. Interesting concept if you want to throw multiple versions of things around. Especially toolchain components.

For future installs, you can get a Slackware-ready Realplayer from slacky.eu. They supply both a package and a SlackBuild.

Hi folks, thank you for the input. I am increasingly getting the impression that cockups with party package installations could be terminal requiring a rebuild. I.e. there is no built-in cleanup utility, which is unfortunate. As a relative newbie I don't understand

rm -rf /opt/real/RealPlayer/ does

I normally chmod then use ./ to install and choose the default path for target directory

The reason I am so eager to use RealPlayer is that it seems be compatible with the BBC iPlayer. I welcome any instructions on how to use alternatives. I listen to 3 radio stations and all recomend Realplayer.

So will slackpkg recognize realplayer if I download it from eSlacker.eu?

slackpkg (or any of the Slackware package tools) can only work with software that was installed via a proper Slackware package. Anything else you install, be it from a source tarball (make install) or from an installer script (like Flash) will not be reflected.

That is why it is important to always install software from Slackware packages. Either find a pre-made package online, or better yet, build your own package through the use of SlackBuilds or software like src2pkg or even just makepkg.

Well that's easy to rectify.

http://www.slackbook.org/html/book.html#HELP-SYSTEM-MAN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rm_(Unix))
man rm
rm --help

Is slackpkg a new development in 12.2 or did it exist in version 12 as well?

The rm is the command for remove. The -r option is for recursive. You must use -r when you are deleting a directory, as opposed to deleting a single file. The -f is for force. It should not be necessary in this case though. Open a terminal and cd (change directory) to /opt. Then run ls which will list the contents of /opt.
You should see a directory in /opt named real. Now do:
There should be a directory in /opt/real called RealPlayer. Now do:
and you should see the contents of the RealPLayer directory, including the postuninst.sh script. To get rid of Real PLayer just (as root):
or
THere may also be a launcher for Real PLayer in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. If there is you can remove that from the terminal also, e.g.
If you find a Real PLayer launcher in there then just:
Remember, linux is case sensitive.

If you go to the website for the radio station you want to listen to they should have an icon to click on to "listen live". Just right click on that, choose "copy link location", then open audacious and choose "play location" from the menu and you should be able to play it. Then you can install Streamtuner from slackbuilds.org and add that station to your preselections to listen to the station when ever you want.

Yes, and it is http://slacky.eu/.

I highly recommend reading the Slack book. It will answer many of your questions; and is essential reading for getting started with Slackware:
http://slackbook.org/

Slackpkg has been around for some time. It was in the /extra directory for some time. With Slackware 12.2 it became part of the "main" Slackware install.

I would like thank everyone who helped in this post. I must have learned more in the past few days than the whole year.

I have successfully installed RealPlayer, Flash player, Kaffiene, Audacity, JRE using pkgtool.

However, I am currently stuck with OpenOffice.

I downloaded it from slacky.eu

When I point pkgtool to the downloaded directory I get:

2. Amharic 34. Gujarati 66. Romanian
3. Arabic 35. Hebrew 67. Russian
4. Assamese 36. Hindi 68. Kinyarwanda
5. Azerbaijani 37. Croatian 69. Serbian Latin
6. Belarusian 38. Hungarian 70. Slovak
7. Bulgarian 39. Armenian 71. Slovenian
8. Bengali (Bangladesh) 40. Italian 72. Albanian
9. Bengali (India) 41. Japanese 73. Serbian Cyrillic
10. Tibetan 42. Georgian 74. Swati
11. Breton 43. Khmer (Cambodia) 75. Sotho
12. Bosnian 44. Kannada 76. Swedish
13. Catalan 45. Korean 77. Swahili
14. Czech 46. Kurdish 78. Tamil
15. Welsh 47. Lao 79. Tajik
16. Danish 48. Lithuanian 80. Thai
17. German 49. Latvian 81. Tigrinya
18. Dzongkha 50. Macedonian 82. Tswana
19. Greek 51. Malayalam 83. Turkish
20. English (GB) 52. Mongolian 84. Tsonga
21. English (US) 53. Marathi 85. Ukrainian
22. English (South Africa) 54. Malay 86. Urdu
23. Esperanto 55. Norwegian Bokmal 87. Urdu (Pakistan)
24. Spanish 56. Nepali 88. Venda
25. Estonian 57. Dutch 89. Vietnamese
26. Basque 58. Norwegian Nynorsk 90. Walloon
27. Persian 59. Ndebele, South 91. Xhosa
28. Finnish 60. NorthernSotho/Sepedi 92. Chinese (simplified)
29. French 61. Oriya 93. Chinese (traditional)
30. French (CA) 62. Punjabi 94. Zulu
31. Irish 63. Polish
32. Gaelic (Scotland) 64. Portuguese
choice n.:



I am sure when it says Irish if it's refering to the Gealic Irish or is that just regional setting. If I select any of the numbers, for example 31


1. http://ooo.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/openoffice/
2. http://ftp-atl.osuosl.org/pub/openoffice/
3. http://mirror.pacific.net.au/OpenOffice/
4. http://openoffice.cs.utah.edu/
5. http://ftp.kddilabs.jp/office/openoffice/
6. http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/openoffice.org/
7. http://ftp-1.gwdg.de/pub/openoffice/
8. http://openoffice.c3sl.ufpr.br/


Which is surprising as the install file is already on local drive

Then i select my nearest mirror which the number 6 and I am back o the above language selection in a loop.

Any ideas anyone?

When I view the list of packages installed using pkgtool

openoffice-autobuilder-multilang-3.0.0-i586-12sm

is listed. However, when look for open office under programs menu its not there

I used the OpenOffice.org SlackBuild from SlackBuilds.org and it works perfectly. Maybe try that instead. I recommend that you do some reading up on SlackBuilds.org -- it's a valuable resource for third party software.