Slackware package manager
 

i have used lots of distros and want to make a switch to Slackware, purely a person decision, i just liked Slackware way. all of the distros, i have used, had dependency handeling mechanism known as package manager. now i see Slackware does not have it. i am not pointing any finger to its philosophy. i only want to know whether handling-dependencies is really a *big* pain in the ass. when i do "emerge xprg-x11" on Gentoo it shows me 20 different package and GCC install page here:

http://gcc.gnu.org/install/prerequisites.html

shows that one needs to handle lots of things (may be 20 in number just a guess) before installing GCC. Do i need to install all those 20 dependencies myself before installing those packages in Slackware ? Is it really so much hard as it looks from these 2 examples or i am just being a freak, unintentionally ?

it depends.

normally you install a "full" system and this just works. if you want to use
an external package e.g. gnucash it _can_ be painful though. ( After some time one tends to write small scripts for these tasks. )

one reason, why there so many dependencies is, that larger packages are split into smaller ones ( makes sense! )

Some things are easier to compile than others. So chances are, you won't get too much hell, but you'll get there a couple times.

If you wanna install gcc, or xorg, or large, sophisticated programs with many dependencies ... then yes you might be in for a bit of dependency hell.

hmm , i always thought dependency hell was , when you wanted to install a big package and your package manager says, that he can't install it, because libirrelevant is missing or explicitpackage collides with another package, that one _needs or... well you get the idea :D

Nah, dependency hell comes when you install an rpm that depends on another rpm, the second rpm needs a third rpm and the third rpm needs the first one! Or you just end up tracking down rpm after rpm after rpm.

Source is so much better: either the INSTALL file will give you explicit instructions and requirements or the web page will. And when you compile the file it normally tells you that it failed because it needs X software. It's all very friendly like that.

you described the "arnuld's Fedora Core days" with much clarity. go to Hollywood, you will become a good real-life story writer and make a lot of money ;-). send me some back as royalty if you want

just for fun ;-)

LOL @ 'libirrelevant' - I like it :p
Like Erklaerbaer's signature suggests, one must be slack to love Slack. I'm pretty darned slack. And thankfully, pursuant to Erklaerbaer's (type that 10 times fast :confused:) post above, install it and it tends to 'just work', quite well. Haven't encountered dependency hell, nor required libirrelevant, yet!

Try compiling gnumeric ... that'll need lots of libirrelevants. And a bit of dependency hell too.