Or just build their own like I do when I need a Slackware package.

snowtigger, slacky.eu may be in Italian but their repositories aren't. Try here: http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-12.0/

If you want to know if a package is present, check in the "FILELIST.TXT" (it will also tell you what directory the package is in). There are also SlackBuilds in the "src" directory for each package. I always modify their SlackBuilds if I use them because I don't particularly like some of their settings and they have some goofy cleanup stuff in there as well, but they are usually sufficient.

I would denounce you as a heretic, but then Eric and Robby would probably beat me up

off-topic:
Yeah, I tried to compile VLC on my own... after day of searching for and installing all the dependencies I gave up... It either refuses to compile or didn't work... But maybe the error was between the chair and the keyboard

topic on

There is a SlackBuild for vlc in my repository (see my sig for the URL) and ready-to-install packages too.
The SlackBuild downloads and builds the dependencies too, and adds them to the resulting vlc package as static libraries.

Eric

Very nice indeed. Thanks, Eric.

The quality of the packages on LP.net depends on the package maintainer. There are quite a few excellent packages, but also some provided by less experienced people.

I can recommend everything provided by Ken Zalewski. His packages don't include SlackBuild scripts, but have always installed and worked without any problems or unexpected side effects in my systems.

BTW, it seems that Ken is now the official maintainer of the Slackware Wine package. Adam Schreiber apparently found a most reliable successor. See http://www.winehq.org.

gargamel

So the hardship makes you more cool or more dumb?? lol

I agree, Ken does a good job. For the time in which I was using LP.net I looked for and installed mostly his packages. So, in that respect, I guess LP.net can be useful, but know that many other packages are quite crappy.

No, it makes you more smart, because you know how to deal with certain problems that may appear during compiling. And I can tell you that no repository for ANY distro can possibly contain every piece of software out there for Linux. I know some get close, but it's impossible to get them all, and most of the packages get outdated very quick. You must know how to compile things from source if you want to get the most out of Linux.

The main reason I have for compiling from source is that it's good to catch the error messages after a ./configure - it tells you whether all the requirements have been met. I went through a phase of installing slackpacks and then getting fed up because I couldn't work out what I was missing, even worse when the requirements file has a long list in it.

And it's not hard, compiling from source is easy peasy

I like "compile from source" because it is easy but not too easy. I have seen a propensity of ubuntu users to keep installing every second software they could see , screwing up their system big time.

Now everytime I install something in Slackware, I think "do I really need it ?". And then I make sure that I make a good selection of options in ./configure , read the README etc. If I am in a hurry I go and download from slackbuilds.org / alien_bob's repository, as I know they will be good. Thus my desktop remains rock solid and blazingly fast. Thats why I love it.

try http://slacky.uglyplace.org/repository/slackware-12.1/ for some more slack s/w builds

I usually avoid any binary packages, apart from official updates and OpenOffice. So I'm using src2pkg, slackbuilds.org or alienbobs slackbuilds to build the packages. Using ccache plus a dualcore and several jobs, compiling works like a charm :-)