There are many linux applications already packaged for slackware, available at various repositories, like alien's slackbuilds, linux packages, and slacky.eu
. The packages are usually specific to the version of slackware they were compiled for. So if you are using slackware-13.37, you download packages for slackware-13.37, or slackware64-13.37, etc. The packages usually end in .txz or tgz. Create a folder somewhere for saving slackware packages... ( mine is /home/slackware/slackware64-13.37/pax ) and then open up a terminal application and navigate to the folder to where you saved a slackware package.

Then, you can install a package with the installpkg command, provided you have administrative privileges. (When you first logged in as root, and were creating your first user, you could also have given that user some administrative privileges with the visudo command. When logged in as root, when you type visudo, it opens up a file where you search for a line that says to "uncomment" to allow users in the group "wheel" to have administrative privileges. To uncomment it, you just delete the "#" that begins the line. Then you also edit the file /etc/group, and add the user name to the end of the line for the group wheel. From then on, that user will be able to assume administrative privileges by typing sudo before any command they need such privileges.) So, provided your user has administrative privileges, to install the slackware package, simply type

A description of the package will be displayed while it is being installed. It should take less than a few minutes... usually only seconds!

One great feature of this packaging system, is that if you don't like the application or the result of installing the application, you can easily remove it with the removepkg command:


Sometimes a prepackaged binary installed in this method might not work. When this happens, I do the removepkg as above, and then head over to http://www.slackbuilds.org, where they have scripts, called slackbuild scripts, that compile source code into packages that can be installed with the installpkg command. The benefit to this is that these scripts customize the application for slackware; also, during the compilation, the application is being cross linked with the exact libraries on your system, and not the libraries on some developer's system, and for this reason, packages created with slackbuild scripts often work when the precompiled binary failed. The downside to the slackbuild scripts is that you have to wait for the software to compile before you get to install it with installpkg.

Things to avoid while managing slackware packages: try not to install software packaged for other distros... you will end up getting components installed in the wrong places. If you can't find a precompiled binary or a slackbuild script for linux software, then, if you can get the source code to the software, you can tackle compiling it yourself, and even creating your own slackbuild script for it.... 99% of the time I find that there are already slackbuild scripts for what I need.

Welcome to Slackware. You can check out anytime you like...

Wow Thank You!, That was pretty comprehensive. Let me give it a shot.

Ok now I have been working on it for a few hours(lol) and I am not able to login as root, I don't think I set up my user correctly. I set up the file and downloaded the audacity tar package and everything was a go and I don't have root. I saw that in your post so now I know I have to reconfigure that. Almost there, will start fresh tomarrow.

It is most likely that sudo is not configured on your system, just useto become root.

Ok guys, I appreciate your patience (in advance) I can't login as root, I created a user in KDE and I can't login as root. su - is not working it keeps saying authentication failure when I type in my password. I wonder if I am putting in the wrong password? How do I reset the root password? Package is ready to go I just need the password! Any help appreciated. So close!!

Are you logging in in the CLI, or in KDE?
From the CLI:
You can't and shouldn't login as root in the login screen from KDE.
To verify the password from root, type the password in the user field.

Kind regards

Ok thanks!

Damn! Well guys 3 days straight trying to install a package, very close but no go. I know its easy and I'm right there but its not happening. Its saying the sucker cannot be read or something. Lol does someone have any help? Basically I don't think I have my user set up correctly. I made a new user and I was in VI and added wheel as a group but I think I uncommented the wrong one but there was not an uncomment for administration. I uncommented two things and saved in VI when I exited. I could message someone my phone # if they would b willing to walk me through it.

You don't have to use sudo. Login as a root in your console or use "su -" and then try to use installpkg (if it actually IS a tgz/txz package).

EDIT:

I just thought, that you probably configured sudo right, but you didn't use the absolute path to installpkg, which is located in /sbin. /sbin is not part of ordinary user's PATH variable.
Try the following commands as an ordinary user:

and also as a root to see the differences

There is a ##slackware IRC channel full of helpful people on the Freenode IRC network. You can try and get your issues sorted out in a more interactive way there.
To me it looks like you need to read the Slackware Book at http://slackbook.org/ at least a few more times so that you understand how Linux, and Slackware in particular, actually works.

If you want real help, you will have to do better than "Its saying the sucker cannot be read or something lol" and "I think I uncommented the wrong one but there was not an uncomment for administration".

Eric