Which Slackware packages can I omit?

rng · 03-09-2022, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shelldweller

I do this sort of thing all the time for ARM devices, where storage space is often limited.
.....

To remove rust, seamonkey and thunderbird from a slackware distribution (they have already got installed), will following command work?

Code:

removepkg rust seamonkey thunderbird

Or will I need to remove some other packages with above also?

shelldweller · 03-09-2022, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rng

To remove rust, seamonkey and thunderbird from a slackware distribution (they have already got installed), will following command work?

Code:

removepkg rust seamonkey thunderbird

Or will I need to remove some other packages with above also?

I think the package name is mozilla-thunderbird. Otherwise, that should work, as would:

Code:

slackpkg remove rust seamonkey mozilla-thunderbird

rng · 03-09-2022, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shelldweller

I think the package name is mozilla-thunderbird. Otherwise, that should work, as would:

Code:

slackpkg remove rust seamonkey mozilla-thunderbird

Ok thanks.

And for upgrading such systems, I should only use commands "slackpkg update" and "slackpkg upgrade" and not "slackpkg install-new" and "slackpkg upgrade-all". Is that correct?

ethelack · 03-10-2022, 03:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rng

Ok thanks.

And for upgrading such systems, I should only use commands "slackpkg update" and "slackpkg upgrade" and not "slackpkg install-new" and "slackpkg upgrade-all". Is that correct?

"slackpkg upgrade" is used to upgrade a list of individual packages given on the command line as such it is too slow for upgrading the whole system. The preferred method is to use "slackpkg upgrade-all" in combination with a blacklist which will ignore installing/upgrading/removing of packages listed in /etc/slackpkg/blacklist.

There is an explaination how to edit the blacklist at the beginning of the file. Basically you would want.

-----------------------
e/
kde/
t/
y/

kernel-source
rust
seamonkey
mozilla-thunderbird
-----------------------

rng · 03-10-2022, 06:56 AM

@ethelack : Very clearly explained. Thanks.

Another related question: How can I remove full package groups, e.g. e/ t/ y/, from an installed Slackware system?

JayByrd · 03-10-2022, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rng

...
Another related question: How can I remove full package groups, e.g. e/ t/ y/, from an installed Slackware system?

Code:

slackpkg remove e

etc.

rng · 03-10-2022, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayByrd

Code:

slackpkg remove e

etc.

Wow! That's really easy. This is the beauty of Slackware!

mralk3 · 03-10-2022, 05:35 PM

If you are going for a stripped down install, you can get away with only picking a/ ap/ d/ l/ k/ n/ package series during setup. This will give you closest thing to a minimal install, without having to know the entire dependency chain, and retaining system functionality at the command line.

Then you can easily do a "slackpkg install x && slackpkg install xfce" and you will have a very basic xfce desktop.

Following that, you can run slackpkg again and cherry pick the applications you want from xap/ series.

One other useful command:

Code:

slackpkg file-search <keyword>

Additionally, there is the ability to search the package tree using: packages.slackware.com

That is how I do it for small installations of Slackware ARM. Network servers and routers, etc. Typically I find I do not need a GUI unless I am on my daily driver.

Mechanikx · 03-10-2022, 06:13 PM

Dependency listings for Slackware packages would be useful if you're looking to strip down your system.

http://slackware.uk/salix/x86_64/slackware-15.0/deps/

Read these two posts first though.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...4/#post5640421

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...4/#post5640741

rng · 03-11-2022, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mralk3

If you are going for a stripped down install, you can get away with only picking a/ ap/ d/ l/ k/ n/ package series during setup. This will give you closest thing to a minimal install, without having to know the entire dependency chain, and retaining system functionality at the command line.

Then you can easily do a "slackpkg install x && slackpkg install xfce" and you will have a very basic xfce desktop.

Very useful information. Thanks.

What will be approximate size of this installation?

Tonus · 03-11-2022, 10:40 AM

Forget it.
Much to complicated with no use.

mralk3 · 03-11-2022, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rng

Very useful information. Thanks.

What will be approximate size of this installation?

No problem!

You can pare it down more if you remove k/ and d/, but that assumes you aren't going to compile or program code. I'm not sure how much space since results will vary depending on what else you add or remove.

ethelack · 03-17-2022, 09:30 PM

useful command to list packages by size.

Code:

( cd /var/log/packages/ ; grep -x 'U.*M' * ) | awk -F: '{print $3 "\t" $1}' | sort -nr | less

rng · 03-18-2022, 01:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mralk3

...
You can pare it down more if you remove k/ and d/, but that assumes you aren't going to compile or program code.
....

Q1. If I need to add software from slackbuilds.org, then I think I will need packages in "d" set. Is that correct?

Q2. If there is an update of Linux-image, then "k" folder packages may be needed. Is that correct?

dhubsith · 03-18-2022, 09:04 AM

I don't know if this will be helpful, or just spark debate about why I left pkg a out, but here is my list. A few things need explanation. I make a new folder, copy to it only the packages I intend to install, and do the installation from there. In the second part of the installation I install the multilib compat-32 packages, downloaded pre-compiled packages, and my own compiled packages and kernel.

Some things I leave out:
Kernels and modules as I compile my own
gcc and glib - I use the multilib version
the n folder I try to keep as minimal as I can
I totally hacked up x - you get a godzillion fonts, but you only really need font-alias, font-cursor-misc and font-misc-misc, plus something readable, like deja-vu. You also get fonts with libreoffice. I only need keyboard and mouse drivers.
the only things in xap I use are audacious and sane. I compile xfce 4.12 from source , prefer gtk2.
some things like ffmpeg and wine I compile myself.
plus I leave out a lot of stuff I don't need.

slackware64: copy the following from the sub-folders:

a: all except: aaa_glibc-solibs, kernel-firmware, kernel-generic, kernel-huge, kernel-modules, lvm2, mdadm, mtx, pcmciautils, upower

ap: all except: joe, lxc, terminus-font

d: all except: gcc, gcc-brig, gcc-g++, gcc-gdc, gcc-gfortran, gcc-gnat, gcc-go, gcc-objc, llvm, rust

l: all except: alsa-oss, ffmpeg, fuse, fuse3, glibc, glibc-i18n, glibc-profile, gnome-keyring, gnome-themes-standard, imagemagick, libmtp, libnjb, libpcap, media-player-info, pilot-link, pulseaudio, tango-icon-theme-extras, vte

n: only: crda, curl, cyrus-sasl, dhcpcd, ethtool, gnutls, iproute2, iputils, libgcrypt, libgpg-error, libmnl, net-snmp, net-tools, nettle, network-scripts, nghttp2, ntp, openldap, openssl, p11-kit, samba, tcp-wrappers, wireless-tools, wpa_supplicant

x: only fonts: dejavu-fonts, font-alias, font-cursor-misc, font-misc-misc

only drivers: xf86-input-keyboard, xf86-input-mouse

only servers: xorg-server

remove: anthy, fcitx, fcitx-anthy, fcitx-configtool, fcitx-hangul, fcitx-kkc, fcitx-libpinyin, fcitx-m17n, fcitx-qt5, fcitx-sayura, fcitx-table-extra, fcitx-table-other, fcitx-unikey, ibus, ibus-anthy, ibus-hangul, ibus-kkc, ibus-libpinyin, ibus-m17n, ibus-table, ibus-unikey, twm, vulkan-sdk, xcursor-themes, xdg-user-dirs

install everything else

xap: only: audacious, audacious-plugins, sane

multilib: install the following:

a: aaa_glibc-solibs

d: gcc, gcc-brig, gcc-g++, gcc-gdc, gcc-gfortran, gcc-gnat, gcc-go, gcc-objc

l: glibc, glibc-i18n, glibc-profile

Hope this is useful.