[wellylug] Slackware packages

[Andrej]

On Thursday 13 September 2007 19:32, Cliff Pratt wrote:
> Andre et al,

> How do you know what packages you have,
ls /var/log/packages

> and how do you know 
> what packages are available for Slack? 
ls /cdrom/slackware/*/*tgz
:)

Or a browse through PACKAGES.TXT on the slackware site... 
http://mirror.pacific.net.au/linux/slackware/slackware-12.0/PACKAGES.TXT

And there's inofficial stuff on http://linuxpackages.net (which I 
don't use) and some interesting (inofficial) stuff on 
http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/
that Pat hosts (and I trust Eric).

> How do you know that a package needs updating?
You mean for an upgrade or for security fixes?
I'm subscribed to the slackware security mailing list, 
and download new versions of stuff I have installed
as the mail trickles in ... today for instance php 5.2.4,
a new ssh and samba.  Others use scripts, or tools
like slapt-get, swaret and the likes.

> Is it purely manual using pkgtool, installpkg and so on?
I've never actually used pkgtool ... installpkg, upgradepkg
and removepkg for me.

> I'm looking to update my Slack installation (which lives in a
> VM on my Ubuntu machine) after getting interested after
> conversation with Andre here.
Ooops :}

> How many people started with Slackware many many years ago and
> moved on to other distros?
I've migrated the other way ... little exposure to some early 
Yggdrasil stuff that I never got into, and then from Mandrake and
SuSE back in the late 90's to Slackware in 2000 (having had to
work with SuSE, RH, Debian and varied commercial Unices), never
looked back.  We do have a debian box and a ubuntu machine here
at home as well - but I still find them a pain in the proverbial,
mostly because of the dependency checking and the package
management systems.  Call me weird (I bet you did anyway :D).

Debian is on my server because Slack 11 didn't have an
installable kernel image that supported both the SCSI and the
RAID controller at the same time, and I needed a quick fix rather
than starting to fart around with boot-floppies.  Slack12 may be
different, with the huge-2.6 kernel which should pretty much 
support anything the kernel could.

Oh, and my name is Andrej, no Andre - have nothing to do
with the seal of TV ... that's not a silent "j" at the end of my
name, it's quite audible (think Un-d-ray).

> Cheers,
>
> Cliff
Cheers,
Andrej



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