Slackware Blog

I have started to post up some packages that I made for Slackware 12.0 of some things that I didn’t see on LinuxPackages. If you want to see them then please feel free to go to my personal site for them. You can get to confiscatedThoughts to check them out. Also, if you have any request for packages that you can’t seem to find then please feel free to ask and I will do my best to create them for you.

So here is what I am thinking of doing…I think I am going to create a Slackware-MythTV distro…or branch, as it were…What are your thoughts on this and would you think that there would be an interest in such a thing?

We’re still alive!!!

Sorry about the lack of updates. I completely missed the 12.0 release. I still haven’t been able to get the DVD to burn correctly to try it out. (I guess DVD’s don’t like being transported across the country in a packed car)

Anyway…

Maybe pkgtools don’t do enough for you, maybe you want a GUI, or maybe you just want to be different. Either way there are several different ways to manage your packages on Slackware.

Programs that convert between package types (like Alien) are not included in this list.

Package Creation

• BuildPKG - package creation tool similar to Arch’s makepkg (different from Slack’s)
• CheckInstall - makes a package by wrapping the “make install” step of compiling
• Frogz - source package creation tool
• makepack - dependency tracking source package compiler
• mkpkg - toolkit for automagically building slackware or OpenLab packages
• slacktrack - tool to assist with building Slackware packages from the $package.build scripts

Dependancy Tracking

• amypkg - dependency tracking package manager
• Slackdeptrack - tool to list dependencies of installed packages
• slack-get(maybe here too) - apt-get like auto-updater
• slapt-get - APT like system for Slackware
• Slackselect - dselect-like package manager
• SWareT - dependency tracking update tool

GUI

• gnome-pkgtool - GNOME pkgtool front-end
• PKGsummon - GUI package updater
• SlackGrade - GUI updater
• SlackIns - QT based GUI for pkgtool
• SlackMan - GNOME pkgtool front-end
• Smart - multi-backend package manager (also comes with cli)
• XPKGTOOL - GUI pkgtool front-end

CLI

• Getpkg - menu driven downloader and installer
• spkg - Slackware package manager written in C

Update Tools

• autoslack - updater
• SlackCheck - multi-machine updater
• slackpkg - tool for installing or upgrading packages through network
• SlackRoll - update manager
• SlackUpdate - tool to check for, download and install Slackware updates

ChangeLog Viewers

• kslackcheck - tool for viewing the Slackware ChangeLog.txt
• SCLog - GNOME update notifier
• Slackcurrent - package update checker

Ports/Portage

• Emerde - port of Gentoo’s portage system
• CruxPorts4Slack - Allows you to use Crux ports system on Slackware

Misc

• pack-age - tells number of days a package hasn’t been used
• Slaktool - project to improve the Slackware package manager

Still want more? Try searching for Slackware at Freshmeat or Sourceforge. There’s a lot more neat stuff left to be discovered.

Slackware comes with a large set of HOWTOs and FAQs that I alway’s seem to always are installed. It could save you a lot of time looking there first before scouring the internet. The HOWTOs and FAQs are stored in /usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs and /usr/doc/Linux-FAQs.

Check them out!

I’m looking for some beta testers for a SlackBuild package manager I’ve been working on called SINP.

SINP can be used just to search the repository on slackbuilds.org, or it can go ahead and download both the SlackBuild tarball along with the source code, run the downloaded SlackBuild and install the resulting package using pkgtools.

I’d love to hear any feature requests or suggestions you might have.

Basic usage is `sinp $PRGNAM`. That will run through all the steps of searching, downloading, packaging, and installing the package created from the SlackBuild.

To display the help just run `sinp -h`

The only other thing I think that needs explaining is the SBoSearch feature. This works as if you used the search box on slackbuilds.org, and is the only search function that allows you to use keywords. The other search functions match part of the slackbuild tarball file name.

Currently SINP only accepts 1 argument, so if you want to search using more than one word ( like “window manager”) you will need to put them in quotes.

The project is hosted on sourceforge. You can download it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sinp

With a new year just around the corner I thought now would be a good time to show people how they can help out the Slackware community.

The most basic way to help is by answering people’s questions on the Official Slackware Forum on LQ or hanging out on the ##slackware IRC channel on Freenode.

With the release of Slackware 11 some of Slack’s documentation has become obsolete. You can help by keeping this documentation up to date or by writing new documentation. Slackwiki and The Slackware Handbook are great places to store whatever knowledge of Slackware you have acquired over the years.

If you don’t like to write, making packages and SlackBuild scripts are other great ways to help. If you need a place to store your packages and SlackBuilds, Linuxpackages.net and SlackBuilds.org are dedicated to providing a repository for Slackware packages and SlackBuild files. Linuxpackages also has great resources to help new package makers.

If you have the bandwidth to spare and would like to take some of the load off of some servers, setting up a mirror is also really helpful.

This New Year’s make a resolution to give back to the Slackware community… and keep it!

If you know of other ways to help leave a comment a let the rest of us know.

I really like the Thunar file manager, so I decided to make a SlackBuild file for it and its libexo dependancy. The script lets you build against XFCE 4.2.3.2 that comes with Slackware not the 4.4 developement version. These are my first couple of SlackBuild files, so any pointers you could give would be great.

The scripts are posted as comments. (I couldn’t figure out how to add them to the post without taking up too much space on the main page)

Last edited: 10/17/06
This tutorial explains how to install and configure 3D-Desktop, which can be found at http://desk3d.sourceforge.net/
To request a tutorial please visit this post.

Basic Installation and Configuration

The first step to get 3D-Desktop is to make sure your graphics card has 3D acceleration and that 3D acceleration is working properly. Once you have 3D acceleration working, download and install the 3D-Desktop package along with the package for imlib2. Both of these packages can be found here thanks to James Bowling, or you may compile them if you’d prefer. After both 3D-Desktop and imlib2 have been properly installed, you can test to make sure they are working properly by typing 3ddesk in an xterm. You should now be taken to the 3D view, which looks similar to the screenshot below.

By pressing the left and right arrow buttons you can select which virtual desktop to switch to. Once the desktop is selected press enter and you should be taken to that virtual desktop.

3ddesk has to be called every time you want to switch virtual desktops. It is very inconvienient if you have to type in the program everytime you wanted to use it. To make 3D-Desktop easier to use you will need to add a keybinding to the 3ddesk program.

Fine Tuning

You may have noticed that the first time you ran 3D-Desktop you only had a screenshot for desktops you currently had windows open. To fix this run 3ddesk --acquire 3D-Desktop should visit each of your virtual desktops and return to the one you were working on. You may want to add 3ddeskd --acquire (note this command has a ‘d’ at the end of it) to your list of startup applications so 3D-Desktop starts out with all desktops visible.

3D-Desktop can automatically move to the desktop to the left or right of your current desktop by using the --gotoleft and --gotoright flags when running the program. If you want to keep the 3D view open after changing to the desktop next to you, add the --dontexit flag to the command string. This keeps 3D-Desktop from changing the current desktop until you tell it to. (You can find other 3D-Desktop movement flags in the man page)

You can further customize 3D-Desktop by changing the mode (3D effect) by using --mode=. You can choose from carousel (the default), linear, viewmaster, priceisright, flip, or random.

3ddesktop.conf

The 3ddesktop.conf file can be found in /etc and can be used to set the default mode to use and other things so you do not have to include them in your commands for calling 3D-Desktop.

Post up some suggestions on some HOW-TOs that you guys would like to see here on the Slackware Blog.  If there are some good ones then we will take them and make them a reality!  Let us know!

I have started a repository of the Slackware Packages that I have created.  You can find them here:

http://www.jamesbowling.com/packages

All of my packages can also be found at LinuxPackages.net.