Article about Slackware's 'Magic Package Maker( src2pkg)
 

Just happened to check the Linux.com site this morning and lufbery's article about Slackware and src2pkg has been published. Many thanks to Drew for choosing to review my program and, at the same time, giving some positive impressions about Slackware.

Here's a link to the article:
http://www.linux.com/feature/121499

For those who are interested in the src2pkg program or are using it already, I'll mention that I'm currently adding some new features that make it even easier to use and, at the same time, more dependable. For several weeks I have been working on fixing some of the problems with the installwatch library which is used by src2pkg. I've added some features which allow it to effectively track more commands which create, remove or alter files. And I'm currently getting some help in order to eliminate the failures which sometimes occur when using the library with newer glibc and coreutils versions. Since my skills in writing 'C' are very poor, I'm getting help from a frequent poster to the LQ programming forum who knows about the subject. If fixed, the partially-broken feature will allow software to be installed using a 'virtual chroot'- that is, instead of installing files to your main filesystem they are diverted into a subdirectory so that nothing ever gets clobbered or overwritten. And this is done without having to use any special chroot installation or extra programs.

A couple of the interesting new features make more use of rpm *.spec files or debian 'control' and 'rules' files if they are present in the sources. The upcoming release of src2pkg is able to automatically create a slack-desc file from the 'Description:' information in either *.spec or debian control files. It can also parse spec files or debian rules files for configuration opitons, automatically 'translating' the infor mation into generic configure options which conform to the Slackware file-system layout.

It is also able to add lines to the slack-desc file which show which installed packages are needed by the package you are creating, and it can create slack-required files and include them in the package for compatibility with slapt-get. Inclusion of these files is also a requirement for packages which are submitted to the linuxpakages.net site, so this feature makes it easier for you to create packages for submission there.

If you haven't tried src2pkg yet, or the included 'trackinstall' porgram which replaces checkinstall, you can always get the latest stable version here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...nload/src2pkg/

Thanks for all your efforts on src2pkg gnashley, it is really appreciated. I was a heavy checkinstall user, and this has effectively taken over that role on my systems.

Hi Gnashley,

I'm glad you like the article! Linux.com initially told me that they'd be publishing it on Thanksgiving, but then they pushed back the date to today.

I hope that the article helps stimulate additional interest in both src2pgk and Slackware -- especially among those who don't frequent this message board.

Regards,

-Drew

What Hangdog42 posted is 100% true for me as well. Thanks, gnashley.

Congrats! .

Cool tools!
Good work!

Thank you very much, gnashley.

Brian

Yep, good article - good work, Drew.
Thanks for the mention of SlackBuilds.org too :)

Thanks for a very good piece of work
 

I have Absolute on my laptop, so when I read the article at Linux.com today, I tried out your app. I must say I'm impressed. Had to sit in the doctor's office a couple hours this afternoon, so my wife and I took some source code and played. Thanks a lot for a seemingly outstanding utility. Wish I were a good enough coder to do that kind of work.

Jack Imsdahl

I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

I try to plug SlackBuilds.org every chance I get.

I may even try my hand at making a SlackBuild for Emacs 22 to share with the site.

Regards,

I can't promise but I'll probably make a slackbuild for Enlightenment 17 if it goes stable any time soon.

Already there. :)

Well, that one's iffy. Emacs is part of the official Slackware package set, so unless Pat says otherwise about his intentions, the assumption is that he'll eventually upgrade it in Slackware. Our official policy is to not accept submissions for things that are part of Slackware.

Note that we do have an "exception clause" in there, and it may turn out that emacs fits, but that remains to be seen.

For stable one. 17.0! :D And that (stable release) might happen after another 3 years though. :scratch:

Btw, can you explain a bit more about this?