Hi All,

Just installed Slackware 13 from DVD and I have a fully functioning install. It has been a number of years since I installed Slack, V10 was the last time and I abandoned it after a few hours of playing.

Anyway, I have some questions that I would like answered as I want to stick with Slack a bit longer this time

I'm not a linux newbie, I have used Debian in the past and my current setup is Arch so its not like I'm a total stranger to the joys of the command line

First off, how to I change the init level to always use 4? Currently I have to log in via the command line and issue startx to go graphical.

Second question is how on earth do I get Slack to install from a repository on the internet? I want to install stuff that I cannot find on the DVD image.

Thirdly, is there a GUI for package management and easy system update? I have read that you just can't update Slack like you can with Debian and Arch on a daily basis.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure I'll be back to poke and prod for some more help.

Cheers in advance

EmyrB

Questions 1) edit /etc/inittab and change default runlevel from 3 to 4. this line id:3:initdefault: to id:4:initdefault:

Question 2)Generally your not going to find many repositories with pre-compiled packages, a notable exception http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-13.0/. However your better off heading over to www.slackbuilds.org and using there slackbuilds to compile and install your packages. check the slackbook for more information on package management. Also check out sbopkg it can automate the slackbuilds.org packages for you, saves loads of time.

question 3)As far a GUI based updater as far as I know your out of luck, but you can use slackpkg to keep your system up to date, its CLI but its easy to use.

1. Open the file /etc/inittab and look for the line id:3:initdefault:
Change the 3 to a 4, and save your changes. Next time you restart your computer, it will fire up X.

2. There are unofficial tools, such as slapt-get and swaret which would allow you to pull packages from a repository. Aside from usingslapt-get with GNOME SlackBuild, I've never used them for other repositories.

Linuxpackages.net and Slacky.eu offer pre-compiled packages, and Slacky.eu has a better track record when it comes to providing the slackbuild scripts, should you choose to rebuild a package.

Slackbuilds.org has scripts to compile numerous packages. Nothing is built, you pull the script and the source, then build packages with the options and architecture you choose.

3. slackpkg is a command-line tool that provides an easy way to keep your system up-to-date. It's an official tool, already on your system. You just need to choose a mirror in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors.
Enter slackpkg without any arguments and press enter, it will give you a short list of options.


I'm sure other people will chime in to fill in any holes I left. And, Daedra is faster than me... :-)

Hello EmyrB,

Welcome to Slackware LQ forum.

Here are short answers to your questions:

1) edit file /etc/inittab and modify the line:

into

2) Use the slackpkg tool. See documentation on the site or in the man pages.

Be aware that all official packages are in the DVD so using slackpkg is of most interest when you want to install patches to the stable release (13.0 now) or when you want to upgrade to the development branch known as -current.

However, additional packages are available and it's strongly suggested to install them from the slackbuilds.org site. Strictly speaking, this site provides scripts to create binary packages (much like how official packages are created).

There a command-line tool available to help search the site and automate package creation: it's sbopkg.

3) There are GUI tools to keep updated but it's not really recommended but you're free to try them: gslapt comes to my mind which is a GUI to get-slapt.

I would rather recommend that you use slackpkg to keep updated with patches to 13.0 and use sbopkg to build additional packages that you need.

In addition to the already posted suggestions, I'd strongly recommend sbopkg. It's a tool that lets you compile and install packages from slackbuilds.org very easily.

Edit /etc/inittab and change "Default runlevel" from:
id:3:initdefault:
to
id:4:initdefault:

On slackware we usually compile stuff using slackbuilds scripts. Essentially we download the source of the program and a script. The script automates the compilation. You can find many such "slackbuilds" at www.slackbuilds.org. It will make a package of the program, and you manually have to install it afterwards. Thats easy thoe, and it works like this:
installpkg <path of package>

A list of installed packages exists in /var/log/packages, and contains text files of every file included in the original package. That way you can uninstall packages without having the original package. Remove package like this:
removepkg /var/log/packages/<name of package>
Alternatly, you can use the original package to remove as well:
removepkg <path of package>

If there is no slackbuild for your program on slackbuilds, you could try gnashleys src2pkg (gnashley is a user in LQ. He usually answers questions related to src2pkg. He's a great slacker and often answers other things aswell ). If I've understood correctly, it makes a slackbuild from a source package and runs the slackbuild afterwards to make a package. A lot of people in here are really happy about it, all thoe I haven't tried it my self.

There is also third party software to install software. I have little expirience in using them, and I would recommend to compile your own programs.

There was a discussion a while ago about www.linuxpackages.net. It serves precompiled packages for slackware. Be aware that its community based and has nothing to do with slackware (R). It COULD be a security risk and use packages there. Thats one of the reasons you should compile your own

As I mentioned, there are a few package management software for slackware. They can be linked up to various repos like linuxpackages and others. I remember I tried out something called slack-get or something a few years ago, but to be honest, I preferred to compile from source. I felt I lost control of my system, and I don't like that

No problem. Gotta stand up for new slackers

Edit:
Hmm.. I wasn't even second or third :P

Hi,

Welcome to LQ & Slackware!

My condolences for your lost time.

My salutation to the choice of the best OS available.

As others have already stated but I would suggest that you do get used too using the 'cli'.


I too recommend 'Slackpkg', 'src2pkg' and 'SlackBuilds'. Please note that 'slackpkg' is available with your full install, so do a 'man slackpkg'.

'GUI' what do ya mean 'GUI'? This is Slackware man.

Just a few links to aid you;

Slackware® Essentials
Slackware® Basics
Linux Documentation Project
Rute Tutorial & Exposition
Linux Command Guide
Linux Newbie Admin Guide
LinuxSelfHelp
Getting Started with Linux

These links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links' . More than just Slackware® links!

Other sources of pre-compiled packages are http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/ and http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/
Eric Hameleers (aka AlienBob) and Robby Workman (aka rworkman) are Slackware developers. Even Pat Volkerding trusts their builds!

Wow, so many answers and so quickly. Excellent. So the run level is just the same as Arch, I need to edit inittab and change the default run level. Cool.

Well keeping Slack upto date and installing extra stuff is going to take a while to get used to. So basically I head off to slackbuilds.org and pull down the package I want and then use the command line installpkg whatever and thats it. Sure gonna take a while to get my head round this one.

Today I tried to shutdown the system with shutdown -h now and it tells me that shutdown isn't installed, this seems a bit strange.

Anyways, a big thanks to all who posted. I will go now and have a quick play with all your suggestions.

Cheers

EmyrB

Well what do you know, Firefox is already installed with the OS. Cool. So how do I go about trying to find the GTK style for KDE 4 so that programs Firefox that use GTK will use the KDE4 oxygen styling?

I strongly recommend sbopkg (as others have) for making this job much, much easier.My inclination here is it didn't say shutdown wasn't installed, rather it probably said shutdown: command not found. This is because shutdown lives in /sbin (which isn't in an ordinary user's PATH), and also you need to be root to shutdown the machine.

Happy Slacking!

Another way of doing this and keeping the option to boot to the CLI is to make a new lilo stanza with this line added :
Keep the /etc/inittab default runlevel to three and add the above line to a new stanza. Then you can boot to CLI or grahical login as desired.
Are you running this as root ? The shutdown executable is in the /sbin directory which is in the path for the root user but not a normal user.

@pwc101 - yep sorry it was command not found, but now that I have edited the default runlevel to 4, I can now shutdown the system through KDE.

I have downloaded sbopkg and installed it and now it is synchronising with a remote repository. So correct me if I am wrong here about Slack, but basically you pull down theses slackbuilds, extract them, pull down the source code and then compile them for your system, so that the package is leaner and faster as it doesn't have to be a one size fits all like debian or fedora. So Slack is in some ways like Gentoo, or have I got things totally mixed up?

Cool sbopkg makes a copy of the SlackBuilds.org repository on your local machine. When you search for a package, it returns the slackbuild script associated with that application (if one exists at SlackBuilds.org). You then select build, and sbopkg gets the source for you, checks to make sure its md5sum matches the author's record, extracts the source and then compiles the package for you, dumping it in $OUTPUT (/tmp by default, I think).

It's been said before this is not dissimilar to Gentoo's approach. The difference is you have to get the dependencies yourself.

This is in part addressed through the use of queue files, whereby a list of packages are read by sbopkg, and each one is built in the order they're specified. Thus, you can have an enormous queue file to build all the multimedia applications from SlackBuilds.org: http://www.sbopkg.org/queues/13.0/multimedia.sqf

That is awesome... I didn't know about the queue files that others have made.