A look at Slackware's package utilities (Linux.com) [LWN.net]

Linux.com looks at Slackware's no frills approach to package management. "Unlike packages made for repository based solutions, like Debian's apt-get and Fedora's yum, Slackware packages were not designed to be dependency-aware -- and hardcore Slackware users would have it no other way. Installing dependencies by hand does have an advantage. It allows an administrator to remain in control of the libraries and programs installed on the system. But being one of the oldest distributions has its advantages. Thanks to its faithful bunch of developers, Slackware has perhaps the largest collection of package management tools. Let's look at some of them."

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A look at Slackware's package utilities (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 21, 2007 3:24 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

Slightly OT comment and query: does anyone know what's going on with Slackware? I've looked through the newsgroups and there's not much signal detectable these days, and no changes in -current since 9 November... is Pat having more health problems (I surely hope not!)?

A look at Slackware's package utilities (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 21, 2007 3:39 UTC (Wed) by notamisfit (guest, #40886) [Link]

Just out of curiosity, did you read the note he left on November 9? The one about how it was going to be a while because he had to build the whole toolchain over again for the next release? Anyways, the last update to -stable was on Feb 18, so I guess he's still plugging right along.

A look at Slackware's package utilities (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 21, 2007 6:09 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

Why, yes, I *have* read that note... how do you think I knew it was 9 November that the last update
was posted?

My point is, as someone else posted below, that it would be nice to see a little note posted once in a
while (once a month maybe?) saying how things are going. Pat can do whatever he wants--it's his
ship after all, of course, but it just kind of makes one (me) nervous, especially after his health
problems of the last couple years. Communication (even just a ping) is a good thing.

Major revisions to Slackware causing delays in -current

Posted Feb 21, 2007 4:11 UTC (Wed) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

By the looks of the -current ChangeLog one might think the Slackware development team was asleep at the wheel. But, the above poster mentions they're busy building the whole distribution using the newer GCC 4 and 2.6 Kernel series. Yet, I agree, it would be nice to have someone give an updated status somewhere (hint, hint)...

As for the original article, I do tend to agree that Slackware's package tools adhere to the KISS method, and I have found that building a package in Slackware is much easier than hand-crafting an RPM. (I've never played with Debian.)