[SGVLUG] Ubuntu .VS. FC5 as servers

[Dustin Laurence]

On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 08:19:36AM -0700, juanslayton at dialup4less.com wrote:

> Dustin Laurence wrote ..

> > do security updates automagically.  I forget the name of the tool,
> > something like slackpkg. 
> 
> Morning : )

Ugh. :-)

>      I think it's called pkgtool, but I was under the impression that
>      it _does_ resolve dependencies.  Maybe I got it wrong.

Nah, pkgtool is the "graphical" (i.e. curses-based) interactive tool
that just calls the underlying tools (installpkg, ...), and they don't
deal with dependencies--famously so, since that's what sets Slack apart
from other "major" distros.

There *are* things that resolve dependencies, but they are not part of
Slackware.  Last I knew the two major ones were slapt-get (a port of
guess what?) and suaret, but I have a vague memory that there may be
another more recent one.

However, I actually did mean slackpkg, the red-headed stepchild of Slack
package management:

http://slackpkg.sourceforge.net/

I think it is in /extras on the Slackware CD.  It just installs packages
with the underlying *pkg tools too, and doesn't know any more about
dependencies than they do, but it knows how to fetch newer versions of
installed packages over the network and that makes all the difference.
With it you can upgrade your system with almost the same commands you
would with apt-get

slackpkg update
slackpkg upgrade slackware

It isn't well documented in the Slackware docs themselves, but I
wouldn't really consider running Slack seriously without it.  I can live
without dependencies for some things but I can't live without quick &
easy security updates.  I can't say how well slapt-get works, I guess if
I install Slack again I should try it.

Dustin
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