[sf-lug] Notes of the SF-LUG meeting on 2016-12-04 at Cafe Enchante..
aaronco36
aaronco36 at linuxwaves.com
Mon Dec 5 22:17:28 PST 2016
Re: Notes of the SF-LUG meeting on 2016-12-04 at Cafe Enchante..
Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> wrote at [00]:
> If I missed anything substantive I am sure Aaron, Ken or
> Mike will shortly provide corrections to the bad ideas I may
> have interjected in these note,
You'd better believe it! ;-D
Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> wrote:
> In the meantime I tried to get the Fedora 25 to show me
> a useful tool to watch .mkv video files but that quest
> seemed impossible plus I really dislike the interface that
> the Gnome 3+ desktop environment presents. The older
> version of Gnome were more usable in my opinion but I did
> not care for them as much as I did for KDE.
IIRC, Bobbie became sufficiently fed up with Fedora 25 that
she at one point disdainfully called it
"F<something-other-than-fed>dora".
Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> wrote:
> Jim S. showed up in time to have a snack and trade
> some talk with others.
IIRC, Jim S was soliciting some feedback from others on
resolving a difficulty getting a Twitter audio/video feed
to effectively play in his browser. I suggested that he
maybe try installing (or re-installing) the
flashplayer-plugin or flashplayer browser add-on. I think
there was some talk as well between Jim S and Ken about
possibly using the Chrome browser to play the Twitter
audio/video feed(s).
Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> wrote:
> Mike showed up with no Linux problems so he, I and
> Aaron chatted a bit. Aaron and Mike discussed
> Slackware installation and repositories.
I emphasized that there were three ways to add required
packages to Slackware.
1. First off, there is the primary manual way using BDFL
Patrick Volkerding's[01] vanilla Slackware packages (ie,
the official Slackware packages listed at [02] that come
with the distribution).
Once you download the official Slackware package you
require -- assuming you don't already have it installed
-- then you simply run
'sudo /sbin/installpkg path-to-pkgname.txz'. The
'installpkg' command seems most similar to the RPM-based
distros' lower-level 'rpm -i <packagename>.rpm' and
Debian-based distros' lower-level 'dpkg -i
<packagename>.deb'.
If you require _upgrading_ an official Slackware package,
however (e.g., because of Slackware's Security alerts),
then you'd visit the official Slackware patches site[03],
download the package update you require, and then run
'sudo /sbin/upgradepkg path-to-pkgname.txz'
I'll say it boldly right from the outset; NEITHER
'installpkg' NOR 'upgradepkg' PROVIDE DEPENDENCY-CHECKING...
an incredibly key point usually brought up to the detriment
of using Slackware.
2. The second method of adding packages is using Robby
Workman's[04] and other third-parties' SlackBuilds [05]
package-adding method. SlackBuilds are essentially Slackware
package-building scripts organized into repository
categories [06], and ultimately yielding quite useful
Slackware <pkgname>.txz 'installpkg' binaries not present in
the above official repos[02]. There is a comprehensive
SlackBuilds package list at [07] which can help you search
for the names of packages you require as well as provide you
with the repository category names containing your required
packages. AAMOF, I even downloaded, successfully installed,
and got to use the SlackBuild 'acpi' package at the meeting.
A similar bold warning as that which I wrote above for
official Slackware packages certainly applies for .txz
packages built though SlackBuilds; 'installpkg' DOES NOT
PROVIDE DEPENDENCY-CHECKING!
For example, when I wanted to install the AbiWord
word-processor package in Slackware, I visited Robby W's
abiword SlackBuild page [08] and followed the instructions
to build abiword and then install it through 'installpkg'.
I was lucky with the abiword SlackBuild, though, as a
successfully built abiword.txz requires only _a single_
previously installed SlackBuild dependency, Robby W's 'wv'[09].
OTOH, imagine my complete shock when considering to install
the awesome multimedia package 'vlc' and seeing from [07] and
[10] that this package requires the SlackBuild installation
of _over 40_ primary dependencies (not even considering
requirements for installing secondary SlackBuild dependency
packages!) .....That's at least 40+ separate SlackBuilds!
Yuck, BIG ouch!!! I found this completely unacceptable.
Which leads me to......
3. The third method of installing packages (e.g., vlc) using
the package manager 'slapt-get' [11].
Quoting [11]:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
slapt-get is an APT like system for Slackware package
management. It allows one to search slackware mirrors and
third party sources for packages, compare them with
installed packages, install new packages, or upgrade all
installed packages. slapt-get is great for scripting as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So apparently from this and one of the slapt-get FAQs[12],
'slapt-get' is a higher-level package management tool for
certain Slackware packages that _does_ perform
dependency-checking similar to the functions of
Debian-based distros' 'apt-get' and RPM-based distros' 'yum'.
While slapt-get doesn't provide dependency resolution for
official Slackware packages that come with the distribution
as listed in [02], it certainly _does_ provide the ability
to fully install .txz packages (ahem: 'vlc') from third-party
Slackware repositories. AAMOF, I found out through [13]
that the prolific Slackware developer and supporter Eric
Hameleers[14], a.k.a., "AlienBOB" or "alien", provides
such a slapt-get compatible SlackBuilds repository[15].
Wonderful! :-)
Two things to note from [13]:
a) for an effective 'slapt-get --install <packagename>' or
'slapt-get --update | --upgrade', you'd need to edit the
/etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc file ; a process similar in some
respects to editing Debian-based distros' /etc/apt/
entries (e.g., sources.list).
b) reflecting Robby W's[04] and AlienBOB's contributions,
the effective /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc 'SOURCE=' edits
for Slackware 14.2 turned out to be:
-- code --
SOURCE=http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/14.2/:DEFAULT
SOURCE=http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/sbrepos/14.2/x86/:DEFAULT
-- code --
These are all my rather extensive meeting corrections, for the moment.
Best,
-A
References:
=======================
[00]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2016q4/012340.html
[01]http://www.slackware.com/about/
[02]ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-14.2/PACKAGES.TXT
[03]ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-14.2/patches/packages/
[04]http://rlworkman.net/
[05]https://slackbuilds.org
[06]https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/
[07]ftp://ftp.slackbuilds.org/14.2/SLACKBUILDS.TXT
[08]https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/office/abiword/
[09]https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/libraries/wv/
[10]https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/multimedia/vlc/
[11]https://software.jaos.org/
[12] https://software.jaos.org/git/slapt-get/plain/FAQ.html#slgFAQ10
[13] https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/adding-repositories-to-slapt-get-4175558905/
[14]http://www.slackware.com/~alien/
[15]http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/
=======================
_____________________________________________________________
Get your FREE, LinuxWaves.com Email Now! --> http://www.LinuxWaves.com
Join Linux Discussions! --> http://Community.LinuxWaves.com
More information about the sf-lug
mailing list