Every distro has it uniqueness, especially with their package management system. For instance, Red Hat or Fedora Core is famous with their YUM, Mandriva is using urpmi, SuSE with YaST and YOU (YaST Online Update), and Debian with apt-get and Synaptic. Slackware has it own package management, called pkgtool. It is made by Patrick J. Volkering and made only by dialog and some bash scripting, so it can be used in text mode as well as in the graphical interface. Besides the pkgtool, Slackware also comes with rpm package that can be used to install rpm packages, even though until now, i'm still unable to install a single RPM package into Slackware. I usually convert it to tgz using rpm2tgz utility and install it manually using pkgtool.
Like the other package management system, pkgtool comes with several functionality, such as querying, installing, upgrading, and removing packages. But in addition, it also comes with several dialog to modify some of system configuration, such as services, mouse, network, lilo, and others. It's more than just a package management system, but also a small system configuration system which works in a simple way, just like the Slackware users say about this distro, Simple.
To install new package, simply type the following command in the konsole or terminal while using root account:
installpkg package.tgz
while to upgrade a package using newer version, just invoke:
upgradepkg newpackage.tgz
Caution: If the package name has been changed, please modify the above syntax and change it into:
upgradepkg oldpackage%newpackage.tgz
To remove an installed package, simply type:
removepkg package
If you want to query for some package, you will have to call the pkgtool and use View menu. It will scan all packages that have been installed and present it for you. If you need more information about spesific package, just press ENTER on the package name. It will display a new dialog with lots of information, just like rpm -qil <package>.rpm in RPM system.
In addition to package management system, pkgtool also has some other functionality, such as configuring services, mouse, network, lilo, and many other system configuration. No wonder it can only be accessed by root account. It's more than just a package management system. It also a simple configuration system, just like Mandriva Control Center, but a simpler interface and functionality.
Slackware also comes with a nice utility, called rpm2tgz and rpm2targz to convert RPM packages into tgz and tar.gz format. It's quite handy, since many rpm packages cannot be installed directly in Slackware, since there's a dependency factor. This script will try to convert them into tgz or tar.gz format and you can try to install it using pkgtool or manually. I have installed Opera browser by using this script after converting it from RPM to tgz, but i was unable to install Adobe Reader, so i installed the tar.gz format.
The main drawback of Slackware in my personal opinion is the lack of online package management feature. The only way to update Slackware is by reading Changelog on Slackware's website and download and install the package manually. There's a small script that can be a solution, called Slapt-get, which like apt-get in Debian system, but it's not an official Slackware packages. I haven't tried that tools also, but my friend has tried it and it's quite good as far as i know. You can use many mirror sites to update your Slackware distro. You can download that tool in LinuxPackages. Make sure you download the correct version.
Pkgtool is a wonderfull package management. It is very descriptive and also easy to use, even though you are working on the text mode, because it is using dialog. Thanks to Patrick J. Volkering that build pkgtool as one of the best package management on Slackware distro.
Last Update : 5 June 2006 :: 15:11:30
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