How To Update Slackware

[hitest]

One of the complaints that I frequently read about Slackware Linux is that it does not have a package management system, that is, you need to install everything manually or compile programs from source code. That is not entirely true.

You can of course install your programs manually and compile from source, but, there are a few utilities that ship with Slackware that help to automate program installation.

The utility pkgtool is a nifty ncurses program that lets you add and remove programs from your Slackware system.

pkgtool

Also, slackpkg allows you to connect to an official Slackware mirror to update, upgrade, and install new software on your Slackware system.

slackpkg

[hitest]

Further to my previous post.

Slackware now ships with a very useful utility called src2pkg. src2pkg is a package creation tool that allows you to take third party source code and create a Slackware package that can easily be installed on your Slackware system. This makes upgrading packages very simple as you go from one version of a program to anotther.

src2pkg manual

[hitest]

Further to my last post.

Another complaint I frequently read about Slackware is that it is hard to set-up and configure. This is partly true as you do need to manually partition your hard drive. I recommend that you use cfdisk to partition your hard drive as that utility is easy to use.

In past versions of Slackware it was necessary to manually set-up your xorg.conf video settings. In Slackware 13.0 this is no longer needed. For most video cards the new version of Xorg will automagically set-up up your display settings for you. I finished my upgrade cycle to Slackware 13.0 on Thursday and I didn't need to configure my video settings. Just type startx at run level three and you'll launch your DE or WM of choice. Slackware 13.0 now ships with KDE 4.2.4, XFce 4.6.1, Fluxbox, etc.

Very cool indeed.