S L A C K

[Lobster]

If Puppy was not available I would use Austrumi
If Austrumi was not available I would have to use one of the larger (and slower) Linux versions.

Puppy and Austrumi compare favourably as desktop distros for the end user. On very old hardware there is a place for DSL (it is deservedly popular for this role)

If I was using a very fast up to date computer I would not want or need DSL. So it does not have a future for me, if I upgrade hardware.

If you like or prefer DSL, that is great. I keep an eye on it and find it is true to its below 50MB roots which is great but as other small distros improve, it begins to feel dated and limited.

There is a thread on what DSL is good for (somewhere) and the arguments make perfect sense.
It is not for me [shrug]

[Colonel Panic]

There's also Feather Linux, which is based on DSL but with a slightly prettier interface;

http://featherlinux.berlios.de/

I lost my copy a while ago so I haven't tested it properly, but I think it worked pretty well.

[kirk]

To get gslapt/slapt-get working right we need a /var/log/packages populated with puppy's installed packages. Anybody got some time on their hands?

I've been using the Latest gslapt/slapt-get for slackware 12. Don't really see anything better than the one MU posted. Here's the sources I've been using:

SOURCE=http://software.jaos.org/slackpacks/12.0/
SOURCE=http://www.slacky.eu/repository/slackware-12.0/
SOURCE=http://de.slackware-current.net/slackware-current/
SOURCE=http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/slackw ... ware-12.0/
SOURCE=http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/slack ... ware-12.0/
#DISABLED=ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-12.0/

[amigo]

Since puppy is Slack-compatible, some of you may want to try my src2pkg program which has been especially designed to produce Slackware-compatible packages. But it has also, from the start, included some features which make it great for producing tiny packages as well, such as built-in compression of binaries with upx. It also can be made to archive all the regular documents which also saves space.
I am not sure that it will run correctly on a pure-puppy system though, since it is written for use with BASH.
I'd really like for folks like MU to have a go with it and let me know if something is not working, so I can fix it. I'm moving towards full POSIX compatibility and for usage with BASH-3.2 or dash.
I've been deveolping the program for over 3 years and it has received lots of 'kudos' from experienced Slack users, who are a hard bunch of folks to convince...
The program is multi-platform compatible -tested on x86_64 and ppc platforms(It includes a statically-linked version ot tar and busybox, plus shared lib version of installwatch.
It's a truly unique program among package building software and can compile all kinds of stuff, including simple Makefile, autoconf, Imake, jam, Scons and can even convert binary rpm or debian packages to slackware format. It does *lots* of sanity checks and corrections on package content. It can also be used to create packages from pre-compiled binaries which use an installer script like .run files or install.sh. It also includes a drop-in replacement for the checkindstall program but more robust and complete.
I just today released a new version, so it seemed a good time to mention it here. You can get the latest source or tgz package here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... d/src2pkg/

I also maintain a program called PDV, which can be used to create self-extracting packages. I haven't integrated the functionality into src2pkg as I know it won't be use by Slackers. But, I think that it would work well for systems like puppy as it would allow for easy on-the-fly installation of multiple packages. I'd also be willing to incorporate some functionality to make the creation of puppy-compatible packages easier.
src2pkg is pretty darn smart and can usually figure out how to compile sources and create a package without any help at all. It can also write a src2pkg script for you which insures repeatablilty of the build and/or allows you to insert custom code when needed.
I wrote it for myself and use it nearly every day -it allows me to create package in a *very* short time, usually. I currently maintain over 600 programs with it and haven't found anything yet that can't be packaged with it.
I'd really appreciate it if some of you would give it a go and report to me any problems you might have. As mentioned, if you run this without BASH you probably will find that some routines don't work, but I still haven't tried using it with dash or busybox ash, so I'm not sure exactly where there might be hangups.

[kirk]

Puppy does have BASH:

# bash --help
GNU bash, version 3.00.16(1)-release-(i486-t2-linux-gnu)

Your src2pkg sounds good. Right now though, puppy just has it's base libs, gcc and xorg compatible with slack and does not include slack package management. But maybe it will soon.

[amigo]

Oh, sorry. Last I knew puppy was still using busybox ash. src2pkg does not require the slackware pkgtools at all. It includes code which replaces installpkg so you can install packages as you go, like for building groups or chains of dependent packages. If you have the basic utilities like coreutils, sed and awk you shouldn't have any problems. Is current puppy still using nusybox utils instead of coreutils and util-linux? If you, you may need the 'rev' utility which is not included in busybox.

[Pizzasgood]

We have Busybox too. What's in use depends on which stage of booting you're at. Ash is used for the initrd level, then when the filesystem pivots to the pup_xxx.sfs file and pup_save, it switches to Bash.

Also, some of the basic utilities are still the Busybox versions. Sometimes there's also a full version named <name>-FULL.

[kirk]

If anyone has slackware 12 installed, can you post your /var/log/packages? Hopefully it's not too big.

Thanks

[amigo]

Pizzasgood -do you have 'rev'? (which rev`).

Kirk, I recently did a pretty minimal install of Slack-12 for testing and compiling some stuff. Particularly the list of packages for X is considerably reduced -even the proto packages are only needed for compiling stuff. And there is no GTK2, python or KDE stuff:

AFX-rox-base-1.0.4-noarch-1
aaa_base-12.0.0-noarch-1
aaa_elflibs-12.0.0-i486-3
aaa_terminfo-5.6-noarch-1
audiofile-0.2.6-i486-2
autoconf-2.61-noarch-1
automake-1.9.6-noarch-1
bash-3.2.017-i486-1
bin-11.1-i486-1
binutils-2.17.50.0.17-i486-1
bison-2.3-i486-1
bitmap-1.0.3-i486-1
bzip2-1.0.4-i486-1
cmake-2.4.6-i486-2
coreutils-6.9-i486-1
cpio-2.5-i486-3
dejavu-ttf-2.17-noarch-1
devs-2.3.1-noarch-25
dialog-1.1_20070528-i486-1
diffutils-2.8.1-i486-3
e2fsprogs-1.39-i486-1
elvis-2.2_0-i486-2
encodings-1.0.2-noarch-1
esound-0.2.38-i486-1
etc-11.1-noarch-6
expat-2.0.1-i486-1
file-4.21-i486-1
findutils-4.2.31-i486-1
flex-2.5.33-i486-3
fluxbox-1.0rc3-i486-1
font-adobe-75dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-alias-1.0.1-noarch-1
font-bitstream-75dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-cursor-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-misc-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-util-1.0.1-i486-1
font-xfree86-type1-1.0.0-noarch-2
fontcacheproto-0.1.2-noarch-1
fontconfig-2.4.2-i486-2
freetype-2.3.4-i486-3
gawk-3.1.5-i486-3
gcc-4.1.2-i486-1
gcc-g++-4.1.2-i486-1
gdk-pixbuf-0.22.0-i486-1
gettext-0.16.1-i486-3
gettext-tools-0.16.1-i486-3
glib-1.2.10-i486-3
glib2-2.12.12-i486-1
glibc-2.5-i486-4
glibc-i18n-2.5-noarch-4
glibc-solibs-2.5-i486-4afx
grep-2.5-i486-3
gtk+-1.2.10-i486-4
gzip-1.3.12-i486-1
iceauth-1.0.1-i486-1
kbd-1.12-i486-2
kbproto-1.0.3-noarch-1
kernel-headers-2.6.21.5_smp-i386-2
lcms-1.16-i486-1
lesstif-0.95.0-i486-2
libICE-1.0.3-i486-1
libSM-1.0.3-i486-1
libX11-1.1.1-i486-4
libXau-1.0.3-i486-1
libXaw-1.0.3-i486-1
libXcursor-1.1.8-i486-1
libXdmcp-1.0.2-i486-1
libXext-1.0.3-i486-1
libXfont-1.2.8-i486-1
libXfontcache-1.0.4-i486-1
libXft-2.1.12-i486-1
libXi-1.0.4-i486-1
libXinerama-1.0.2-i486-1
libXmu-1.0.3-i486-1
libXp-1.0.0-i486-1
libXpm-3.5.6-i486-1
libXrandr-1.2.1-i486-1
libXrender-0.9.2-i486-1
libXres-1.0.3-i486-1
libXt-1.0.5-i486-1
libXv-1.0.3-i486-1
libXxf86misc-1.0.1-i486-1
libfontenc-1.0.4-i486-1
libidl-0.8.7-i486-1
libjpeg-6b-i486-5
libpng-1.2.12-i486-1
libpthread-stubs-0.1-noarch-1
libtermcap-1.2.3-i486-7
libtiff-3.8.2-i486-3
libtool-1.5.24-i486-1
libungif-4.1.4-i486-4
libxcb-1.0-i486-2
libxkbfile-1.0.4-i486-1
libxml2-2.6.28-i486-1
libxslt-1.1.20-i486-2
m4-1.4.9-i486-1
make-3.81-i486-1
mesa-6.5.2-i486-1
mkfontdir-1.0.3-noarch-1
mkfontscale-1.0.3-i486-1
module-init-tools-3.2.2-i486-3
ncurses-5.6-i486-2
package-list.txt
patch-2.5.4-i486-1
pciutils-2.2.5-i486-1
perl-5.8.8-i486-4
pkgtools-12.0.0-noarch-4
popt-1.7-i486-2
procps-3.2.7-i486-2
randrproto-1.2.1-noarch-1
readline-5.2-i486-2
recordproto-1.13.2-noarch-1
reiserfsprogs-3.6.19-i486-2
renderproto-0.9.2-noarch-1
resourceproto-1.0.2-noarch-1
rgb-1.0.1-i486-1
scite-1.50-i486-1
scripts-1.0.1-noarch-1
sed-4.1.5-i486-1
setxkbmap-1.0.3-i486-1
shadow-4.0.3-i486-14
sharutils-4.6.3-i486-1
src2pkg-1.5-i486-1
sudo-1.6.8p12-i486-1
sysfsutils-2.1.0-i486-1
sysklogd-1.4.1-i486-10
sysvinit-2.86-i486-5
sysvinit-functions-8.53-i486-2
sysvinit-scripts-1.2-noarch-13
t1lib-5.1.0-i486-3
tar-1.16.1-i486-1
tcl-8.4.15-i486-1
texinfo-4.8-i486-1
udev-111-i486-5
utempter-1.1.4-i486-1
util-linux-2.12r-i486-6
util-macros-1.1.5-noarch-1
videoproto-2.2.2-noarch-1
viewres-1.0.1-i486-1
which-2.16-i486-1
windowmaker-0.92.0-i486-5
x11-skel-7.1-noarch-6
xauth-1.0.2-i486-1
xcb-proto-1.0-noarch-1
xcursor-themes-1.0.1-noarch-1
xditview-1.0.1-i486-1
xdpyinfo-1.0.2-i486-1
xdriinfo-1.0.1-i486-1
xextproto-7.0.2-noarch-1
xf86-input-keyboard-1.2.0-i486-1
xf86-input-mouse-1.2.1-i486-1
xf86-video-dummy-0.2.0-i486-1
xf86-video-fbdev-0.3.1-i486-1
xf86-video-nv-2.0.96-i486-1
xf86-video-vesa-1.3.0-i486-1
xf86bigfontproto-1.1.2-noarch-1
xf86miscproto-0.9.2-noarch-1
xfontsel-1.0.2-i486-1
xinit-1.0.4-i486-2
xkbcomp-1.0.3-i486-1
xkeyboard-config-0.9-noarch-2
xmodmap-1.0.2-i486-1
xorg-cf-files-1.0.2-noarch-1
xorg-server-1.3.0.0-i486-2
xorg-server-xvfb-1.3.0.0-i486-2
xproto-7.0.10-noarch-1
xrandr-1.2.0-i486-1
xset-1.0.2-i486-1
xsetpointer-1.0.1-i486-1
xsetroot-1.0.1-i486-1
xterm-224-i486-1
zlib-1.2.3-i486-2

[kirk]

Thanks for the list Amigo. I'm trying to get slapt-get to only download the dependencies that are needed. Puppy doesn't use the exact same packages, but most are probably close enough.

Puppy does have the rev command. But like pizza said, puppy uses a mix of busy box and the full versions many commands. Also, it's kind of an eclectic collection of commands, so if one command from coreutils is there it doesn't mean all of them are.

[amigo]

Thanks for the info. src2pkg uses only the very basic syntax for all commands and I'm pretty sure that puppy will have them all -stuff like cat, cut, grep, egrep, find and a very little bit of sed and awk. Some of the commands are included with the program in the form of statically-compiled programs(just tar and a few commands supplied by busybox), but proper functioning (of installwatch) depends on having shared-lib versions of the other commands -all of them very basic. Because I have been working towards functionality in a bootstrap environment, I recently wrote replacements for 14 utilities in pure BASH, using only the built-in arithmetic and shell/string expansion functions to do all the work. I haven't incorporated them into the program yet, but probably will begin to do so soon, at least for some of them. I also have hacked ash/dash to include about 40 utilities.
The idea is to be able to compile a complete distro from sources, starting with just BASH/ash/dash, gcc and make -all statically compiled. Then, one would begin by compiling glibc, coreutils and utils-linux. At that point one would compile src2pkg and begin using it to create packages for the rest(and for the first ones after recompiling them).
This is all pretty low priority -I do everything possible to keep src2pkg in a very stable condition and safe to run on your regular desktop installation without whacking anything. Knock-on-wood -I've never had a single report of src2pkg breaking anyone's system. Some BASH gurus don't like it because it makes their build-script-writing talents unnecessary about 80% of the time.

[kirk]

Took a stab at getting slapt-get/Gslapt working with 3.00.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 897#141897

[tronkel]

Another approach to Slackware package management in the new Puppy 3.00 Final is to replace slapt-get with swaret, a command-line tool in the style of apt-get. Swaret seems to do a far better job than slapt-get as regards dependency management - much nearer to the abilities that we have become accustomed to with apt-get..

I had an initial go with this last night. After one abortive attempt, I finally managed to get something working here. I successfully installed gpg and Thunderbird using this system. This is what I did.

Install pkgtools from a dotpet by converting a Slackware 12 tgz to a dotpet. You can get the pkgtools tgz package from a Slackware 12 mirror. Then use tgz2pet to do the conversion.

Download the latest swaret 1.6.3-2 from the swaret area in Sourceforge and install this using pkgtool.

In a console do:
cp /etc/swaret.conf.new to /etc/swaret.conf

Then edit the line in swaret.conf that reads VERSION=10.2 to read VERSION=12.0 (i.e. for Slackware 12.0)

Then do a swaret update at the cli:
swaret --update

Let it do its thing - it can take a while on an old system. Ignore a couple of error messages.

Commands are:
swaret --install
swaret --remove
swaret --upgrade
swaret --update
swaret --list


Then you can try an install of say gnupg and see how you get on.

Don't install any dependency that has anything to do with Puppy's X-Windows system.

I have got a lot more tweaking to do on this. I'll post what I find later.

[amigo]

Only trouble with swaret is that it is no longer being developed and it does require perl. recently someone started a new slack pkg mgmnt program called slackroll.