Re: Sbopkg provides seamless package repository integration for Slackware
Posted by: Anonymous
[ip: 70.91.34.61]
on October 02, 2008 01:31 PM
You said:
"Defaulting to vi if $EDITOR or $VISUAL are not set is normal, widely accepted behaviour."
Absolutely! Which is why it's nice that the sbopkg manual explains the behavior _and_ how to do something differently.
"Interesting article, but one that suggests that Slackware is an OS which is stuck in the past. How does it cope with package updates (upstream security fixes etc?). Is the user notified, or is it necessary to manually check through every installed package? "
In some ways, Slackware is stuck in the past, but that's a conscious design decision and one that Slackware users appreciate. Package updates are straightforward: (1) check the changelog (or read your e-mail notification); (2) download the updated packages; and (3) upgrade the existing packages to the new ones.
There are a number of tools available to Slackware users for automatically checking and updating. Some people user them, others find it simpler to do it manually.
"How does it cope with substantial (e.g. libc) updates and the resultant chaos in dependant packages?"
These generally happen only with version updates -- that is, going from 11 to 12, or from 12 to 12.1. When that happens, the whole distribution is compiled against the new core utilities. Packages user compile and install that are not part of the distribution may need to be recompiled. Tools like sbopkg can help with that chore.
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Re: Sbopkg provides seamless package repository integration for Slackware
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 70.91.34.61] on October 02, 2008 01:31 PM"Defaulting to vi if $EDITOR or $VISUAL are not set is normal, widely accepted behaviour."
Absolutely! Which is why it's nice that the sbopkg manual explains the behavior _and_ how to do something differently.
"Interesting article, but one that suggests that Slackware is an OS which is stuck in the past. How does it cope with package updates (upstream security fixes etc?). Is the user notified, or is it necessary to manually check through every installed package? "
In some ways, Slackware is stuck in the past, but that's a conscious design decision and one that Slackware users appreciate. Package updates are straightforward: (1) check the changelog (or read your e-mail notification); (2) download the updated packages; and (3) upgrade the existing packages to the new ones.
There are a number of tools available to Slackware users for automatically checking and updating. Some people user them, others find it simpler to do it manually.
"How does it cope with substantial (e.g. libc) updates and the resultant chaos in dependant packages?"
These generally happen only with version updates -- that is, going from 11 to 12, or from 12 to 12.1. When that happens, the whole distribution is compiled against the new core utilities. Packages user compile and install that are not part of the distribution may need to be recompiled. Tools like sbopkg can help with that chore.
-Drew
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