Here is a chance for one of the experts to do a good "public" service.

Would one of you who are more experienced in Slackware explain to the rest
of us the difference between:

pkgtool
slapt-get
swaret

I read the home pages of both slapt and swaret and they look identical to
me. But I come from an rpm background so am not familiar with "debian" type
of package managers (ie. I haven't a clue what apt-get is!). A little
explanation would be helpful here.

Am I mistaken or will slapt or swaret make installing packages/software
easier for newcomers to Slack? What's it all about (and should I care?)?

Choice is good, but is there a clear "winner" here? Will there be a
"standard?" (Yeah, I know, Slack people march to their own "tune.")



Thanks,

Al

Adams-Blake Co. wrote:
[snip]
> Am I mistaken or will slapt or swaret make installing packages/software
> easier for newcomers to Slack? What's it all about (and should I care?)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Al
I've also just come to slack from an rpm background, and while in general
the docs and tools are great if you have a basic idea of what you're doing,
things like swaret make life MUCH easier.

It has the ability to search for installed packages, yet takes MUCH less
time than pkgtool, since it doesn't list everything, only matches to the
search. This is a feature sorely lacking in pkgtool.

As for slapt-get, I haven't got a clue as I've not used it (yet...).
--
James

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James Telfer wrote:
| Adams-Blake Co. wrote:
| [snip]
|
|>Am I mistaken or will slapt or swaret make installing packages/software
|>easier for newcomers to Slack? What's it all about (and should I care?)?
|>
|>Thanks,
|>
|>Al
|
| I've also just come to slack from an rpm background, and while in general
| the docs and tools are great if you have a basic idea of what you're
doing,
| things like swaret make life MUCH easier.
|
| It has the ability to search for installed packages, yet takes MUCH less
| time than pkgtool, since it doesn't list everything, only matches to the
| search. This is a feature sorely lacking in pkgtool.

I never use pkgtool - good old installpkg, removepkg, and upgradepkg
suffice.

If you want to search:
# ls /var/log/packages/ | grep searchterms

|
| As for slapt-get, I haven't got a clue as I've not used it (yet...).


- --
Fred Emmott
(GPG Key ID 0x710A691A)
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James Telfer wrote:
> It has the ability to search for installed packages, yet takes MUCH less
> time than pkgtool, since it doesn't list everything, only matches to the
> search. This is a feature sorely lacking in pkgtool.

what can swaret do that a simple ls or grep in /var/log/packages cannot do,
in terms of searching for installed packages?

--
Joost Kremers
since when is vi an editor? a discussion on vi belongs in
comp.tools.unusable or something... ;-)

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Joost Kremers wrote:
| James Telfer wrote:
|
|>It has the ability to search for installed packages, yet takes MUCH less
|>time than pkgtool, since it doesn't list everything, only matches to the
|>search. This is a feature sorely lacking in pkgtool.
|
|
| what can swaret do that a simple ls or grep in /var/log/packages
cannot do,
| in terms of searching for installed packages?
|
great minds think alike

(or considering me, no fools ever differ )

- --
Fred Emmott
(GPG Key ID 0x710A691A)
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Why bother using two utilities when ls /var/log/packages/*whatever* will
do?

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:29:18 +0000, Fred Emmott wrote:

> If you want to search:
> # ls /var/log/packages/ | grep searchterms

--

..

Hey, don't top-post. See, it's rude. Let me correct your post below.

In alt.os.linux.slackware, Vigil dared to utter,
>> If you want to search:
>> # ls /var/log/packages/ | grep searchterms
>
> Why bother using two utilities when ls /var/log/packages/*whatever* will
> do?

You're right that the correct way to do this is to use just one
command. You don't need two processes running when one will do the job;
however, you picked the wrong one for the task. All that will do is
list packages "*whatever*".

# grep searchterms /var/log/packages/*

--
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5

Joost Kremers wrote:

> what can swaret do that a simple ls or grep in /var/log/packages
> cannot do, in terms of searching for installed packages?

If it's updated, it can tell you which packages can or should be
upraded. I don't know about your memory, mine doesn't cover
potentially hundreds of packages to upgrade in a worse case scenario.
There are some things that computers do better with tools.

Fred Emmott wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Joost Kremers wrote:
> | what can swaret do that a simple ls or grep in /var/log/packages
> cannot do,
> | in terms of searching for installed packages?
> |
> great minds think alike
>
> (or considering me, no fools ever differ )
>
> - --
> Fred Emmott
Not thought of that (or indeed realised that was where the package data was
stored).

It does allow searching for available yet not installed packages though,
unless there is once again a simpler (better?) way of doing that too?
--
James

A good point, if you have terms :-)

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 17:04:59 -0500, Alan Hicks wrote:

> You're right that the correct way to do this is to use just one command.
> You don't need two processes running when one will do the job; however,
> you picked the wrong one for the task. All that will do is list packages
> "*whatever*".
>
> # grep searchterms /var/log/packages/*

--

..