Slackware

Listing Non-Slackware Packages

Let’s admit it – Slackware packages is not complete for most users therefore there exists the third party packages repository such as SlackBuilds.org. Maintaining those third party packages on your Slackware machine can be tricky if you don’t keep track of the non-Slackware packages you installed.

Keeping up to date

The most commonly used utility I know to keep your Slackware updated is by using slackpkg tool. However, it only updates packages that are shipped by Slackware. To update those packages, the user must manually update them by download the updates perhaps and re-building them.

Last time I checked, I have 78 packages and many of those are dependencies are just dependencies. To keep track of those list, I checked the forum for some hints and found this thread: Get list of packages not in base system.

There are several ways but I found the one I’m looking for which uses slackpkg and here is the simple command:(Run as root)

slackpkg -dialog=off -batch=on -default_answer=no clean-system > NonSlackwarePackages.txt

It simply calls the clean-system routine of slackpkg, turned off the dialog and cancels the update and lastly dumps the output to the file. The file will contain the name of the third-party packages installed in Slackware. Here is my dump of non-Slackware packages:

CImg-1.2.9-noarch-1_SBo
Cython-0.12-i486-1_SBo
GConf-2.28.1-i486-1_SBo
ORBit2-2.14.18-i486-1_SBo
SDL_Pango-0.1.2-i486-1_SBo
SDL_perl-1.20.0-i486-1_SBo
a52dec-0.7.4-i486-1_SBo
acpica-20100702-i486-1_SBo
amrnb-7.0.0.2-i486-1_SBo
amrwb-7.0.0.3-i486-1_SBo
blobwars-1.14-i486-1_SBo
cabextract-1.2-i486-1_SBo
defendguin-0.0.11-i486-1_SBo
devede-3.16.9-noarch-1_SBo
dirac-1.0.2-i486-2_SBo
dvdauthor-0.6.14-i486-2_SBo
faac-1.28-i486-2_SBo
faad2-2.7-i486-1_SBo
ffmpeg-0.5.1-custom-1_SBo
flash-player-plugin-10.0_r45-i386-1_SBo
fontforge-20100501-i486-1_SBo
frozen-bubble-2.2.0-i486-1_SBo
google-chrome-6.0.472.63-i386-1_SBo
gtk-chtheme-0.3.1-i486-1_SBo
guvcview-1.4.1-i486-1_SBo
lame-3.98.4-i486-1_SBo
lbreakout2-2.6beta7-i486-2_SBo
lbxproxy-1.0.1-i486-2
libdc1394-2.1.2-i486-1_SBo
libdv-1.0.0-i486-1_SBo
libdvdcss-1.2.10-i486-1_SBo
libevent-1.4.13-i486-1_SBo
libmikmod-3.1.12-i486-1_SBo
libmp4v2-1.9.1-i486-3_SBo
libmpeg2-0.5.1-i486-1_SBo
libpaper-1.1.23+nmu1-i486-1_SBo
libquicktime-1.1.5-i486-1_SBo
locale-gettext-1.05-i486-2_SBo
micropolis-20080222-i486-2_SBo
mjpegtools-1.9.0-i486-3_SBo
mozilla-nss-3.12.4-i486-1_SBo
neverball-1.5.1-i486-1_SBo
obexpushd-0.8-i486-1_SBo
opencore-amr-0.1.2-i486-1_SBo
openjpeg-1.3-i486-1_SBo
openoffice.org-3.2.0_en_US-i586-1_SBo
opera-10.60-i386-1_SBo
orc-0.4.4-i486-1_SBo
physfs-2.0.0-i486-3_SBo
pingus-0.7.3-i486-1_SBo
portaudio-V19-i486-1_SBo
privoxy-3.0.12-i486-2_SBo
proxymngr-1.0.1-i486-2
schroedinger-1.0.9-i486-2_SBo
scons-1.2.0-i486-2_SBo
siege-2.67-i486-1_SBo
skype-2.0.0.72-i486-1_SBo
speex-1.2rc1-i486-2_SBo
supertux-0.1.3-i486-1_SBo
tor-0.2.1.24-i486-1_SBo
tovid-0.31-i486-1_SBo
transcode-1.1.5-i486-1_SBo
tuxmath-1.7.2-i486-1_SBo
tuxpaint-0.9.21-i486-1_SBo
tuxtype_w_fonts-1.8.0-i486-2_SBo
txt2tags-2.5-noarch-1_SBo
umtsmon-0.9-i486-1_SBo
vcdimager-0.7.23-i486-2_SBo
virtualbox-kernel-3.1.6_2.6.35.7_smp-i486-1_SBo
virtualbox-ose-3.1.6-i486-1_SBo
vlc-1.1.1-i486-1alien
vlc-mozplugin-1.1.1-i486-1alien
webcore-fonts-3.0-noarch-2_SBo
wine-1.2-i486-1alien
wxPython-2.8.10.1-i486-3_SBo
wxcam-1.0.4-i486-1_SBo
x264-20100327-i486-1_SBo
xvidcore-1.2.2-i486-1_SBo

After knowing what needs to be updated, it is up to the user on how to check for updates and install updates. As for me, I just manually visit SlackBuilds.org and check if there are cool new updates. It is a tedious task so instead, I will only install updates for every new Slackware release or when there are critical updates.

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