Third-party Repositories

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http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/third-party-repositories-642978/

It seems to me that linuxpackages.net is the most popular third-party repository. And my question is how to use it with slapt-get?

I know from http://www.linuxpackages.net/mirrors.php

If I am to use the "NYI New York Internet" mirror, I would set Slapt-get to SOURCE=http://www2.linuxpackages.net/packages/Slackware-xx/

But when it comes to practice, I have the following questions.

Does linuxpackages.net contains official packages as well?
If not, do you recommend VectorLinux's repository? Does it have more packages than linuxpackages.net?
Will setting above find all packages from linuxpackages.net for me? Or it is only for the very version of Slackware that I choose?
If I can't find the package that I want in Slackware-12.1, will packages from Slackware-12.0 be OK for me?
If it is OK, how can I make slapt-get search Slackware-12.1 by default then fall back to Slackware-12.0 when not found?
more on package finding, while doing random checking of the available packages, the first two packages from http://www.linuxpackages.net/packages.php, FFmpeg & Firebird, I don't see them in http://www2.linuxpackages.net/packag…1/PACKAGES.TXT

In this case, would slapt-get search find those 2 packages for me? If not, what should I do?

All in all, what's the best practice using third-party repositories?

Third-party Repositories

slacky.eu is a more reliable source than linuxpackages.net in my opinion. I know nothing about slapt-get or slackpkg, so I can't be more help than that — I will just say that linuxpackages.net has some poorly-built packages with questionable dependencies that have the possibility to bork your system. Although there ARE some reputable packagers at linuxpackages.net, you would have to find out which ones are reputable and only use their packages — and that's a lot of work, and not very convenient when using slapt-get. slacky.eu has a large repository with well-built packages that all include a SlackBuild so you can see how they built it or compile it yourself using their SlackBuild, if you want.

I trust slackbuilds.org, Alien Bob's repository (http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/) and rworkman's repository (http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/) 100%, and slacky.eu 50% (though I'm a pessimist and I always just use the SlackBuilds from slacky.eu and not their pre-built packages). If you want huge repositories with every package you could possibly want, Slackware isn't the distro for you — some packages won't be available anywhere and will need to be compiled (by you) from source. That being said, with the nice repositories listed above, that would be an exception instead of a rule, but just be warned.

documented on: 2008-05-18, T3slider

Third-party Repositories

The only ready made packages that I will use is rworkman's, Alien Bob's, & sometimes slacky.eu.

documented on: 2008-05-19, slackass

Third-party Repositories

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/newbie-question-regarding-slackware-current.-637840/

. .I have also in the past downloaded from linuxpackages.net but only from one particular packager who consistently does good work. Never had a problem with his packages. . .

May I know who the packager is? Who else do you think might be good as well?

2nd, do you download from web or you use slap-get to download the package and all its dependencies? If so, how do you do that?

Third-party Repositories

I no longer use linuxpackages.net to be honest. I primarily use slackbuilds, src2pkg, or download ready-built packages from the official repo, alien bob or rworkman. However that's not what you're asking, so…

If you want to download packages and get dependency resolution as well, I would trust slacky.eu only. They build good packages and their dependencies (so far) seem on target. Nothing has downloaded and installed to my machine that made me scratch my head anyway. You can use either one of the following with slapt-get/gslapt:

http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-12.1/ (main site)

http://slacky.uglyplace.org/repository/slackware-12.1/ (u.s. mirror)

Before I started using slapt-get though I learned to do my own packaging and dependency handling, so I already have a good idea what should or shouldn't be downloading to my machine, and I also compare what's going to be downloaded with what's already in /var/log/packages to make sure nothing gets overwritten.

Dig