Tukaani pkgtools
One of the subprojects of Tukaani is the enhanced pkgtools. They are based strongly on the original Slackware pgktools, thus retaining maximum compatibility. The Tukaani pkgtools can be used in Slackware 10.0 and newer, and in a few other distros derived from Slackware.
Tukaani pkgtools replace Slackware pkgtools (installpkg, upgradepkg, etc.). We know that this can be a major barrier for someone to try the new pkgtools, because pkgtools are critical part of the system. However, there are no plans to make a version which could be used alongside Slackware pkgtools. If you are suspicious we hope you have a spare box where you can try these. It's definitely worth it.
Also remember that you can always revert back to the original Slackware pkgtools in a rare case that you happen to not like the new pkgtools (read the README for detailed information about upgrading and downgrading).
Why upgrade?
- Faster
- upgradepkg upgrades new packages faster, especially large packages
- Unified command line parameters
- all parameters have a short form, e.g. --reinstall = -r
- long parameters always begin with a double dash
- for compatibility reasons, some one dash parameters are supported in a couple of tools
- the parameters may follow package names, similar to many GNU utilities
- Network support
- installpkg and upgradepkg accept HTTP and FTP addresses on the command line
- pkgtool offers a dialog-based menu for browsing and selecting packages, even from remote repositories
- pkgtool has command line options with all the same functionality that the menu offers
- new pkgtools are a good alternative to tools like slackpkg, slapt-get and swaret
- Support for several compression formats
- much smaller packages
- LZMA compressed packages (.tlz) are approx. 30% smaller on average compared to gzip compressed (.tgz)
- bzip2 is supported as well, but not recommended due to slower decompression speed and not so good compression ratio (compared to LZMA)
- New tools
- viewpkg lets you view the package contents, including the uncompressed size, description, etc.
- convertpkg converts between compression formats
- you can create your own, pkgtool compatible package repositories with makerepo
- Reliable
- the new pkgtools fix several bugs in Slackware pkgtools
- they remind you to run LILO if you installed a new kernel package
- after the installation, a list of *.new files is shown, which you should then check
- the revised --warn parameter for installpkg shows, which files the package would overwrite
- no dependency checking now or in future (if you really want them, consider using swaret)
- no funny things happening behind your back (like running LILO automatically or playing with dependencies)
- Excellent compatibility with Slackware pkgtools
- works with Slackware 10.0 and later
- you can still use slackpkg, slapt-get or swaret (although we feel it's unnecessary and believe you don't even want to)
- checkinstall works as always
- no other extra packages are needed outside the official Slackware package tree, except if you want to use .tlz packages you must install LZMA utils.