Slackonly: an update

Slackonly is a repository for Slackware packages, compiled from the scripts at SBo. Compilation is done by the excellent slackrepo tool, which ensures the building of clean packages. SlackOnly is not an official repo and is not affiliated with SBo. A year ago, the project was in its infant stage: only several categories were ready and only for the x86_64 architecture.

Now, the repo seems to have grown tremendously. Packages covering all categories are available for both 14.1-x86 and 14.1-x86_64, and work has started on 14.1-arm and current-x86_64, as well. I exchanged couple of emails with Panagiotis (the maintainer) and he provided me with a brief overview:

Slackonly x86

• Last updated: Sun Apr 8 14:09:45 UTC 2015
• Number of packages: 4522
• http://packages.slackonly.com/pub/packages/14.1-x86/
• Total compressed packages: 14.24 Gb
• Total uncompressed packages: 44.18 Gb

Slackonly x86_64

• Last updated: Sun May 11 03:19:56 UTC 2015
• Number of packages: 5125
• http://packages.slackonly.com/pub/packages/14.1-x86_64/
• Total compressed packages: 35.2 Gb
• Total uncompressed packages: 77.3 Gb

For a comparison, SBo has 5223 entries as of 10 May 2015. This means that Slackonly 14.1-x86_64 covers almost everything. Keep in mind that some programs are available for x86 only! There is a list of missing packages in the end of this post.

The usefulness of such project is apparent. There are packages at SBo that just take too much time to compile from source. An example is QT5, another one is UniPro Ugene… even Inkscape in the recent years has become a huge package to build. Therefore people with a more modest hardware can benefit from it.

A major problem (IMHO) is that the Slackonly project lacks a transparent quality check of the packages. There is no team of trusted moderators that will do the assessment. That being said, I have installed a package or two from Slackonly, without any issues. Also, it seems Slackonly is still a one-man project, which is an enormous amount of work. It’s amazing how many packages are ready!

As a conclusion, I find the project promising and hope to see it expand and prove that it is a trustworthy source of third party packages.

amplifx							      
coq							      
finchtv							      
omlibraries						      
openmodelica						      
tkgate							      
Pd-extended						      
dssi-vst						      
fst							      
jost_bin						      
miniAudicle						      
multimidicast						      
nero-aac						      
sfarkxtc						      
wineasio						      
awoken-icon-theme					      
faience-icon-theme					      
gntp-send						      
obshutdown						      
openbox-themes						      
wally							      
amd-app-sdk					      
asl							      
eagle							      
energia							      
kicad-library						      
kompozer						      
numpy-legacy						      
rmlmmc							      
smlnj							      
0ad-data						      
Pyfa							      
berusky-data						      
cpsokoban						      
dreamchess-music					      
ember							      
firestorm-opensim					      
firestorm						      
fortune-dharma						      
fortune-dune						      
fortune-futurama					      
fortune_doctor_who					      
fortune_firefly						      
game_1945						      
gl-117							      
jfsw							      
jfsw_demo_data						      
jfsw_hires_pack						      
nevernoid						      
openjazz						      
openmsx-catapult					      
playonlinux						      
smokinguns						      
steem							      
transfusion						      
tuxnes							      
typhoon_2001						      
z26							      
zsnes							      
geogig-py						      
draftsight						      
jUploadr						      
mitsuba-blender						      
mitsuba							      
openimageio						      
photivo							      
simple-scan						      
teighafileconverter					      
teighaviewer						      
7plus							      
cqrlog							      
direwolf						      
boolstuff						      
libEMF							      
libdbi-drivers						      
libdvbcsa						      
libva-intel-driver					      
ocaml-ounit						      
xalan-c							      
xview							      
BISP							      
jmri							      
SimpleSysexxer						      
genpuid							      
google-talkplugin					      
mplayer-codecs64					      
mpv							      
popcorntime						      
realplayer						      
spotify32						      
greenbone-security-assistant				      
icinga2							      
imageshack-uploader					      
kasp_updater						      
keybase-client						      
metasploit						      
mod_wsgi-metrics					      
netcat-openbsd						      
offlineimap						      
pdns-recursor						      
skylable-sx						      
skype							      
skype4pidgin						      
sopcast-player						      
sopcast							      
spawn-fcgi						      
sstp-client						      
unbound							      
vmware-view-client					      
adobe-reader-fontpacks					      
adobe-reader						      
treesheets						      
perl-xml-fast						      
perl-xml-libxml						      
perl-xml-twig						      
perl-yaml						      
PyXB							      
pytest-cov						      
graphite-web						      
grub4dos						      
ksplice							      
samsung-mfp-drivers					      
slack-utils						      
statifier						      
wine							      
winetricks						      
wmfsm							      

EDIT (16 June 2015): Added a line about the tool used to create the repository, thanks to Slalik.