pkutils is a package manager for Slackware Linux distribution.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/xoffy/pkutils
cd pkutils/slackware
./tarball.sh
sudo ./pkutils.sh
sudo upgradepkg --install-new /tmp/pkutils-*.t?z

First run

1. Check out /etc/pkutils/pkutils.conf.
2. Set repositories in /etc/pkutils/repos.list.
3. sudo pkupd

The questions you might ask (TQYMA)

I already use the time-tested package managers such as slackpkg+ or slapt-get, why I should even look at your stuff?

Just give it a chance. It's Slackware.

Why AWK?

Initially pkutils were a set of the POSIX shell scripts with some helper scripts in AWK for processing the PACKAGES files. But eventually the AWK code became greater than the Shell one.

Also I quite liked the AWK since its syntax resembles C and it is very simple and primitive (as opposed to monsters like Python or Ruby). If pkutils will survive, I think it will be rewritten in something like Go or Rust.

I understand that AWK is not supposed to be used in the way I use it, but who cares.

man pages, where they are?

1. I'm too lazy for it.
2. Writing in English consumes about 101% of my brain's CPU. Speaking it consumes even more.

How can I remove packages?

Do it with removepkg as always. Unfortunately, there is no "reverse dependency solver" and "auto v. manual" package marking at the time, so package removing tool would be useless.

Should I be careful?

Definitely. Always use -x key with pkadd.

pkutils v. others

	pkutils	slackpkg	slackpkg+	slapt-get	sbopkg
Can install a binary package	true	true	true	true	false
Can build a package from SlackBuild	true1	false	false	false2	true
Supports 3rd-party repos	true	false	true	true	false
Supports GPG signatures	false	true	true	???	???
Handles dependencies3	true	false	false	true	false4
Birth date	2018/11 or 2019/02/08	unknown	2011/07/12	2003/08/15	2013/12/09
Can help you if you're depressed	true5	false	false	false	false

1. Support is preliminary and thus quite limited. For example, you can't pass any flags to a SlackBuild script.
2. slapt-src, a little brother of slapt-get, can.
3. If a repository provides information.
4. Separate tool called sqg can print out list of dependencies.
5. If you are a developer.

Bréf

pkutils consists of three commands:

• pkupd will synchronize with remote repositories and update an internal database.
• With pkque you can search available packages and view some of their properties.
• To install, reinstall, upgrade or downgrade packages you can use pkadd.

Use -? argument to see all available options.

pkexpr

pkadd and pkque work with the package expressions (or pkexprs). Format of package expression is:

app~i586=1.3.0!_slack14.2@slackware64:xap

Example pkexpr above matches a package named app of version 1.3.0 for i586 and tagged _slack14.2 from repository named slackware64 and belonging to XAP series.

All segments of pkexpr is optional, but empty pkexpr is not valid. Further examples:

• :kde — all packages from KDE series.
• @msb — all packages from MATE SlackBuild repository (but don't forget that only YOU are responsible for names of repositories, see repos.lst).
• kernel-.* — packages whose name starts with kernel-.
• (ba|tc|z)sh — matches bash, tcsh and zsh.
• mozilla-firefox=45.9.0esr — exact version matching.
• !alien — all packages from Eric.

So you got the idea.

Note that pkutils can't compare versions just like official upgradepkg (KISS, you know).

My dependency solver is quite slow, but I like it

Show dependencies of the spamassassin SlackBuild

• p: show dependencies;
• s: strict match of package name;
• n: do not show repeating dependencies.

$ pkque -psn spamassassin
Reading packages index... Done.

sbo:network/spamassassin 3.4.1
  `- spamassassin (sbo, 3.4.1)
    `- re2c (sbo, 0.16)
    `- pyzor (sbo, 1.0.0)
    `- perl-Net-Server (sbo, 2.008)
    `- perl-Net-Ident (sbo, 1.23)
    `- perl-Mail-SPF (sbo, 2.9.0)
      `- perl-NetAddr-IP (sbo, 4.079)
      `- perl-Net-DNS-Resolver-Programmable (sbo, 0.003)
    `- perl-Mail-DKIM (sbo, 0.52)
      `- perl-net-dns (sbo, 1.06)
        `- perl-net-ip (sbo, 1.26)
        `- perl-digest-hmac (sbo, 1.03)
          `- perl-digest-sha1 (sbo, 2.13)
      `- perl-MailTools (sbo, 2.20)
        `- perl-TimeDate (sbo, 2.30)
      `- perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-RSA (sbo, 0.28)
        `- perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-Random (sbo, 0.11)
    `- perl-Image-Info (sbo, 1.41)
    `- perl-IP-Country (sbo, 2.28)
      `- perl-Geography-Countries (sbo, 20090413)
    `- perl-IO-Socket-SSL (sbo, 2.060)
      `- perl-Net-LibIDN (sbo, 0.12)
      `- Net-SSLeay (sbo, 1.81)
    `- perl-IO-Socket-INET6 (sbo, 2.71)
      `- perl-Socket6 (sbo, 0.28)
    `- perl-Encode-Detect (sbo, 1.01)
      `- perl-Module-Build (sbo, 0.4224)
        `- perl-PAR-Dist (sbo, 0.49)
    `- perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-Bignum (sbo, 0.08)
    `- libwww-perl (sbo, 6.13)
      `- perl-www-robotrules (sbo, 6.02)
      `- perl-net-http (sbo, 6.09)
      `- perl-http-negotiate (sbo, 6.01)
      `- perl-http-daemon (sbo, 6.01)
      `- perl-http-cookies (sbo, 6.01)
        `- perl-http-message (sbo, 6.11)
          `- perl-IO-HTML (sbo, 1.001)
          `- perl-lwp-mediatypes (sbo, 6.02)
          `- perl-html-parser (sbo, 3.71)
            `- perl-html-tagset (sbo, 3.20)
          `- perl-encode-locale (sbo, 1.05)
      `- perl-file-listing (sbo, 6.04)
        `- perl-http-date (sbo, 6.02)
  Total dependencies: 42.

Same for pandoc

pandoc is the SlackBuild with most complicated dependencies as far as I know. They're complicated as hell, I swear.

$ pkque -psn pandoc
Reading packages index... Done.

sbo:office/pandoc 2.3.1
  `- pandoc (sbo, 2.3.1)
    `- haskell-zip-archive (sbo, 0.3.3)
      `- haskell-digest (sbo, 0.0.1.2)
    `- haskell-yaml (sbo, 0.11.0.0)
      `- haskell-libyaml (sbo, 0.1.0.0)
      `- haskell-enclosed-exceptions (sbo, 1.0.3)
    `- haskell-texmath (sbo, 0.11.1.1)
      `- haskell-xml (sbo, 1.3.14)
    `- haskell-temporary (sbo, 1.3)
    `- haskell-tagsoup (sbo, 0.14.7)
    `- haskell-SHA (sbo, 1.6.4.4)
    `- haskell-pandoc-types (sbo, 1.17.5.3)
      `- haskell-QuickCheck (sbo, 2.12.6.1)
        `- haskell-tf-random (sbo, 0.5)
        `- haskell-erf (sbo, 2.0.0.0)
    `- haskell-JuicyPixels (sbo, 3.3.2)
      `- haskell-mmap (sbo, 0.5.9)
    `- haskell-http-client-tls (sbo, 0.3.5.3)
      `- haskell-connection (sbo, 0.2.8)
        `- haskell-x509-system (sbo, 1.6.6)
        `- haskell-tls (sbo, 1.4.1)
          `- haskell-x509-validation (sbo, 1.6.10)
          `- haskell-x509-store (sbo, 1.6.6)
          `- haskell-x509 (sbo, 1.7.4)
            `- haskell-pem (sbo, 0.2.4)
            `- haskell-asn1-parse (sbo, 0.9.4)
          `- haskell-crypto-pubkey (sbo, 0.2.8)
            `- haskell-cryptohash (sbo, 0.11.9)
              `- haskell-cryptonite (sbo, 0.25)
            `- haskell-crypto-pubkey-types (sbo, 0.4.3)
          `- haskell-crypto-numbers (sbo, 0.2.7)
          `- haskell-cipher-rc4 (sbo, 0.1.4)
          `- haskell-cipher-des (sbo, 0.0.6)
          `- haskell-cipher-aes (sbo, 0.2.11)
            `- haskell-crypto-cipher-types (sbo, 0.0.9)
          `- haskell-asn1-encoding (sbo, 0.9.5)
            `- haskell-asn1-types (sbo, 0.3.2)
              `- haskell-hourglass (sbo, 0.2.12)
        `- haskell-socks (sbo, 0.5.6)
        `- haskell-crypto-random (sbo, 0.0.9)
          `- haskell-securemem (sbo, 0.1.10)
        `- haskell-byteable (sbo, 0.1.1)
    `- haskell-http-client (sbo, 0.5.13.1)
      `- haskell-streaming-commons (sbo, 0.2.1.0)
        `- haskell-zlib (sbo, 0.6.2)
        `- haskell-async (sbo, 2.2.1)
      `- haskell-publicsuffixlist (sbo, 0.1)
        `- haskell-idna (sbo, 0.3.0)
          `- haskell-stringprep (sbo, 1.0.0)
            `- haskell-text-icu (sbo, 0.7.0.1)
          `- haskell-punycode (sbo, 2.0)
        `- haskell-conduit (sbo, 1.3.1)
          `- haskell-void (sbo, 0.7.2)
          `- haskell-resourcet (sbo, 1.2.2)
            `- haskell-unliftio-core (sbo, 0.1.2.0)
          `- haskell-mono-traversable (sbo, 1.0.9.0)
            `- haskell-vector-algorithms (sbo, 0.8.0.1)
            `- haskell-split (sbo, 0.2.3.3)
          `- haskell-mmorph (sbo, 1.1.2)
          `- haskell-lifted-base (sbo, 0.2.3.12)
            `- haskell-monad-control (sbo, 1.0.2.3)
              `- haskell-transformers-base (sbo, 0.4.5.2)
        `- haskell-cereal (sbo, 0.5.7.0)
      `- haskell-mime-types (sbo, 0.1.0.8)
      `- haskell-memory (sbo, 0.14.18)
        `- haskell-foundation (sbo, 0.0.21)
          `- haskell-basement (sbo, 0.0.8)
      `- haskell-http-types (sbo, 0.12.2)
      `- haskell-cookie (sbo, 0.4.4)
    `- haskell-HTTP (sbo, 4000.3.11)
      `- haskell-network (sbo, 2.6.3.5)
    `- haskell-highlighting-kate (sbo, 0.6.4)
    `- haskell-filemanip (sbo, 0.3.6.3)
      `- haskell-unix-compat (sbo, 0.5.1)
    `- haskell-extensible-exceptions (sbo, 0.1.1.4)
    `- haskell-deepseq-generics (sbo, 0.2.0.0)
    `- haskell-data-default (sbo, 0.7.1.1)
      `- haskell-data-default-instances-old-locale (sbo, 0.0.1)
      `- haskell-data-default-instances-dlist (sbo, 0.0.1)
      `- haskell-data-default-instances-containers (sbo, 0.0.1)
      `- haskell-data-default-instances-base (sbo, 0.1.0.1)
      `- haskell-data-default-class (sbo, 0.1.2.0)
    `- haskell-cmark (sbo, 0.5.6)
    `- haskell-skylighting (sbo, 0.7.4)
      `- haskell-skylighting-core (sbo, 0.7.4)
        `- haskell-utf8-string (sbo, 1.0.1.1)
      `- haskell-regex-pcre-builtin (sbo, 0.94.4.8.8.35)
      `- haskell-regex-pcre (sbo, 0.94.4)
        `- haskell-regex-base (sbo, 0.93.2)
      `- haskell-pretty-show (sbo, 1.9.1)
        `- haskell-lexer (sbo, 1.0.2)
        `- happy (sbo, 1.19.9)
      `- haskell-hxt (sbo, 9.3.1.16)
        `- haskell-network-uri (sbo, 2.6.1.0)
        `- haskell-hxt-regex-xmlschema (sbo, 9.2.0.3)
        `- haskell-hxt-unicode (sbo, 9.0.2.4)
        `- haskell-hxt-charproperties (sbo, 9.2.0.1)
        `- haskell-HUnit (sbo, 1.6.0.0)
          `- haskell-call-stack (sbo, 0.1.0)
      `- haskell-case-insensitive (sbo, 1.2.0.11)
      `- haskell-base64-bytestring (sbo, 1.0.0.1)
      `- haskell-ansi-terminal (sbo, 0.8.1)
        `- haskell-colour (sbo, 2.3.4)
    `- haskell-safe (sbo, 0.3.17)
    `- haskell-hslua-module-text (sbo, 0.2.0)
      `- haskell-hslua (sbo, 1.0.1)
        `- haskell-exceptions (sbo, 0.10.0)
    `- haskell-haddock-library (sbo, 1.7.0)
    `- haskell-doctemplates (sbo, 0.2.2.1)
      `- haskell-blaze-html (sbo, 0.9.1.1)
        `- haskell-blaze-markup (sbo, 0.8.2.2)
    `- haskell-cmark-gfm (sbo, 0.1.6)
    `- haskell-aeson-pretty (sbo, 0.8.7)
      `- haskell-cmdargs (sbo, 0.10.20)
      `- haskell-aeson (sbo, 1.4.1.0)
        `- haskell-uuid-types (sbo, 1.0.3)
          `- haskell-random (sbo, 1.1)
        `- haskell-time-locale-compat (sbo, 0.1.1.5)
          `- haskell-old-locale (sbo, 1.0.0.7)
        `- haskell-th-abstraction (sbo, 0.2.8.0)
        `- haskell-syb (sbo, 0.7)
        `- haskell-blaze-builder (sbo, 0.4.1.0)
        `- haskell-base-compat (sbo, 0.10.4)
        `- haskell-attoparsec (sbo, 0.13.2.2)
          `- haskell-scientific (sbo, 0.3.6.2)
            `- haskell-vector (sbo, 0.12.0.1)
              `- haskell-primitive (sbo, 0.6.4.0)
            `- haskell-integer-logarithms (sbo, 1.0.2.2)
    `- haskell-HsYAML (sbo, 0.1.1.2)
      `- haskell-nats (sbo, 1.1.2)
      `- haskell-fail (sbo, 4.9.0.0)
    `- haskell-Glob (sbo, 0.9.3)
      `- haskell-semigroups (sbo, 0.18.5)
        `- haskell-unordered-containers (sbo, 0.2.9.0)
        `- haskell-tagged (sbo, 0.8.6)
          `- haskell-transformers-compat (sbo, 0.6.2)
        `- haskell-hashable (sbo, 1.2.7.0)
      `- haskell-dlist (sbo, 0.8.0.5)
        `- ghc (sbo, 8.4.3)
  Total dependencies: 138.

Interesting fact: there is lots of cycled dependencies in Salix OS repositories

Because they're automatically generated.

$ pkque -psn vim-gvim
Reading packages index... Done.

slackware64:xap/vim-gvim 7.4.1938-x86_64-1
Warning: found dependency loop: glib2 <- gamin <- glib2
Warning: found dependency loop: cairo <- harfbuzz <- freetype <- fontconfig <- cairo
Warning: found dependency loop: gcc <- gmp <- gcc
Warning: found dependency loop: mesa <- freeglut <- mesa
Warning: found dependency loop: mesa <- glew <- mesa
Warning: found dependency loop: mesa <- glu <- mesa
Warning: found dependency loop: util-linux <- eudev <- util-linux
  `- vim-gvim (slackware64, 7.4.1938-x86_64-1)
    `- perl (slackware64, 5.22.2-x86_64-1)
    `- libXt (slackware64, 1.1.5-x86_64-1)
    `- gtk+2 (slackware64, 2.24.31-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
      `- pango (slackware64, 1.38.1-x86_64-1)
        `- libXft (slackware64, 2.3.2-x86_64-3)
      `- libXinerama (slackware64, 1.1.3-x86_64-2)
      `- libXcursor (slackware64, 1.1.15-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
      `- libXcomposite (slackware64, 0.4.4-x86_64-2)
      `- gnutls (slackware64, 3.6.5-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- p11-kit (slackware64, 0.23.2-x86_64-1)
          `- libtasn1 (slackware64, 4.8-x86_64-1)
        `- libidn (slackware64, 1.34-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- guile (slackware64, 2.0.11-x86_64-2)
          `- libunistring (slackware64, 0.9.3-x86_64-1)
          `- libtool (slackware64, 2.4.6-x86_64-5_slack14.2)
        `- gc (slackware64, 7.4.2-x86_64-3)
    `- gpm (slackware64, 1.20.7-x86_64-3)
    `- gdk-pixbuf2 (slackware64, 2.32.3-x86_64-1)
      `- libtiff (slackware64, 4.0.10-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- libSM (slackware64, 1.2.2-x86_64-2)
          `- util-linux (slackware64, 2.27.1-x86_64-1)
            `- libtermcap (slackware64, 1.2.3-x86_64-7)
            `- eudev (slackware64, 3.1.5-x86_64-8)
              `- kmod (slackware64, 22-x86_64-1)
                `- python (slackware64, 2.7.16-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
                  `- sqlite (slackware64, 3.13.0-x86_64-1)
                  `- readline (slackware64, 6.3-x86_64-2)
                  `- openssl (slackware64, 1.0.2r-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
                  `- icu4c (slackware64, 56.1-x86_64-2)
                  `- gdbm (slackware64, 1.12-x86_64-1)
                  `- db48 (slackware64, 4.8.30-x86_64-2)
        `- libICE (slackware64, 1.0.9-x86_64-2)
      `- libjpeg-turbo (slackware64, 1.5.0-x86_64-1)
    `- cairo (slackware64, 1.14.6-x86_64-2)
      `- pixman (slackware64, 0.34.0-x86_64-1)
      `- mesa (slackware64, 11.2.2-x86_64-1)
        `- nettle (slackware64, 3.4.1-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- llvm (slackware64, 3.8.0-x86_64-2)
          `- ncurses (slackware64, 5.9-x86_64-4)
        `- libXvMC (slackware64, 1.0.10-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- libXv (slackware64, 1.0.11-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- glu (slackware64, 9.0.0-x86_64-1)
        `- glew (slackware64, 1.13.0-x86_64-1)
        `- freeglut (slackware64, 2.8.1-x86_64-1)
          `- libXrandr (slackware64, 1.5.1-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
          `- libXi (slackware64, 1.7.8-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- elfutils (slackware64, 0.163-x86_64-1)
          `- xz (slackware64, 5.2.2-x86_64-1)
          `- gcc-g++ (slackware64, 5.5.0-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
          `- gcc (slackware64, 5.5.0-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
            `- libmpc (slackware64, 1.0.3-x86_64-1)
              `- mpfr (slackware64, 3.1.4-x86_64-1)
            `- gmp (slackware64, 6.1.1-x86_64-1)
      `- lzo (slackware64, 2.09-x86_64-1)
      `- libxshmfence (slackware64, 1.2-x86_64-2)
      `- libdrm (slackware64, 2.4.68-x86_64-1)
        `- libpciaccess (slackware64, 0.13.4-x86_64-1)
      `- libXxf86vm (slackware64, 1.1.4-x86_64-2)
      `- libXrender (slackware64, 0.9.10-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
      `- libXext (slackware64, 1.3.3-x86_64-2)
      `- libXdamage (slackware64, 1.1.4-x86_64-2)
        `- libXfixes (slackware64, 5.0.3-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
      `- libX11 (slackware64, 1.6.6-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- libxcb (slackware64, 1.11.1-x86_64-1)
        `- libXdmcp (slackware64, 1.1.2-x86_64-2)
        `- libXau (slackware64, 1.0.8-x86_64-2)
      `- fontconfig (slackware64, 2.11.1-x86_64-2)
        `- freetype (slackware64, 2.6.3-x86_64-2_slack14.2)
          `- libpng (slackware64, 1.6.27-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
          `- harfbuzz (slackware64, 1.2.7-x86_64-1)
      `- expat (slackware64, 2.2.2-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
    `- bzip2 (slackware64, 1.0.6-x86_64-1)
    `- atk (slackware64, 2.18.0-x86_64-1)
      `- glib2 (slackware64, 2.46.2-x86_64-3_slack14.2)
        `- zlib (slackware64, 1.2.11-x86_64-1_slack14.2)
        `- libffi (slackware64, 3.2.1-x86_64-1)
        `- gamin (slackware64, 0.1.10-x86_64-5)
    `- acl (slackware64, 2.2.52-x86_64-1)
      `- attr (slackware64, 2.4.47-x86_64-1)
  Total dependencies: 79.