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SlackLinks

This collection of links is in no way comprehensive (i.e., it's slack :-)) but is provided in the hope that it may be useful for those new to Slackware. Many of the sites given below maintain their own lists of links to resources related to Slackware and Linux in general. The links are grouped according to their subject but aren't sorted anyhow but in alphabetical order when this makes sense.

The origin of the slack world: Slackware Linux

Slackware mirrors:

• Get Slack: official list of Slackware mirrors
• Unofficial list of mirrors by Erik Jan Tromp

Slackware docs:

• The Revised Slackware Book Project, maintained by Alan Hicks
• Slackware Linux Basics – a book by Daniël de Kok, available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Indonesian!
• Slackware Linux FAQ
• Updated alt.os.linux.slackware FAQ: in plain text and in HTML.
• Slackware FAQ at LinuxPackages
• SlackWiki – a highly recommended reading for all novices but not only
• Slackware Wiki by Eric Hameleers (Alien). Highly recommended, especially Configuring your network in Slackware not covered elsewhere in such detail
• Slackware HOWTOs at LinuxPackages
• Slackware Handbook – a project by Mad Penguin
• Slackadelic Wiki contains a detailed tutorial on setting up a Postfix mailserver with MySQL, dovecot, Spamassassin, etc., by Matt Hayes, and a number of file manipulation tips by Drijen. The site is maintained by Matt Hayes.
• Slackware at Wikipedia
• Slackware FAQ and a few other writeups by Jesper Juhl
• Tutorials on building Slackware packages:
  • Writing A SlackBuild Script – an article on SlackWiki
  • Building A Package – ibidem
  • Different Approach To Buildscripts – ibidem
  • Package building check list by Stuart Winter
  • Building a Slackware Package – a HOWTO on LinuxPackages
  • The perfect package Updated – ibidem
  • Slackware Package Management by Daniël de Kok [OSNews, 2003-07-06]
• Slackware section at PolishLinux.org. Contains a good review with useful tips and links

Slackware ports:

• Slackware ARM, the official port of Slackware to the ARM architecture, by Stuart Winter
• Bluewhite64 is a pure 64-bit Linux distribution
• The Slamd64 Linux Project. The project is not updated since the release of Slackware64
• Slackintosh is a port of Slackware to Mac, by Adrian Ulrich and Marco Bonetti

Additional packages and build scripts:

• SlackBuilds.org, a project aimed is to provide a central repository of SlackBuild scripts for additional applications not included with a default Slackware installation, by Erik Hanson, Robby Workman, Eric Hameleers, Piter PUNK, Ezra Free, Alan Hicks, and /dev/rob0. Sbopkg is the Slackbuilds.org package browser, by Chess Griffin
• A rich collection of Slackware packages and build scripts maintained by Italian Slackware Community
• LinuxPackages by Jim Simmons
• A collection of Slackware packages together with a bunch of SlackBuild scripts, by Kaneda
• Slackware packages by Eric Hameleers, together with build scripts
• Slackware packages and build scripts by Robby Workman
• Slackware packages and build scripts at slack.sarava.org
• Slackware packages and build scripts by Guillaume Edmond
• Sophisticated build scripts by Martijn Dekker. Do not need root privileges because of fakeroot employed.
• Build scripts and sources of multiple packages, by Stefano Stabellini
• Slackware build scripts by Marc Poiroud
• develia.org, a big repository of i686-optimized packages for Slackware -current, by Giacomo Lozito
• alphageek by Erik Jan Tromp
• SlackPack: Slackware packages by Georgi Sotirov (since 2007)
• SlackBuild scripts for various applications by George Georgakis
• A collection of personal SlackBuilds by Phantom X, Goiania, Brazil. Highly recommended!
• Packages and iso images for the latest stable Slackware release and the -current branch, by Ponce
• Opennix binary Slackware packages by Mike living in Northern California
• Jay The Obscure's Slackware Packages by Jay Scott Raymond (up to Slack-11.0)
• Extended Slackware isn't an alternative distribution but a set of additional packages for the latest stable release
• Slackers.it repository is a rich collection of mostly network-related packages and (excellent!) build scripts for the -current branch, by Corrado Franco
• cpan2tgz is a great tool by Jason Woodward for building Perl modules and then creating a Slackware package
• aliens2slack is a set of two scripts by Helmut Hullen and an older script by Tony Borras. The scripts convert Debian and RPM packages to Slackware ones
• deb2tgz is a shell script to convert Debian packages to Slackware packages, by Marcos Henrique Esteves Barbosa
• Projects aimed to simplify the creation of Slackware packages:
  • Slkbuild is an Arch-like tool to simplify building packages, by George Vlahavas. Slkbuild is being used in Salix.
  • AST ("Alien's SlackBuild Toolkit") is interactive web-based SlackBuild generator by Eric Hameleers
  • Makepack by Henrik Carlqvist "is a Makefile which together with a settings file and some simple rule files are able to download, compile and install software for your Slackware installation."
  • Portpkg – a ports system for Slackware Linux
  • slackmatic, a package build system for Slackware, by Wayne Marshall
  • SlackBuilder is a tool to automatically build packages from source, by Stefano Stabellini
  • RequiredBuilder is a tool by Stefano Stabellini that can be used by Slackware packages developers to automatically create the slack-required file needed by slapt-get to check dependencies
  • Emerde "is the port of Gentoo's portage system that installs, removes, updates, maintains your system"
  • Spack is a standalone packaging toolkit aiming to keep a total compatibility with Slackware, by Sébastien Boillod. It is accompanied by GUST, a tagfile generator (NEW)
  • src2pkg is a sophisticated but easy to use system for creating installable Slackware packages, by Gilbert Ashley; check this article at Linux.com for a review by Drew Ames (November 30, 2007). Dozens of packages built with src2pkg are provided as a part of Amigo Linux project
  • src2slack is a bash script for building Slackware packages
  • tukbuild is a bash script that contains functions often needed in build scripts
  • mkslack is a SlackBuild generator script by David Woodfall
• Slackfind provides search tools for Slackware packages across various repositories

Applications specifically written or configured for Slackware:

• GNOME SlackBuild – a complete and non-intrusive GNOME distribution for Slackware (former Freerock GNOME)
• GWARE – an "unitrusive" GNOME packaged for Slackware
• Dropline GNOME – another GNOME desktop for Slackware
• Garnome is a build utility for the GNOME desktop. It isn't specifically configured for Slackware but can be used to build and install Gnome and keep your basic Slackware system intact
• Sbopkg is the Slackbuilds.org package browser, by Chess Griffin
• Swaret – an updating tool for Slackware
• SlackRoll is a package or upgrade manager, by Ricardo Garcia
• Slackware Linux stuff by Stuart Winter
• Slackware package browser by Andreas Liebschner
• depfinder is a tool that finds dependencies of Slackware packages;
• dotnew is an utility aimed to help with the management of .new system configuration files. The author of both tools is George Vlahavas
• Useful scripts by Sylvain Robitaille. Among them: a script to upgrade Slackware, to list dependencies of a given package, and a script for automatic installation of Slack on several machines
• Tool for upgrading Slackware, by Dr. Martin Rogge
• Slackware Security Patcher, by pyllyukko
• Spkg is "the unofficial Slackware Linux package manager" by Ondrej Jirman (implemented in C and optimized for speed)
• Slackpack by Mystical Groovy is a GUI package manager with a lot of useful functions
• Comparepkg – a Perl script by Mark Hill for checking permissions/ownership of files
• Slackcurrent – a Python script to check for new packages in the -current tree
• Sous-marin tools by R. Earle Harris is a collection of bash scripts for analyzing and maintaining a Slackware installation (NEW)
• getpkg – a Python script to download and install Slackware packages
• SlackIns – a Qt-based GUI for pkgtool
• pkgsrc-on-slack by ole.andre.rodlie is an "Instant pkgsrc framework for Slackware"
• QTGZManager is a Qt4 frontend to pkgtool, by Alexandre Albuquerque Arnt
• Junkview – a suite of awk and bash scripts to analyse iptables firewall log files and summarise data in a plaintext presentation, by Grant Coady
• sf4sf is an awk script by Grant Coady to display iptables firewall activity. It is originally designed to complement SlackFire but also works with other iptables based firewalls
• Netdraw is a tool for monitoring activity of a network interface, by Grant Coady
• slapt-get – an APT-like system for Slackware package management and GSlapt, its GTK version, by Jason Woodward; slapt-src is a companion project
• Slack-Kickstart – a project aimed to automate installation of Slackware, e.g., on a large number of servers
• Kslackcheck – an utility to check Slackware changelogs updates in KDE or text, by Mangus&Gk
• Simplepkg, "a non-intrusive package management system running on top of pkgtool"
• PKGsummon, a (GUI) program by Giacomo Lozito for the management of Slackware tarballs
• Slackselect, an ncurses-based tool aimed to manage Slackware packages, by Asturio Kee
• SlackRoll, a package or update manager for Slackware systems
• SlackUpdate is a bash script by Rob Hunter that can be used to check for, download, and install Slackware updates
• slakbootIBS (Slackware Interactive Boot Scripts) is an enhanced set of replacement boot scripts for Slackware
• Sligdo is a hack to generate Slackware-12.0 isos from the Slackware 12.0 file tree, by Erik Jan Tromp
• SlackFire is an iptables script with a number of configuration files

Articles devoted to managing and configuring Slackware:

• Quick hands-on guide installing an Internet Server on Slackware Linux by Jean-Pierre Menicucci
• Enabling Kerberos in Slackware by Douglas Mayne
• Intro to Slackware Package Management, published by Linux.com on Thursday, 03 December 2009
• The beginner's guide to Slackware Linux, by Mike Saunders, published by TechRadar on June 21st, 2009
• Why use upgradepkg instead of remove+installpkg?, by Robby Workman, posted on AOLS on Sept 17, 2008
• Bootable CD with slackware 12, by Alien Bob; published by LinuxQuestions.org on 09-07-2007
• Setting up a Wireless Network with Slackware 12 by Armin Meyer-Larsen. Other Slackware-related writeups by the author can be found here
• Kerberizing Slackware without PAM, by Tom Canich [27 Jan 2011]
• Easy Update and Package Management for Slackware 13 by Donnie Tevault
• How To Properly Set Up Slackware Linux, by Dugan Chen
• A Slackware Desktop Enhancement Guide, by Darrell Anderson
• An old hacker slaps up Slackware, by Joe Barr [Linux.com, October 26, 2005]
• Notes on Slackware 10.0, 11.0 and 12.0 by Bob
• Slackware Snort Installation Guide, by Jeffrey Denton [23 Sept 2007]
• Experience Upgrading Slackware-Current, by Willy Sudiarto Raharjo [March 23, 2007]
• Installing Slackware and Making It Secure by Cezary M. Kruk [Linux Gazette, 06/01/2003]
• Installing Slackware on a Compaq Proliant 5000 – a story by Todd A. Aiken
• Reviews of Slackware-13.0 and Slackware-12.2, by Robby Pedric
• The Stealth Desktop: Part I, Part II, and Part III by Eduardo Sánchez [OfB, July-September 2004]
• DeXtop CDE on Slackware HOWTO by Greg Schenzel (18-Mar-2007)

Slackware newsgroup, forums, and mailing list:

• alt.os.linux.slackware
• Slackware forum at LinuxQuestions.org
• LinuxPackages Forum
• Slackware off-topic mailing list
• Discussion list for Slackware; visit mailman.lug.org.uk to subscribe
• SlackForum.DE (in German)

Slackware blogs:

• Alien Pastures by Eric Hameleers
• Unofficial SlackBlogs by Willy Sudiarto Raharjo
• Slackware Linux and Related Goodies by Tyler Longren, James Bowling, and Lehman Black
• Slackware blog by Michiel van Wessem
• Slackware-related blog by Trent Isaacson
• Slackware Blog by Ismail Demiral
• Multiple Slackware-related writeups ("SysAdmin Adventures") by Zordrak

Miscellaneous sites devoted or related to Slackware:

• userlocal.com by mRgOBLIN
• zuul.slackware.com by David Cantrell, Logan Johnson, and Chris Lumens
• Slackware-related stuff (and other interesting materials) by Edafe Knabe
• alphageek by Erik Jan Tromp
• Miscellaneous materials by William Park, including Installing Slackware using script and NFS-root and Thin-client
• Planet Slackadelic
• DarkVision: Stuff that matters for Slackware Linux, by Markus Kanet. One of the most beautiful Slackware-related sites, with a lot of useful tools
• Linux Slackware-Advocacy
• slackwaresupport.com
• Andrew's Corner of the Web by Andrew Strong has a number of writeups on configuring some programs under Slackware as well as a few other helpful materials (NEW)
• Slackware in Brazil:
  • slack.sarava.org
  • Slacklife
  • Slackware Zine
• Slackware in Chile:
  • SlackwareCL
• Slackware in France:
  • Communauté Francophone Slackware Linux
• Slackware in Indonesia
  • Slackware-ID planet (in English)
  • Makassar Slackers
• Slackware in Italy:
  • Slacky.eu: The Italian Slackware Community (a site with huge repository of Slackware packages and build scripts)
  • Slackers.it: Stylish Italian Slackware -current journal
  • Slackware Linux Project Italia
• Slackware in Mexico:
  • Tuxjm LUG
• Slackware in Russia:
  • Slackware LUG in Tomsk
  • Slackware.ru is another Russian resource devoted to Slackware. Includes a wiki and a forum

Slackware-based projects:

• Absolute Linux, "A full-featured desktop on a single CD that can still work on older equiptment." The project includes a number of "Absolute Utilities"
• Arktur is a school server used in more than 2000 schools in Germany and abroad
• Comal-Linux is "an unofficial Muslim edition of Slackware," packaged as a live CD
• Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL) is a live DVD purposefully stuffed with broken, ill-configured, outdated and exploitable software in order to teach and demonstrate a variety of security topics
• DeLi Linux is a distribution for old computers, focused on desktop usage. It has a BSD-like ports system borrowed from CRUX.
• Draco is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Slackware and pkgsrc by NetBSD
• Dragora is an Argentinian free distribution that takes inspiration in Slackware
• Easys GNU/Linux – system integration made easy
• HostGIS Linux is a distribution specifically made for handling GIS information
• Imagineos (formerly GoblinX) is a bootable live CD or pendrive distribution
• Kongoni is a desktop oriented operating system of African origin. It uses the ports system for building packages.
• Kwort is a "modern, fast and easy to use Linux distribution that combines Xfce and some other useful tools to a powerful desktop", by David B. Cortarello and a number of contributors
• Linvo GNU/Linux is a Slackware-based distribution and live CD with GNOME as the default desktop
• LiveCD Router is a live CD firewall/router based on Slackware 9.1
• Mutagenix: a suite of Slackware-based live CDs
• NetSecL Linux (former ISlack), by Iuri Stanchev
• NimbleX is a nice live CD (USB pen) by Bogdan Radulescu (Romania); uses KDE.
• Nonux is a distribution optimised for office use in Dutch-speaking office environments
• Parslinux is a distro and live DVD with a partial support for Persian (Farsi), as well as the default English language
• Porteus is a portable distro to be used from a USB stick, CDROM, etc. (NEW)
• RIP (Recovery Is Possible), a rescue CD by Kent Robotti
• Salix is a distro optimized for desktop usage. Packages from its repository are claimed to be fully compatible with Slackware
• Slackel is a modular live CD with KDE and Compiz developed in Greece by Dimitris Jemos
• Slacko ia a new (as of October 2011) flagship release of Puppy Linux, built with binary compatibility with Slackware 13.37 packages (NEW)
• slakbootEBS is a software development kit for the automated creation of bootable embedded systems based on Slackware and BusyBox
• SLAMPP – an "instant home server" by Kemas Yunus Antonius
• SLAX – definitely, one of the best Linux live CDs, by Tomas Matejicek.
• Superb Mini Server (SMS) is a distro with web, DNS, DHCP, file, print and fax servers, iptables firewall, mail server, etc. but no GUI!
• STUX is a distro built in Italy. A review of its release 2.0 can be found here.
• Two "startup environments" by Douglas Mayne:
  • 10.2-live, a bootable CD that demonstrates the necessary elements for making your own live CD or DVD; check this post on AOLS;
  • erf-dm enables using encrypted partitions.
• Tukaani Linux distribution from Finland. Definitely worth trying. Unfortunately, the project is officially dead since 2007-06-15.
• Zenwalk (formerly Minislack) is a Slackware-based distro with its own package management tool.
• Slackware-based distributions, a list maintained by Wikipedia

The Man Patrick J. Volkerding:

• Home page
• The Man at Wikipedia
• Interviews:
  • An Interview for Linux Journal by Phil Hughes, April 1st, 1994
  • Replies from Slackware Founder Patrick Volkerding – Slashdot
  • The Linux distribution that's always in the black by Sam Varghese, The Age, October 4 2002

Miscellany:

• AOLS Fortune Mod by Faux_Pseudo
• Unofficial History of Slackware releases by Tom Newsom
• A complete overview of all Slackware versions by Niels Horn
• A history of Slackware development (and the principles of Slackware package management), by Eric Hameleers (pdf)
• Get Slack! by Guillermo Garron (December 30, 2010)
• Dependency-confessions from a Slacker by Hannes Worst (December 27, 2010)
• Ode to Slackware by usr_local (January 2010)
• Slackware Linux—Less is More, by Richard Hillesley (January 2010)
• Why you should try Slackware?, interview with Eric Hameleers published by the Linux Magazine on September 2nd, 2009
• The story of how I found Slackware Linux, or ``Once You Go Slack, You Never Go Back,'' by Trent Isaacson (2009/06/17)
• Slackware: the classic distro that's as timely as ever, by Gary Maxwell. Published by LXer on September 28, 2007
• Get Slack, by Richard Hillesley. A nice writeup on the history of Slackware. Published by Tux Deluxe on March 30th, 2007.
• 7 Reasons I use Slackware (November 2, 2006)
• WHY SLACKWARE WILL ALWAYS MATTER – an essay published on LinuxQuestions, 2006-06-18
• Slackware's init Explained by Peter Kaagman
• Propaganda – Slackware graphics and banners
• ##slackware links page is "A Pooling of ##slackware and Slackware Resources" by Ron Sinclair
• Slackware Art – Slackware art gallery at LinuxPackages
• Splashy on Slackware, a guide on installing Splashy
• Cooking Up Some Slack (CUSS), a guide on making a Slackware-based distribution, published by LinuxQuestions.org on 2006-02-23
• Slackware 12.0 AWESOME on the eee; published on 2007-11-10
• Slackware Linux – a list of Slackware-related resources maintained by Distrowatch
• A list of reviews of different releases of Slackware maintained by ReviewLinux.com
• Another list of links to Slackware-related resources, by LinuxQuestions

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Please, don't hesitate to let us* know about Slackware-related resources that can be useful for the community. We will be glad to consider adding them to the list.

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