USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Here is a place for your projects which are not officially supported by the Porteus Team. For example: your own kernel patched with extra features; desktops not included in the standard ISO like Gnome; base modules that are different than the standard ISO, etc...
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francois
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#286 by francois » 07 Sep 2014, 02:55

Code: Select all

cd usm
make install
...

...
The 'make' program is not installed on your system. In order
to compile any software, you will need to download and/or
activate the porteus 'devel' module, which contains make, gcc
and other programs that are necessary to compile source code.

Please visit http://dl.porteus.org/i486/current/modules to download
the appropriate development module for your version and architecture.

Press enter to quit this program.  If you are running a build
script, it may continue and state additional errors.
Just installed 05-devel.xzm from http://dl.porteus.org/i486/current/modules:

Code: Select all

root@porteus:/tmp# md5sum 05-devel.xzm
a86454763bba28beb7cb441be0ffd8e9  05-devel.xzm
which is different than the one I had:

Code: Select all

root@porteus:/mnt/sda5/32bit_v30/porteus/modules# md5sum 05-devel.xzm
b055cb11d2c752b9c8b611c7aa328d34  05-devel.xzm
usm built fine. I reboot now.
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#287 by francois » 07 Sep 2014, 03:40

Ok. Loosing my time here. I imagine that I have to mloop the new iso to get usm module!
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#288 by brokenman » 07 Sep 2014, 03:45

You said that usm built fine. Does that mean that when you reboot it is still OK? The module is on the sourceforge page.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/usm/fil ... m/download

Until you update to Porteus v3.0.1 you will continue to have the problem with whiteout files when using changes=EXIT. Any reason you haven't updated to Porteus v3.0.1?
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#289 by francois » 07 Sep 2014, 03:54

Just a little lazy. I have so many porteus installations on my different linux boxes and some 64 bit other 32 bit. I finally get mixed up between the one I use. I thought it might be simpler for me to wait for 3.1.

But as we are coming to it. I will change for 3.0.1 on my main installation alone.

Sorry for the trouble.
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#290 by francois » 09 Sep 2014, 11:33

After that distrowatch review, I was sad to receive the critic on usm. We need outsiders with a new eye to comment on usm, it seems:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=3830

Improvements after the comment of Jessie Smith are some standard settings of usm for its use with porteus:
- automatically transforming txz into modules
- automatically dumping the modules in /porteus/modules
- activating the different modules

Thanks.
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#291 by brokenman » 09 Sep 2014, 13:48

From the review I gathered that the tester did not even find USM. Otherwise he/she would surely have found a package manager. The current version offers the option to install downloaded packages and convert to modules (then open the folder after downloading). I have to wonder if he/she tried double clicking/right clicking on the files that were downloaded. Most certainly the review is useful as it is from the eyes of a new user. My thoughts/questions follow.

- automatically transforming txz into modules
This should be the default option when in Porteus? It could take much more time with larger/many modules.

- automatically dumping the modules in /porteus/modules
This has inherent problems. Also many users may not want every module they download to load at every boot which is the advantage of modularity.

- activating the different modules
Any suggestions?

EDIT: In the screenshot he/she clearly has the USM window open. At the bottom you can clearly see: STORAGE: /tmp/usm. During the download process there is an option to convert to modules. After the download a dedicated window pops up asking if the user wants to open the folder containing the downloads. Reading the rest of the review it is difficult to believe that he/she doesn't understand how modules work. What can be done to make the process more bullet proof?
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#292 by francois » 09 Sep 2014, 16:57

I have the impression that you just nailed it down:
EDIT: In the screenshot he/she clearly has the USM window open. At the bottom you can clearly see: STORAGE: /tmp/usm.
Reading the article, I had the impression that he had used usm. And clearly he did.

During the download process there is an option to convert to modules
He did or maybe did not saw that option, though it is there. In one hand, he did not know the consequences of not activating them. On the other hand, he cannot assume that all distributions are gentoo like or debian like. Maybe he should have read a little more. He did not took the time to see what was wrong.

To be kept as a small and lightning fast distro porteus still sticks to the use of the /porteus/optional folder. We understand that because we come from slax. And we know by experience that the crowding of /porteus/modules folder will slow down the booting process. We are also aware of the dependencies issues.

Conclusions, first there should be a probe about activating the modules otherwise, it will not be operant, as usually people expect that the package manager will result in installing a functional package. Second, there should be a warning about the special modular nature of modules and refer to the choice the user has to place modules in the most appropriate location (wiki or howto)

My few thoughts on the issue.
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#293 by beny » 09 Sep 2014, 17:27

brokenman you have done a good job the salix repository is available thank to you for the first time out of salix environment,deps search is ok i have just try with vlc from salix repos and all the txz are stored into /tmp/usm so via cli it is possible to merge all the packages into one xzm package,i don't have a gui,i think if someone know porteus don't search other system.

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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#294 by brokenman » 09 Sep 2014, 23:18

there should be a probe about activating the modules
Ok so if I understand correctly, the popup window asking if the user wants to 'open' the storage folder should instead be ... "Would you like to activate/install the downloaded packages?"
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#295 by sean » 10 Sep 2014, 00:03

@brokenman,

You know the fella that did the review perhaps was in a hurry or something. francois has made a good point about an activation probe. Most distro's do an automatic install after a download, but we don't.

I would suggest giving a day or so of thought to how you wish to word any instructions. Because of our unique download/install/activate method, it might be a good idea to address the "optional" directory in /porteus also. I'm thinking here of something along the lines of:

You have, or are about to, download(ed) a package from a respoitory. You have 2 options:
1 - Install the package/module after downloading (Porteus calls this "Activate")
2 - Save the package/module in a holding directory on the system which you can access and Install/Activate at a later time. That holding directory is /porteus/optional.

Also the common "layperson -1/4 geek" (me) should be reminded of the effect a sizeable package/module may have on the system.

This then brings up another quandry, how does the user learn/remember/know how to move a package from "optional" to "modules" and Activate it? We know, but is there some easy way to learn them how to do it :-)

Just thinkin,

Sean

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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#296 by francois » 10 Sep 2014, 00:58

Sean:
You know the fella that did the review perhaps was in a hurry or something

This is clear. Maybe he should have read wikipedia on porteus or our first faq about What is porteus? But sadly even if he had done that it seems that the first is outdated and the second does not put in evidence on of the most genuine characteristic of porteus: the modules.

Most of his discussion is positive. He has some difficulties with usm but does not have the time to understand what is going on. Then surprisingly he concludes that the porteus distribution is somewhat weak:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue ... 08#feature
Were I to evaluate Porteus as a general purpose operating system the distribution would fail to gain good marks in most areas. Porteus does not play well with USB thumb drives, the installer really doesn't give us much flexibility, we are given one default user account, no practical security and no meaningful way to acquire additional software.

I use porteus as my main distribution. The only limit of porteus is that it is based on slackware (less software pasture), but the good news is that it has also its stenghts: its efficient and solid.
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#297 by brokenman » 16 Sep 2014, 00:03

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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#298 by francois » 16 Sep 2014, 00:50

brokenman wrote:
there should be a probe about activating the modules
Ok so if I understand correctly, the popup window asking if the user wants to 'open' the storage folder should instead be ... "Would you like to activate/install the downloaded packages?"
I have the impression that this would exactly do the job.

How about the other observers?
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Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

Post#299 by Bogomips » 22 Sep 2014, 15:12

  1. Code: Select all

    root@porteus:/home/guest# usm -v
     You are using USM version:  3.1.6
    root@porteus:/home/guest# usm -i libxt
    
     The following items were found.
     Choose an number to confirm. 
     ctrl+c to quit
    
    1) libXt-1.1.4-i486-1.txz
    2) libXtst-1.2.2-i486-1.txz
    #? 2
    
    Found "Choose an number to confirm." somewhat confusing. Looked like it was going to enter a download phase. Less confusing would have been "Choose an number to view.", for example.
    • Code: Select all

      root@porteus:/home/guest# usm -s libcl
      
      Nothing was found in Slackware but i found this in slackbuilds.
      
      NAME :  libcli 
      CATEG: libraries
      DESC : libcli (cisco style telnet commandline interface library)
      VERS : 1.9.4
      
       Would you like to attempt to build this from source? [y/n]
      Source of Confusion?

      Code: Select all

      OpenCL library and ICD loader from NVIDIA.
      
      Packager: Felix Yan <felixonmars@gmail.com>. License: custom
      
      Binary package:
      
      libcl-1.1-4-i686.pkg.tar.xz
      
      libcl-1.1-4-i686.pkg.tar.xz was sought for package. Suppose it's a difficult decision to decide whether to present libcl?, but in this case one could very well have gone ahead and built the wrong package.
    Linux porteus 4.4.0-porteus #3 SMP PREEMPT Sat Jan 23 07:01:55 UTC 2016 i686 AMD Sempron(tm) 140 Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
    NVIDIA Corporation C61 [GeForce 6150SE nForce 430] (rev a2) MemTotal: 901760 kB MemFree: 66752 kB

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    Re: USM Unified Slackware Package Manager

    Post#300 by Ed_P » 27 Sep 2014, 14:16

    A USM suggestion.

    I recently used the USM Gui to create a module for kpat and when done I clicked on the button to have it open the /tmp/usm/ directory. The /tmp/usm/ window opened and was filled with about 2 dozen files, the dependencies that downloaded, and the single module file in the middle. It took me a moment to see the .xzm file. A newer newbie than I may think that the module wasn't created or that they needed all the dependencies in addition to the actual module.

    It might be wise to delete the dependency files after the module is created. Or create a separate directory for the module, /tmp/usm/xzm for example. Thus when a module is created and the Open Folder option is selected there is no confusion as to what file has been created and needs to be moved to the porteus/extramods directory.
    Ed

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