I am announcing the publication of my latest article: Custom Slackware Repository. It is a detailed tutorial for building your own repository of Slackware packages, using slackrepo. Slackrepo is a tool developed by David Spencer and maintained by Andrew Clemons, designed to build package repositories from SlackBuilds such as the ones available from the page of the same name.
My article should be of interest to any Slackware fan that manages a medium to large fleet of Slackware computers. Not only do I explain how to build a repository of customized packages, but I also explain how to integrate your clients machines with it in such a way that custom packages won’t create conflicts with official ones. I also offer an overview of the advantages of the Slackware model of software distribution, so the article ought to be interesting for users of other distributions up to a certain point.
This publication is meant to be a sweet farewell to the Slackware world. I have been using Slackware since the days of version 13.1, and while I love its software distribution model and its overall design philosophy, I have found myself drawn closer and closer each year to the BSD world, to the point I have replaced most of my personal Linux systems for OpenBSD ones. I only have one Linux machine left, which happens to be running Devuan. Of course, I still administrate many Linux machines at work, but none of them happens to have Slackware on it.
You may find the article in Linux Magazine #272.