Tidying my system

[Sasquatch]

I've been spending a lot of time experimenting with SlackBuilds and installing from source just to try different programs and get comfortable with installing software. This has left my system rather cluttered and confusing. Is there a simple way to return it to original without reinstalling and losing all my data?

Right now, my root partition is 76% full mostly due to /usr having tons of stuff added to it by various builds.

On a related note, should there be anything excluded from updates in Gslapt? Seems some SlackBuilds add programs to the Gslapt exclude list to keep updates from breaking their dependencies. My exclude list looks like this;

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^aaa_elflibs
^aaa_base
^devs
^glibc.*
^kernel-.*
^rootuser-settings
^zzz-settings.*
-i?86-

Can I just remove all of those exclusions?

Once I get back to the stock configuration, what's the Best Practice for keeping track of what has been installed? I have fun installing from source to try out new programs, but I can never figure out how to remove all traces of that program. Is there a log that explains what files and directories were created during the install?

[mimosa]

No, don't remove the exclusions, except (optionally) any you added yourself, which none of those looks like being. They are there to prevent important system components from being clobbered, such as the kernel.

If you install things you build so they are visible to Salix package management system (for example, by using spkg, if you're not using spi or slapt-src), you can use Salix package management tools to manage them - if not, it may be quite difficult to keep track.

It may nonetheless be worth trying

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sudo slapt-get --clean
sudo slapt-src --clean

[Sasquatch]

So probably a lot of time spent with dependency-checking scripts and manually deleting directories.

That's probably the one big failing of Linux, the inability to clearly track related programs. But I don't know if other OSes are any better at it.

[mimosa]

You'd be fine if you stayed within the package management system - one of the main things Salix adds to Slackware.

[Sasquatch]

You'd be fine if you stayed within the package management system - one of the main things Salix adds to Slackware.

Unfortunately, most of what I've wanted to install was unavailable in the repositories.

I also suspect that much of the current bloat in my system is due to stored sources from various SlackBuilds. I'll have to look at what is stored and see what I can safely delete.

[mimosa]

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slapt-src --clean 

will take care of those stored source files. But unless you're actually short of space (and it is a good thing to have plenty of free space in a filesystem), they do no harm and save bandwidth should you wish to reinstall the package in future.

If you build your own applications (or install third-party binaries), you're on your own. So either you need to keep track yourself, or you can make them into Salix / Slackware packages and install them as such, in which case they will be recognised by Salix's package management system. The learning curve there really is about keeping track of what you needed to do to make the build work and the application run. That way, you don't find yourself in the situation that it works (or not) but you're not really sure what you did to your system to get it there. It is recorded in a reproducible build script and the relevant .dep file.

You don't have to do any of that of course, but any resulting problems are not defects in the distribution.

[Sasquatch]

If you build your own applications (or install third-party binaries), you're on your own. So either you need to keep track yourself, or you can make them into Salix / Slackware packages and install them as such, in which case they will be recognised by Salix's package management system. The learning curve there really is about keeping track of what you needed to do to make the build work and the application run. That way, you don't find yourself in the situation that it works (or not) but you're not really sure what you did to your system to get it there. It is recorded in a reproducible build script and the relevant .dep file.

You don't have to do any of that of course, but any resulting problems are not defects in the distribution.

I think I need to learn to make packages. Otherwise it's nearly impossible to track down every directory created by installing a program. I am very bad about documenting what I do.

[ibka]

Read this for learning howto create package https://docs.salixos.org/wiki/Building_ ... h_slkbuild

[Sasquatch]

That doesn't look complicated at all. I assume you make the package then install it to test it and make adjustments as needed to get it to work on your system.

[mimosa]

Rinse and repeat, yes.

There are various tools that may or may not be mentioned in the doc that help, for instance

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man depfinder

This may be a good place to look, too, though it is aimed at those making packages for the repositories:

https://docs.salixos.org/wiki/New_to_Packaging

If you like you can upload your packages somewhere and make them available to other users by posting a link in Contributed Packages.