This page is about how to install and configure popular applications which do not belong to the Slackware default packages.

See Mercurial Tips and Subversion Tips

Slack packages are available here. Use the full-featured version

According to the VLC Homepage, VLC 0.9.8 is available as Slack package for 12.2 (and 12.1) here.
Note that - like xine - VLC also depends on libdvdcss¹⁾ for DVD playback.

• Download tarball bundle from www.frostwire.com.
• Installation steps:

cd /usr/local
tar -xfz frostwire-4.17.1.noarch.tar.gz
chown -R root:root frostwire-4.17.1.noarch
ln -s frostwire-4.17.1.noarch frostwire

• Create /usr/local/bin/frostwire with the following content and make it runnable:

#!/bin/bash
exec /usr/local/frostwire/runFrostwire.sh

Update: Slack 13.0 works with the dynamic tarball (skype-2.1.0.47). To get the speaker and internal mic (laptop) working, start alsamixer, press F5, unmute Master and PCM (Key m), set both to about 75, enable CAPTUR for Mic (not for Mix - with Space key), enable CAPTUR for Capture and set it to about 75 and finally set Digital to 50.

Installation was done on Slack 12.0 with KDE as windowmanager, KDE soundsystem (artsd) running. The static version skype_static-2.0.0.72 was necessary. For dynamic version shared libraries were missing (ldd skype shows which).

• As of Slack 13.0 obsolete: Start KMix, activate switches → mic and set inputs → digital to 100%. Otherwise the microphone will not work. The level of the other mic controls in output and input of KMix do not matter, they can be 0. Store sound config with alsactl store
• Add all users wich will use skype to the groups audio and video in /etc/group. Without audio, the mic for non-root users will not work. Without video the webcam (see below) will not work.
• Unpack tarball to /usr/local and cd into the new skype dir. Type kdesu skype and a test call should work out of the box.
• Make some symlinks as root (There is also a Skype package at www.SlackBuilds.org. If you prefere to use this instead of the binary provided by skype.com, this step is not necessary):

# make a version-free symlink to ease upgrades:
cd /usr/local
ln -s skype_static-2.0.0.72 skype
 
# make skype easy startable:
cd /usr/local/bin
ln -s ../skype/skype/
 
# make ressources findable by skype (see README of skype tarball):
cd /usr/share
mkdir skype
cd skype
ln -s /usr/local/skype/avatars
ln -s /usr/local/skype/lang
ln -s /usr/local/skype/sounds

This section is about the Logitech Quickcam Pro for Notebooks webcam. It provides high resolution, good autofocus and works excellent in little lighted rooms. A backdraw is, that fast movement are rather blurry.

As of version 12.2 Slack already ships with the necessary uvcvideo kernel moduele and thus supports the camera out of the box. Therefore the rest of this section is useful only for Slack 12.0 or 12.1.

The lsusb command reveals that the USB-ID of the webcam is 046d:0991. (Be careful, there exist older models of the same camera type with different ID's which probably need another driver (pwc kernel module). See QuickCam Team and www.qbik.ch)

The PDF-list at QuickCam Team lists my 0x0991 (Asic SPCA527) and says driver uvcvideo is necessary:

1. Download Linux UVC from Openfacts
2. Install it with make, become root, then make install
3. Reboot, in order to get the new kernel module recognized by the system
4. Check if the new uvcvideo module is loaded properly when webcam pluged in with lsmod or tail -f /var/log/messages
5. Check if /dev/video0 gets created
6. Start Skype and test the webcam with Main Menu → Options → Video → Test
7. Enjoy video!

• http://blog.gnist.org/article.php?story=Linux_and_LogitechQuickCamPro9000
• http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_a_webcam#Loading_driver tells how to create /dev/video0 and how to load the kernel module manually.
• http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Linux+UVC has many infos about how to use uvc.

Slack 14.2 dependencies for v. 0.92.2 according to slackbuilds:

lxml
  BeautifulSoup4
  html5lib
   six
   python-webencodings
numpy

gtkmm and its dependencies ship with Slack 14.2 now. Be sure to remove old SBo packages bevore installing Inkscape!

Slack 14.1 dependencies according to slackbuilds:

gsl
gtkmm
  mm-common
  atkmm
     pangomm
       cairomm
         glibmm
            libsigc++
numpy
lxml
  BeautifulSoup

For Slack 13.37 sources and buildscripts are available at www.slackbuilds.org. Dependency tree for inkscape on Slack 13.37:

inkscape
  gc
  gsl
  gtkmm
    atkmm
      pangomm
        cairomm
          glibmm
            libsigc++
          graphviz (optional)
  lxml (optional)
  numpy (optional)

Compile and install leaves first, trunk (inkscape) last!

For Slack12.2 sources and buildscripts are available at www.slackbuilds.org. Build packages in this order:

1. boost
2. libsigc++ → glibmm → cairomm → gtkmm
3. gc
4. inkscape

Install each package before building the next. Build packages as root!

For Slack12.0 sources and buildscripts are available at www.slackbuilds.org. Build packages in this order: cairomm, gc, libsigc++, glibmm, gtkmm, inkscape. Install each package before building the next. Build packages as root!

For Slack11.0 inkscape and all depending packages are available at www.linuxpackages.net.

See Multimedia Tools

Add the users e.g. becki & meli to the group disk cdrom in /etc/group, switch off window manager, log out, log in again and start WM

Download & install libdvdcss²⁾

Get mplayer-codecs-all buildscript for Slack11 from www.SlackBuilds.org and the newest all-<DATE>.tar.bz2 codecs from here (The codecs link at SlackBuilds.org may be outdated). Then adjust the VERSION-varible in mplayer-codecs-all.SlackBuild to the date of all-<DATE>.tar.bz2. Build the package and install it.

xine seems to be able to play wmv files natively. But it can't harm to additonally install mplayer-codecs-all for Slack12 as described obove.

Slack now ships with Mplayer

Get buildscripts for MPlayer and mplayer-codecs-all from www.SlackBuilds.org. Build and install the packages.

For Slack11 you must download a theme before building the MPlayer package (see README), otherwise only the mplayer not the gmplayer (with GUI) command will work.

Howto build the mplayer-codecs-all package is described above in the xine section.

1. Get localized tarball from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html or US tarball from www.mozilla.com
2. Unpack archive in /usr/local/lib
3. /usr/local/lib# mv firefox firefox-[version]
4. /usr/local/lib# ln -s firefox-[version] firefox
5. /usr/bin# mv firefox firefox.org
6. /usr/bin# ln -s ../lib/firefox/firefox # don't use /usr/local/bin cause KDE won't find it!

Untested yet: Allow firefox to auto-update itself for all users:

1. /usr/local/lib# chgrp -R users firefox
2. /usr/local/lib# chmod -R g+w firefox

Firefox comes with gxine plugin preinstalled, but it didn't work properly for me on Slack 12.0. To remove it, rename the file /usr/lib/gxine/gxineplugin.so to something else, eg: /usr/lib/gxine/gxineplugin.so.off. Any better solution?

cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
ln -s /usr/loca/java/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so

Check with about:plugins

Source

• /usr/local/lib/firefox/plugins# ln -s /usr/local/share/RealPlayer10/mozilla/nphelix.so
• /usr/local/lib/firefox/plugins# ln -s /usr/local/share/RealPlayer10/mozilla/nphelix.xpt

This is what the install script of RealPlayer 10 has done

Download links at plugindoc.

Download tar.gz for Linux, unpack and move libflashplayer.so into your system wide browser plugins directory (/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins). Then make libflashplayer.so runnable.

Download „Download Installer for Linux“, not the Standalone player. Move libflashplayer.so into plugins directory

Copy libflashplayer.so to your Mozilla plugins directory and flashplayer.xpt to your Mozilla components directory

On some internet pages flash content can be rather annoying. This script switches flash on and off just by renaming the flash solib:

#!/bin/bash
# Switches Flash in Firefox on or off
# Installation: Copy this script to /usr/local/bin/sbflash
# Usage: Just type 'sbflash' to switch flash on or off
 
flashlib='/usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so'
 
if [ -r $flashlib ]; then
    mv $flashlib "$flashlib.off"
    echo "Flash is OFF now."
elif [ -r "$flashlib.off" ]; then
    mv "$flashlib.off" $flashlib
    echo "Flash is ON now."
    echo "Point firefox to 'about:config' to enable flash!"
else
    echo "Error: Flash is not available."
fi

Description of all about:config entries

browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent = false in about:config means, that new tabs are created at the right end of the tab bar as last tab.

firefox-1.0.6/defaults/profile/prefs.js says: „To make a manual change to preferences, you can visit the URL about:config . For more information, see customizing mozilla. In newer versions a sytem wide prefs.js doesn't exist any more, but there is a greprefs/all.js & defaults/pref/firefox.js, maybe that can be used for system wide defaults.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Editing_configuration

Descricption of command line control for firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html

Search for the file prefs.js in ~/.mozilla/firefox & create a new file called user.js in the same dir where prefs.js is located:

// user.js:
user_pref("print.postscript.cups.enabled", false);
user_pref("print.print_command", "kprinter"); // works only when cups disabled

Attempts to configure this system wide for all users in /usr/lib/firefox/firefox.js failed.

Sources: linuxquestions.org, ubuntuforums.org & customizing mozilla

No solution found yet!

To disable animated GIF images set image.animation_mode to once or none in about:config

See Nano Text Editor

The Jedit page has a Slackware package. This is the simplest way to install it. Alternatively, you can use the java based installer:

Get java based installer from jedit.org and run # java -jar jedit4.3pre8install.jar text

Installation directory: [/root/jedit/4.3pre8] /usr/local/jedit-4.3pre8
Install shortcut in: [/usr/local/bin]
Install manual page in: [/usr/local/man/man1]

Make a version-independent symlink: /usr/local# ln -s jedit-4.3pre8 jedit

Remove absolte pathnames and reuse always the same instance of jedit when specifing files on the command line in /usr/local/bin/jedit:

#exec "$JAVA_HOME/bin/java" -server -mx${JAVA_HEAP_SIZE}m ${JEDIT} -classpath "/usr/local/jedit/4.3pre8/jedit.jar" \
#org.gjt.sp.jedit.jEdit $@
exec java -server -mx${JAVA_HEAP_SIZE}m ${JEDIT} -classpath "/usr/local/jedit/jedit.jar" \
org.gjt.sp.jedit.jEdit -reuseview $@

Usefull script to insert current date and time (e.g.: 2007-05-03 13:55), save it to ~/jedit/macros or /usr/local/jedit/macros and define a shortcut for it:

/* Inserts the current date and time at the caret position 2007-05-03 */
void nuAd(StringBuilder sb, int zahl) {
    if (zahl<10) sb.append("0");
    sb.append(zahl);
}
Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
StringBuilder sb= new StringBuilder();
nuAd(sb, now.get(Calendar.YEAR));
sb.append("-"); nuAd(sb, now.get(Calendar.MONTH)+1);
sb.append("-"); nuAd(sb, now.get(Calendar.DATE));
sb.append(" "); nuAd(sb, now.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY));
 
sb.append(":"); nuAd(sb, now.get(Calendar.MINUTE));
//sb.append(":"); nuAd(sb, now.get(Calendar.SECOND));
textArea.setSelectedText(sb.toString()); /* insert date and time to textarea */

I got PrOOo-Box V 2.0.3. It contained only rpm's. Converted them with rpm2tgz. Checked installation target by issuing tar -tzf *.tgz | most. Target was always /opt/openOpffice… : IYES. Installed with installpkg *.tgz

• Symlink /opt/open… → /opt/ooo
• Symlink /usr/local/bin/soffice → /opt/ooo/program/soffice
• Start OOo with command soffice

Go-OO is said to be better than the original oOO , see linux.com — 2008-12-05

• Alternatively download OOo from http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/ via Bittorrent
• To convert files of different formats from the command line by help of OOo, e.g. to convert Word → PDF see oooforum.org and ooomacros.org
• Manipulate OOo documents without OOo: Introduction to OpenOffice.org Writer Files
• Developers Guide (also for scripting)
• The CD contains also document templates in cdrom/templates

Vorgehen gemäß http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/linux.html#RealPlayer RealPlayer10GOLD.bin runterladen, ausführbar machen, ausführen als root
Als Installationsverzeichnis /usr/local/share/RealPlayer setzen

Es kommt die Frage „configure system-wide symbolic links? [Y/n]“, bei dem ein Timeout abläuft
Bisher nicht rausgefunden, wie man diesen Vorgang abbricht. Es werden etliche Objekte auserhalb des o.a. /usr/local/share/RealPlayer angelegt, ist aber alles dokumentiert in /usr/local/share/RealPlayer/install.log
Vorteil des automatischen anlegens: Die erforderlichen Symlinks werden auch gleich ins Firefox-Plugin-Dir angelegt

Symlink zum Programmstart muß trotzdem manuell gesetzt werden:
root@berta:/usr/local/bin# ln -s ../share/RealPlayer/realplay

See CD Ripping with abcde

Available eg at slackware-12.0/extra/bittorrent/. Install with installpkg.

Use bittorrent-curses torrentfile.torrent from the command line.

See FAQ for generic information and slack readme for usage with a browser.

An alternative with GUI is the comfortable ktorrent

Get Scsi device number of your burner with cdrecord -scanbus, eg. 0.0.0 or 1.5.0. Then create the file /etc/default/cdrecord with the device number, example:

CDR_DEVICE=0,0,0
CDR_SPEED=4

speed 4 for recording is a conservative choice. No speed specification at all or CDR_SPEED=0 means highest possible speed for the specific drive e.g. 24. This may cause write errors (Happend on Slack10.2 / HP Compaq nc6000). See man cdrecord. — 2007-07-25

To allow other users than root to read & burn cdroms, make the tools suid root. See also man cdrecord / readcd:

chmod 4711 /usr/bin/cdrecord
chmod 4711 /usr/bin/readcd

See commands -> cdrtools for burning cd's.

what abour cdrdoao?

1. Make sure Apache is running
2. Download & unpack the man-package as sourccode, eg slackware-current/source/ap/man/
3. Install CGI files from the source package to Apache CGI path:

   cp -r man-1.6g/man2html/scripts/cgi-bin/man /var/www/cgi-bin
   cp -r man-1.6g/man2html/scripts/cgi-aux/man /var/www/cgi-bin/man/aux

4. Fix the path in /var/www/cgi-bin/man/man2html:

   -MANX="/home/httpd/cgi-aux/man/man.aux"
   +MANX="/var/www/cgi-bin/man/aux/man.aux"

5. URL is: http://localhost/cgi-bin/man/man2html

The Links in the „Index of pages“ do not work.