Slackware AArch64 - Additional Software Repositories

Whilst Slackware has a broad set of software applications in the distribution, there are plenty of others that you may wish to use.

SlackBuilds.org caters for this by providing build recipes to compile the software from source.

For this example we will build the package 'pzip' because it requires no dependencies. Other packages may require dependencies, in which case you will need to follow this example for each dependency before you're able to build the application you want to use.

Elevate yourself to the root user:

su - 

Create a directory to hold the SlackBuilds.org recipes and application source archives:

mkdir -p /usr/src/slackbuilds
cd /usr/src/slackbuilds

wget https://slackbuilds.org/GPG-KEY
gpg --import GPG-KEY

The output from gpg should look similar to this:

gpg: directory `/root/.gnupg' created
gpg: new configuration file `/root/.gnupg/gpg.conf' created
gpg: WARNING: options in `/root/.gnupg/gpg.conf' are not yet active during this run
gpg: keyring `/root/.gnupg/secring.gpg' created
gpg: keyring `/root/.gnupg/pubring.gpg' created
gpg: /root/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 9C7BA3B6: public key "SlackBuilds.org Development Team <slackbuilds-devel@slackbuilds.org>" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found

Open the SlackBuilds.org web site and enter the name of the package.

Select the version of Slackware you're using from the drop down menu on the right hand side. For Slackware -current (the development trunk), select the latest version of Slackware.

The SlackBuild recipe and digital signature:

wget https://slackbuilds.org/slackbuilds/15.0/system/p7zip.tar.gz
wget https://slackbuilds.org/slackbuilds/15.0/system/p7zip.tar.gz.asc

gpg --verify p7zip.tar.gz.asc
gpg: assuming signed data in `p7zip.tar.gz'
gpg: Signature made Sat 28 Jan 2023 01:30:52 AM GMT using DSA key ID 9C7BA3B6
gpg: Good signature from "SlackBuilds.org Development Team <slackbuilds-devel@slackbuilds.org>"
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: D307 6BC3 E783 EE74 7F09  B8B7 0368 EF57 9C7B A3B6

Unpack the SlackBuilds recipe archive:

tar xf p7zip.tar.gz
cd p7zip

Download the software's source archive:

wget https://github.com/p7zip-project/p7zip/archive/v17.04/p7zip-17.04.tar.gz

openssl md5 p7zip-17.04.tar.gz
MD5(p7zip-17.04.tar.gz)= 00acfd6be87848231722d2d53f89e4a5

Compare this to the md5sum on the SlackBuilds web site:

[ "$( openssl md5 p7zip-17.04.tar.gz | awk '{print $2}' )" = "00acfd6be87848231722d2d53f89e4a5" ] && echo good

An update to the SlackBuilds templates was made for new additions to the SlackBuilds.org repository, but at present (April 2023) many packages will require minor changes to handle Slackware AArch64. Fortunately in 99% of the cases we can use the same compiler flags (-O2 -fPIC) for x86_64 as AArch64 with this command:

sed -i '/^elif \[ "\$ARCH" = "x86_64" \]; then$/ s/x86_64/aarch64/' p7zip.SlackBuild

In some cases -fPIC may cause a build to fail, and the compiler will inform you to remove it. In such cases, remove -fPIC from the SLKFLAGS line in the build script:

./p7zip.SlackBuild

installpkg /tmp/p7zip-17.04-aarch64-1_SBo.tgz

… to be added. Perhaps submit to the mailing list any changes, or contact the developer? to be decided.