hi,
as you know nearly every distribution has its own package-management and it needs special packages to install different software.
For slackware it's *.tgz, for debian *.deb, for many rpm's *.rpm and so on, but I wonder how a package can be built to be compatibel with every maschine.

An example:
I have downloaded the package for sodipodi from linuxpackages.net and I use slackware 10. The package was also built for slackware 10, but after the quick installation I found out that I was not able to execute the binary "sodipodi", because a library is missing. After that I downloaded the source of sodipodi and compiled it myself. ./configure didn't complain about missing libs, so I "make"d sodipodi and it worked. I am now able to use sodipodi.
My explanation is that the package creator has built sodipodi against another version of a lib, which is already installed on my system.

So, my question is, how to build a package, which runs for example on all slackware 10 installations? I think this is quite impossible, because I am not able to know if the user has updated some libs or if I have a newer lib than the user.

It would be nice if you would comment on my question, because I don't understand the topic with different library-versions. It just confuses me :/...

avaurus.-

Some people who build packages, may be using Slackware-current, or they have updated certain libraries, then they build their packages. So that when someone else uses these packages on their system, such as a stock Slackware-10, they are missing these libraries.

It is possible that the packager used an updated library, which you were missing. But you did have an earlier verison of the library, this is why compile && make did not complain.

Building your own Slackware packages is very simple, and is a good way to install packages, since you now have the ability to remove these titles with pkgtool.

To build a packages that works on ALL Slackware-10 boxes, you have to have a Slackware-10 install with absolutely no updates. Then your packages will work on all other Slackware-10 installs. This is how the majority of Slackware packages are built, and preferred at http://linuxpackages.net

As for a packages that is compatible for every distro, that is not going to happen. Building from sources would be that 'universal' system. It is possible to install different packages onto Slackware, such as using a rpm or .deb on slackware, but it requires a conversion process.

ok, thank you.

of course not ...

ok, all I wanted to know is answered, thank you.