Ten years SlackPack!
Published on 2016-10-19 at 22:37:00 by Georgi Sotirov
Ten years ago I opened SlackPack to public (see the first news). The site was actually available earlier in 2006th, but I was still experimenting with it, so I consider 2006-10-19 as it’s official opening date. I started building packages for Slackware Linux even earlier (somewhere since the end of 2004) and after some time decided to share them with the community as contribution, because I do believe that using prebuilt binary packages is the best option for fast and easy upgrading of Slackware systems including management of dependencies even for advanced and power users.
A lot of time has passed since then and the site had it’s ups and downs offering as much as 65 new packages in a single day and as less as none in several months. Last was due to my personal engagements giving me no time for working on build scripts and patches. Even though SlackPack survived and now offers over 2000 packages for 11 Slackware releases since 10.x in 2005. My plans are to keep it going as further as I can.
During those years the site has inspired at least one other Slackware packages repository (see SlackOnly) and is refereed on the download pages of several open source projects for prebuilt distribution packages (including VLC and Highlight with others to come). I warmly thank all of you who have written me with just some nice words, or to report problems with the packages or the site, or to ask me how I do this or that (BTW in this regards several years ago I started preparing a repository of all the SlackBuilds, which I plan to publish somewhere in the beginning of next year). I specially thank the ones that have donated money to the site (of course it is still ran on my own expense, but your support gives me the strength to keep it going).
P.S. Today is also my birthday, so happy birthday to me! Cheers!