> So, how onerous is package management in Slackware if there is no dependency checking?
I can't say that I have used Slackware ever, so I don't know. But I have used a Linux distro where every package was statically linked by default. In that case they didn't use any dependency management since every package was just a tarball of some fully statically linked executables or libraries. The only real dependency was the Linux kernel.
Patrick has already done this for us :-) The standard practice for Slackware is to install the entire distribution - roughly 12GB. If you don’t do this then your mileage may vary, and you may find yourself wasting time doing your own dependency management. For additional packages from SlackBuilds.org, there are various third-party package manager, some of which can handle dependency resolution in the usual way (e.g. sbotools, slapt-get).
It is very, very rarely onerous, since 98% of the time you already have the libraries/other dependencies installed. The other 2% of the time you might be stuffing around with community-built SlackBuild scripts or writing your own, but I have never had any major dependency-related issues before myself.
(I have been daily driving Slackware64-current on my personal laptop for a year or so.)
Back when I ran slackware, it was pretty easy. You installed packages from the disk sets and the packages had the files they needed. It kept track of which packages wrote out which file in some text file so on removing a package it would know if removing the file was safe.
If I found software that didn't have a package, I would compile it. When I got more advanced, I'd create slack packages for the software. Since I'd compiled it on my system, dependencies were already met. I don't remember for sure, but I believe that the tools to build autoconf software were something in the core package set.
Slackware’s built-in set of packages is pretty small by today’s standards, and the preferred way to install Slackware has always been to include everything that comes on the distribution media. That alone would go a long way in making sure that you will not get unresolved dependencies when you try to install a third-party package.
On the other hand, I found that, often, not having to install all the dependencies, and not having the installation of a package fail because of some missing little optional dependency, is a blessing in disguise.
A couple of things that make installing software and keeping it up to date a breeze are slackpkg (built-in) and sbopkg (third-party).
I can't say that I have used Slackware ever, so I don't know. But I have used a Linux distro where every package was statically linked by default. In that case they didn't use any dependency management since every package was just a tarball of some fully statically linked executables or libraries. The only real dependency was the Linux kernel.