[ajosh]

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.