A Couple of Questions About Slackware 13 Install
 

Before I actually do a new install (I don't have a spare box to play around in), I have a couple of (possibly silly) questions about going from Slackware 12.2 to 13.0.

When I install a release, I don't format some disk partitions; namely those that ultimately are mounted as /usr/local, /home, /opt, /var/lib/mysql and /var/lib/vmware during the disk allocation section of the install dialog. Before I find out the hard way that the installation has changed, is that still true; i.e., can I simply name those partitions (along with a couple of others) and skip the partition formatting on them?

Too, I've been locked-in to the Reiser file system for a few years now and wonder if that's still supported (yes, I do a full back up of everything before I start, but it would be nice to not have to burn a batch of CD's and reload all the files if I don't have to do that)? I have never had any problems with Reiser and would rather not change if I don't have to -- if it's going to be end-of-life soon it would be nice to know that (along with a recommendation for an alternative).

I've been following the discussions about Xorg; I install the Adobe Type Library (Type 1 PostScript font files) and wonder what sort of problems might crop up with not necessarily needing an xorg.conf file -- seems like I read something about only needing a particular section of xorg.conf and I wonder if that's all that's needed for fonts or if there's some weird and wonderful gotcha I might need to know about.

I'm assuming that I will need to completely redo VMware and VirtualBox (they'll get blown away in the partitions that do get formatted). I haven't been too thrilled with VMware 2.x and and leaning toward VirtualBox only; is there any really good reason to not continue to use both?

I've been reading the Changes and Hints and other "readme" files on the distribution CD's but these things are just a little beyond those discussions; I'd be grateful for any advice and thank you.

You do not have to do a fresh install. You can easily upgrade from 12.2 to 13.0. (UPGRADE.TXT is your friend, although using slackpkg can be easier for steps 3 and 4). The worst part of the whole process is updating the configuration files in /etc. Remember to look carefully at /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/shadow. Slackpkg does not prompt about the changes in these files.

I have upgraded a number of boxes running Reiser file system without any problems. (I was a risk taker, simply copied /etc to /tmp/etc and went for it!) The ext4 file system is the new default in a fresh Slackware 13.0 install. The ext4 file system offers some speed improvements.

With xorg.conf, the easiest is to move any any existing xorg.conf file out of /etc/X11 and try starting X with startx. If that does not work, then try 'X -configure' or 'xorgsetup'. I have needed to add some lines into xorg.conf, mainly to optimise graphics. Your fonts should be automatically recognised if they have been installed in a location that the system looks at by default.

VirtualBox will need to be recompiled, as you are upgrading to a new kernel and glibc. I suspect the same for VMware, but I have no experience.

Edit:
Just a heads up. There is a minor error in step 5 of UPGRADE.TXT. It reads '/usr/man/man.conf.new" but should be '/usr/lib/man.conf.new'

Well, thanks... but, I did decide to do a fresh install (after copying important stuff off to another box so I could [and did] copy them back to the new installation). I decided to do a complete fresh install after mulling about Reiser file system for a while and figuring, what the heck, it works fine but may as well migrate to ext4 now rather than some future date when... gotcha!

So far, X seems to work... uh, differently (not so sure I actually like KDE4 yet).

And I decided to bite the bullet, abandon VMware for VirtualBox and just rebuild XP from scratch (ugh!) and sit through all the "improvements." Need it for Turbotax, otherwise...

Thanks for your input.