Old packages in Slackware
 

I am considering to abandon Arch and adopt Slackware.
The last thing that is bothering me is that the packages are old.
If I install 14.2, it was released in 2016, all the packages are 4 years old.

I mean like, I can for example update Firefox to the latest version using SlackBuilds.org,
but what about the rest of the packages? I cant go and manually update every package!

I was wandering, what does the Slackware community does about it?

Thanks.

It depends on why you are switching from Arch to Slackware.

If you want more recent packages, you can always use Slackware-current, which is the development branch and updated frequently (may be unstable at times).
https://packages.slackware.com/
http://www.slackware.com/changelog/

If you are leaving Arch because of the frequent updates... then maybe Slackware is not the right choice for you, as the stable version is not updated frequently and over time will have some old packages as is now the case.

Note: stable packages are only updated for (usually) for security reasons

In every Slackware release you'll find a directory "patches" in the root of the distro tree. In there you'll find a whole lot of packages that were updated since 2016 (mostly to adrress security issues.)
For Slackware 14.2, the most recent package update (glibc-zoneinfo) was yesterday, and a new kernel was added a week ago.

In my younger days I would have switched to -current, as already mentioned.

Nowadays I just want a system that works without hassle. So my work P. C. and home laptop both run Slackware 14.2. I keep on top of patches, and also keep my SlackBuilds.org packages up to date. In practice, this means installing security patches as they're published, and upgrading SBo packages once a week. I also use the kernel config from -current (with a few minor tweaks) to compile my own 5.4.x kernel. If -current switches to the next LTS kernel I'll probably follow suit.

Yes, it kind of bothers me that I'm still running KDE4 and lots of things are old. But my computer works, and that's what counts. Until 15.0 lands I'll keep patiently waiting.

P.S. my work laptop runs Pop!_OS (Ubuntu derivative) (but Plasma5 instead of Gnome, of course) and I have no issue switching back and forth between using Plasma5 on it and KDE4 on my Slackware machines.

We run -current.

i am wondering if LQ shouldn't think about introducing a troll button, kind of an equivalent to those facebooky like or not-so-like buttons ?

But as far as I understand, and please do correct me if I am wrong, -current is less stable.
The main reason I am switching to Slackware is the stability.

I want the stability of Slackware.

But as far as I understand, and please do correct me if I am wrong, -current is less stable.
The main reason I am switching to Slackware is the stability.

But, and correct me if I am wrong please, this means I have to download an ISO every time I wanna check are there any updates. Right?

No need to download any ISO file after you installed Slackware.
Slackware has a package management tool called "slackpkg". You need to configure exactly ONE mirror URL in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors and then this sequence will give you every update that's available for the packages you have installed:

Honestly?

No, I never really found that to be the case. -current isn't rolling-release. It's more like Debian-Testing.

No, the base system can be updated using the included slackpkg tool:

https://docs.slackware.com/slackware:slackpkg

TLDR:
slackpkg update
slackpkg install-new
slackpkg upgrade-all

--> redundant, this is a faster moving thread than I realized

No.

Watch the Changelog: http://www.slackware.com/changelog/s...php?cpu=x86_64

Or subscribe to slackware-security: http://www.slackware.com/lists/

Download packages: https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackw...-14.2/patches/ (or find your best mirror: https://mirrors.slackware.com/mirrorlist/)

You can use the slackpkg tool:

1 - modify the /etc/slackpkg/mirror text file to select a mirror. (just uncomment one)
2 - run these commands (the update gpg is only needed once per mirror) ((the clean-system is optional and will remove anything not in the main tree - you just really need to review and see if there is anything to cleanup or even maybe rebuild as it is possible something underlying it depends on may change))
--(I see easy to answer questions fly ;) The doc.slackware link above is good answer

Thank you every one who suggested `slackpkg`, I've read the entire Slackbook and somehow missed it.