[SOLVED] Proper way to upgrade built-in package on Slackware stable release?

nicholas_hubbard · 04-24-2022, 10:30 AM

I am using Slackware 15.0 and I wish to upgrade my Emacs to the new 28.1 version.

The way that I have thought to do this is to download the Slackware-15.0 source tree, replace the emacs-27.2.tar.xz tarball with the new emacs-28.1.tar.xz tarball, make any necessary changes to the emacs.SlackBuild and then execute the emacs.SlackBuild.

Is this the best way to do it? What happens if the Slackware team releases an update for Emacs whether security related or to upgrade to version 28.1?

pghvlaans · 04-24-2022, 11:34 AM

Welcome. That's the right idea. If you use slackpkg, you'll also want to add emacs to /etc/slackpkg/blacklist to keep the script from offering to upgrade your new package:

Code:

emacs.*

nicholas_hubbard · 04-24-2022, 11:55 AM

Ok thanks. I do use slackpkg so I will be sure to blacklist emacs.

Daedra · 04-24-2022, 12:16 PM

Emacs 28.1 was added to slackware-current on April 5, so the easiest solution is the just grab the source from the slackware-current branch and build that on your 15.0 system... Easiest way is...

Code:

cd /tmp
lftp -c "open https://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware64-current/source/e/ ; mirror emacs"
cd emacs
chmod +x emacs.SlackBuild
./emacs.SlackBuild

then like pghvlaans said, make sure you blacklist the emacs package so that it doesn't get replaced by slackpkg

cwizardone · 04-24-2022, 01:40 PM

Why not just download the package from here, http://slackware.oregonstate.edu/sla...slackware64/e/

Save it to your hard drive and run, upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new
on it?

drgibbon · 04-25-2022, 03:29 AM

If you're after native-compilation, keep in mind that it's not enabled on -current just yet. To try it you have to rebuild gcc, and there are some useful notes about that in this thread, and this post.

nicholas_hubbard · 04-25-2022, 08:52 AM

Quote:

If you're after native-compilation

Yes I am after native-compilation. I realized that to do this I will need to recompile gcc for the jit support but I am not sure that is something I want to do as I if I blacklist gcc from getting updates with slackpkg then I will have to monitor gcc myself in cases of security updates, etc.

drgibbon · 04-25-2022, 09:00 AM

I recompiled gcc here but didn't bother blacklisting it. If gcc updates come (pretty rare), then it will presumably break emacs and remind me to recompile it myself

bassmadrigal · 04-25-2022, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwizardone

Why not just download the package from here, http://slackware.oregonstate.edu/sla...slackware64/e/

Save it to your hard drive and run, upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new
on it?

While it might work right now due to -current not straying very far from 15.0 right now (I'm not sure since I haven't tested it), it's usually not a good idea to mix packages from different Slackware versions. It's possible those packages might rely on newer libraries than are present in 15.0 and the package may be partially or completely broken.

The recommended way is to download the source and compile it for your own Slackware version if an existing package compiled for that Slackware version doesn't already exist.