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Old 03-14-2012, 09:18 PM   #1
catkin
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Pros and cons of -current?


What are the pros and cons of running Slackware current?

Maybe ...

Pros:
  • Help with testing
  • Never have to do a version/release upgrade
  • Latest (almost!) hardware supported so easier disaster recovery.
Cons:
  • Occasional breakage
  • More network usage on upgrades
Unknown
  • Able to use SlackBuilds?
  • Able to contribute to SlackBuilds?
The reason for asking is that I had a disk failure and cannot use Bacula to recover from backup because the stock 13.1 kernel is not bringing up eth0, an Attansic device 1083, even after after adding module atl1c to rc.modules-2.6.33.4

This is urgent (for me) and I am going for an eye test and the cows are getting in through the cyclone damaged fence ... so I hope you will forgive me asking how best to migrate from a fresh 64 13.1 installation to current.
 
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Old 03-15-2012, 01:41 AM   #2
dive
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Slackbuilds are made to work with -release. Having said that, many will work fine in -current, but don't expect support if any don't.

You can only contribute if your slackbuild is tested to work in -release. If it works in both then that's fine of course.

For your eth0 problem you could just install a newer kernel in 13.1. No need usually to upgrade the whole system.

Here's alienBOB's guide to kernel building:
http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...kernelbuilding
 
Old 03-15-2012, 05:30 AM   #3
willysr
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catkin View Post
Cons:
  • Occasional breakage
  • More network usage on upgrades
I kinda disagree with the first one, since i have been playing with -Current since few years back and it's very stable. The only problem i had with -Current was in 2009 i guess when i had some problems with the -Current's XOrg, but it's not Slackware's fault actually since it was upstream bugs. It was fixed within few days and after that, i never had problems with -Current.
 
Old 03-15-2012, 06:35 AM   #4
GazL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catkin View Post
The reason for asking is that I had a disk failure and cannot use Bacula to recover from backup because the stock 13.1 kernel is not bringing up eth0, an Attansic device 1083, even after after adding module atl1c to rc.modules-2.6.33.4
This is why I make a point of having my disaster recovery images use something basic like tar or rsync that will be readily available from a live-cd image. Products like bacula are great for managing the backup and restoration of user and application data on an already established system, but I would never consider them for the type of bare-metal system image restore that disaster recovery entails.
 
Old 03-15-2012, 08:24 AM   #5
hitest
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I've found -current to be very stable over the last several years. As willysr mentioned there are the occasional bumps along the road that are quickly fixed.
As a beta tester you are expected to be able to independently trouble-shoot some issues that arise on your -current system.
 
Old 03-15-2012, 08:31 AM   #6
willysr
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And for the record, there's no one forcing anyone to use -Current. In fact, some people do warned other people when they wanted to use -Current. When you use -Current, then you are facing your own risk (even though i didn't see high risk of using -Current based on my experience).

I even used it on my workstation, desktop, and my working laptop.
 
Old 03-15-2012, 09:34 AM   #7
allend
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I use multiboot setups on my desktop and netbook so I can boot either Slackware-release or Slackware-current. Being able to boot the stable release and then chroot to the -current install has saved me from my stupidity more than once.

Pros
- Access to the latest software releases (e.g KDE from Alien Bob). I am very happy with networkmanager!
- Support for latest hardware.

Cons
- I keep archives of all packages that are released, so that I can quickly revert if there is a problem. (e.g. the upgrade of pixmap that was a showstopper for many). This uses disk space.
- Kernel upgrades require that you are comfortable with tools like lilo and mkinitrd.
- Kernel upgrades require compilation of kernel modules for third party software (e.g. nVidia driver and VirtualBox)
 
Old 03-16-2012, 11:07 AM   #8
catkin
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Thanks all for you replies

The disaster recover procedure was ... educational

I had reasoned that it wasn't worth having a tested DR procedure for my own system because it would probably take longer to develop that than to "wing it" and restore time is not critical as I am the only user. That's about right but as GazL pointed out it would be helpful to have something from which a basic functioning system including Bacula could be restored quickly.

What was helpful about my backup procedures:
  • Having some files copied to the external backup HDDs:
    • The system documentation including the sysadmin log.
    • /etc/lvm (for the LVM sizes).
    • Bacula (entirely within /opt/bacula as recommended by Bacula and contrary to LFS).
  • Knowing that an empty /var can be made bootable by
    Code:
    mkdir -p \
        cache/hald \
        lib/dbus \
        lib/mysql \
        lib/nfs/sm \
        lib/nfs/sm.bak \
        lib/nfs/v4recovery \
        log/setup/tmp \
        run/dbus \
        run/hald \
        spool/cron \
        spool/mqueue \
        tmp
    chgrp mail spool/mqueue
    chmod 700 \
        lib/nfs/sm
    chown messagebus lib/dbus
    chown mysql:mysql lib/mysql
    chown nobody lib/nfs/sm
  • Having a copy of /boot on the second HDD.

What was not helpful:
  • Having a later kernel version but no readily accessible copy of the source.
  • Not having:
    • a readily accessible copies of /lib/modules, /etc/rc.d/rc.modules-<the later kernel> or /var/run.
    • the /proc and /var mount points in the / backup.
    • /usr/share/mime in the / backup.
    • an empty /var/tmp directory in the /var backup.
The NIC problem was worked around by configuring lo:0 with the address that eth0 would have had.

Although -current is tempting (and thanks for sharing your experiences with it ), SlackBuild considerations mean I will migrate to 13.37. I had been planning to skip a release but post-13.31 hardware makes that a bad decision.
 
Old 03-16-2012, 11:30 AM   #9
GazL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catkin View Post
The disaster recover procedure was ... educational
They usually are.


And what's wrong with putting stuff in /opt anyway? IMO people don't make nearly enough use of it.
 
Old 03-16-2012, 11:43 AM   #10
catkin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GazL View Post
And what's wrong with putting stuff in /opt anyway? IMO people don't make nearly enough use of it.
Quite so but LFS requires associated data under /var/opt and config under /etc/opt.
 
Old 03-16-2012, 12:27 PM   #11
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Ahh I see. I think I would have wanted to keep opt read-only myself, but i'd have probably also ignored the LFS there and used /var/bacula and /etc/bacula. Personally I don't think /var/opt and /etc/opt makes much sense.
 
Old 03-16-2012, 02:26 PM   #12
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In my experience, -current is absolutely fine for a home system. I might shy away from using it on a server, but thats just me being overly cautious. -Current is typically more stable for me than most other distro's "stable" releases, and I've been running it for almost 2 years nonstop now. Its the perfect answer for someone who wants to stay relatively near the bleeding edge, but still needs stuff to work the way its supposed to.
 
Old 03-16-2012, 03:23 PM   #13
zk1234
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STABLE is well defined (good traceability). If somebody says "X was compiled under Slackware 12.2", I can easily check what was used by him to compile X.

CURRENT is not well defined (poor traceability). If somebody says "X was compiled under Slackware current", I would probably ask him for more detailed information.
 
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Old 03-28-2012, 04:03 PM   #14
PrinceCruise
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I do not want to start a new thread for my question, hope my question will fit in here.

Is there any chance I can get to use Python version 3.x on my Slackware 13.37(32 bit) box, without damaging anything in the system? Can Python 3.x and the default version 2.6.6 co-exist on the box?

Or will I simply have to upgrade to -current? I'd prefer staying with stable though, if asked.

Regards.
 
Old 03-28-2012, 04:44 PM   #15
Alien Bob
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Slackware -current does not have python 3 either. Still at 2.6.6.
You can compile python3 quite safely and install it in parallel with the older version. Only the /usr/bin/python symlink would be overwritten but that can be repaired.

Eric
 
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