"swaret --upgrade" doesn't upgrade
 

I am on a dialup modem and today I ran "swaret --update" then "swaret --upgrade" for Slackware -current for ten hours. I watched it fetch packages and extra packages. It said patches were current and there were none to upgrade (can that really be so? What about security patches?)

It never actually upgraded the packages that it fetched for those long ten hours, except for the few in the "extra" catagory. All of the KDE packages failed in downloading.

I guess my questions are:

1. Where did all those downloaded "upgraded" versions of packages go?
2. Is there a way I can force an upgrade from within my system without having to re-download them again?
3. Given that everything runs great right now, should I bother risking this, or wait instead for the next version of Slack to come out on CD? How critical are the security patches?

I really do appreciate the time spent answering me.
Peace,
Siri Amrit

Did you check /var/swaret?

If it did download them into /var/swaret you can always go into that directlry and upgradepkg each of them. I think you can even do upgradepkg *.tgz to do all of them, you will need to verify this yourself. You might want to check /etc/swaret.conf and even check to see if you have the latest stable version of swaret. It should have installed them. It should still do so as it will look in /var/swaret before downloading again and then installing them.

On the swaret homepage forum there is a post from someone whose kde upgrade failed as well. The solution seems to be to use the development release of swaret. I did this and it worked fine.
I dont know if it matters, but I always upgrade kde from runlevel 3,(command line only) ie kde is not running when I do it. This is because I have had problems in the past, and this method always seems to work. If you can get online in runlevel 3, so much the better, as any dependency problems can be resolved by swaret as you go (enable dependency checking in /etc/swaret.conf).
Swaret will know if you have already downloaded a package, and will install it from /var/swaret, it will not download it again.
To switch to runlevel 3, the very simple way is to reboot after changing the runlevel in /etc/inittab on this line to 3:

# Default runlevel. (Do not set to 0 or 6)
id:4:initdefault:

then reboot and log in as root
do the swaret stuff, then

you can change the runlevel back again from the command line with a console text editor,
eg
# pico /etc/inittab
(change text and put the 4 back, Ctrl-x,y,enter)

After the reboot, all should be well

(the above assumes you generally boot straight into the kdm login screen, if not, adapt above instructions accordingly)



what security packages are you asking about? The kde stuff is not security related as far as I am aware, and so it really depends how long since you last updated your system.
The slack homepage can advise you on the latest security advisories.

any help? tobyl

Thank you, all.

I looked in /var/swaret and they are all in there. I will try upgradepkg and see how it goes.

I always boot to runlevel 3, then startx. I haven't gotten minicom to work so what I end up doing is go into X with KDE, start KPPP, kill X, then I'm online in the console where I su to root to run swaret. This is cumbersome... Is there an easier way?

"what security packages are you asking about? The kde stuff is not security related as far as I am aware, and so it really depends how long since you last updated your system."
I haven't updated since installing Slack 9.1. This is why I wonder why it says that there are no patches. There are BOUND to be security patches since 9.1 came out...

IT WORKED!
 

Here's what I did, in case someone else has the same problem and finds this thread:

When I did "swaret --upgrade" a month ago, it really messed up my ALSA drivers. Then I rebooted it was completely screwed up with gcc or glib or somesuch- a totally smashed system. I ended up having to reinstall Slack from scratch. (This is why I like a separate /home partition.)

This time when I told swaret to upgrade I answered NO to anything mentioning ALSA, gcc, glib or glibc. From what I've read, there are version conflicts ALSA if you don't also upgrade the kernel, and I don't want to do that. I have the kernel and LILO excluded by default. This might be chicken but I don't yet know enough to fix problems that might come up with these things.

I got out of KDE and X, su'd to root, found all the newly downloaded versions in /var/swaret. I even found all the KDE packages that I thought had failed. Did a few dry runs in verbose mode for some packages like abiword and binutils. The command is:
upgradepkg --dry-run --verbose package-name.tgz

Then I ran:
upgradepkg --dry-run --verbose *.tgz

It worked, so I did it for real:
upgradepkg --verbose *.tgz

So far things seem good. I'm running Konqueror 3.1.5. Thank you all for your help!

Siri Amrit

tigerflag - I am glad you got everything working ok.

As far alsa goes, I added alsa to the 'exclude' section of swaret some time back, as I upgrade my kernel independently of slackware. This means I have to compile alsa manually each time i recompile the kernel, which is a bind, but my choice. Alsa is generally problematic at the moment, but it will settle down when the 2.6 kernel becomes mainstream, and the window managers etc. acknowledge alsa as the sound system of choice for linux. (I reckon)

As far as the security updates are concerned, it will depend on which packages you have installed. Since 9.1 came out there have been updates in several packages, eg lftp, apache, fetchmail, openssl and the kernel, so you would do well to check against a slackware mirror or two that you have up to date versions. If you ran swaret --update and you have not got the latest packages for 9.1, then you may need to check that the mirror you are using is uptodate.

I have found swaret to be an excellent tool, many thanks to xbone, linuxsneaker et al!

tobyl

Thanks, tobyl. Swaret IS a very good tool.

Do you know how to dialup in the console?

Siri Amrit

The first (.no) slackware mirror in the swaret.conf list is very slow, try commenting it out.

Thanks!

If you take a closer look at your swaret.conf file, you'll notice that there's a special section called EXCLUDE.

Generally, you'd put in the name packages which you don't want to update. Eg. (for me, I exclude lilo [it'll mess your system if you forgot to run it after upgrading], the kernel [because I roll out my own], and xfce [More current than Slack ;)]).

tigerflag,
You can set up a dial-up from the console using pppd - see man pppd.
most of the options will already be set as you will use many of the /etc/ppp files as you would from the gui, eg kppp. You will need to make a little log-on script for your isp.
I would suggest you look for PPP HOWTO on the net, or google with 'example ppp isp script' or similar, there is an abundance of stuff out there.

tobyl

run "swaret --check". Even after I downloaded the latest version from their website, I guess it wasn't up to date.... Once you run "swaret --check", run it how you were running it.

I got pppd working once i figured out where to set it up. Now i have another question about user permissions.

pppd wants me to be root. I know I can change that and I'll figure out how. I don't like to go online as root. But I have to be root to run Swaret, too.

I can su to root to run pppd and Swaret, but isn't it risky to be online for hours like that when Swaret is downloading stuff?

Can I change the group for Swaret so that I can use it as a user, but have it download stuff to /var/swaret instead of to my /home?

when i installed RH6.2 on my old Pentium100, I used
/sbin/ifup ppp0
This opens the first ppp connection, but you gotta have one setup (you probably already do if you used Kppp).