Hi everyone.
I have general question:
How you know when to upgrade all manually installed packages?
I mean, all software i added manually, that
didn't came originally installed.
How can i follow changes in all packages i have from different sources?
It can be 50 different packages (including dependencies)...
To check one by one?
Don't update until new slack version enabled?

How you deal with it?

I guess one question might be: if the software does what you want it to without bugs and there are no security problems, why do you need to upgrade? "latest" isn't always the "greatest."

If you installed something on your own that doesn't come with slack, or is not installed through one of the package managers, like slapt-get, then yes, you do just have to track it yourself. But that would also be true of any distro.

For the software that does not come with Slackware what I do is join mailing lists or check rss feeds. That way I am notified when a new version is out via an email or my rss agregator. I check the changelogs to see if I want the newest version.

For software that doesn't have these features I manually check the home site once in a while for a new version, but really only if I think there might be security issues or a new feature I have been waiting for. Security issues are particularly necessary to keep up on for programs that are browser plugins (mplayer, vlc, acroread, flash) or add services to the machine (vmware, vnc, etc).

I install almost all my software using slackBuilds, which mostly come from slackBuilds.org. For the ones that are not there I make my own (and sometimes submit them). SlackBuilds.org has it own changelog and there is a tool being worked on (sbopkg) to sync with the available slackBuilds and build the software packages you want. Using them is a fast way to upgrade packages.

As was said previously, newer is not always better. I usually only upgrade packages if I have to because of dependency issues, security issues, or there are new features that I want.