Upgrading Slackware 8.0 to 9.1
 

I remember back when i was running redhat a few years back and I upgraded a few times using the redhat upgrade tool but now im in slack and I love slack, i had to learn more to use slack and it gives me a sense of self accomplishment, i don't use the laptop for much else so it's really just a slackbox for now and i get to tool around with it when i'm not busy at work or whatnot

but now i've noticed with my recent install of slackware 8.0 that... 9.1 is out and i don't wanna have to burn another 2 or 3 cds and reformat my HD, resetup my partitions and bleh...

would it be possible to just upgrade over the net? i have seen the how to's on how to install from the net but i've been unable to find out how to upgrade slack from the net, i've got decent bandwidth and nobody uses the connection at night here at my apt so i was just gonna upgrade while i slept can somebody help me out here? thx in advance for your troubles

ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackwar....1/UPGRADE.TXT
ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackwar....1/UPGRADE.TXT

To be honest, I think it would be much more simple and effective to just back up your important data and do a clean install of Slackware 9.1.

You can also use Swaret to upgrade from 8.1 or higher, in theory.

Unless you need extra functionality or hardware support I wouldn't bother. I use 8.1 and 9.1 and fine that 8.1 runs 'cleaner'. 9.1 has some 'quirks' that seem to be a little un-slackish. If I were you I'd just get the source for kernel 2.4.24 (or 2.4.25) and compile that and keep going. I don't trust these automatic tools

thx for your opinion i'll try to upgrade my kernel in the next few days :)

I'm in a distinct minority on this but if you look at the profiles of some of the more knowledgable users in this forum you'll see that I'm not at all alone.

well for the most part all i wanted to upgrade for was to fix any possible security issues and dependency issues there in, but upgrading my kernel should take care of that for the most part and since i don't run too many services it isn't a big deal, i'm just trying to take this linux bit 1 step at a time, since i've never compiled a kernel i'll take this as a learning experience like the rest of it and we can go from there

thx again for your honest opinion and any more knowledge you may have to spread

My 2 cents - I'd suggest going with a clean install of v9.1 To play it safe, back up your data before doing anything, but that being said, I'd be curious as to what your partitioning scheme is/was. Assuming that you've got a separate partition for /home, then heck a clean install of a newer version would be cake. Just start the installation process using the new version, and when you get to the point where you are assigning your partitions, leave things the way they are (assuming you're happy with your existing partitioning scheme) but make a point to NOT format the /home partition. Proceed with the remainder of the installation and when it's finished, you should left with an upgraded kernel and all the installed packages, but everything on your /home directory is the same as it always was. Again this is just something to consider - other people do (and will) have other points of view. -- J.W.

Actually a kernel compile is not too difficult, not as difficult as compiling other programs usually. A couple of tips: Use the standard config file for whatever kernel you have been using. run make menuconfig and then tell it to load an alternate config file and then point it to the standard config file(preferably use the bare.i config file). These config files are found in the /kernels/????.? directory. So, when it's loaded change just one thing, the architecture. Don't change any other settings at least the first time.
Don't do 'make install'. Instead manually copy the kernel, config and System.map files into /boot or /. The manually change your /etc/lilo.conf and run lilo -v -t to test that. If all is okay then run lilo.
make modules_install will install the new modules alongside the old modules. This way you should be able to dual-boot with either the new or the old kernel.
It goes like this:

make dep
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
make clean
cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.2?
cp .config /boot/config-2.4.2?
cp System.map /boot/system.map-2.4.2?
Then in lilo.conf just copy the enrty for youe existing kernel into a new section changing the label and image entries. (image = vmlinuz-2.4.2?)