What if i want to stay at 13.1 ???

0men · 05-12-2011, 12:42 AM

Hey guys,

I started using Slackware just after 13.1 was released. And after the release of 13.37 i haven't been able to update my 13.1 box.
All i get is there is the no change to changelog error.

sudo /usr/sbin/slackpkg update
""No changes in ChangeLog.txt between your last update and now.
Do you really want to download all other files (y/N)? ""

Do i now have to follow the 13.37 changelog, find the security patches and apply them myself now that im not running current? I dont really want to move from 13.1 as im more than happy with it.

Cheers,

thegato · 05-12-2011, 12:53 AM

You can stay with 13.1 if you want.

Relevant packages are updated as required for previous versions.

allend · 05-12-2011, 01:02 AM

Security patches for Slackware 13.1 will continue to be released. (You are likely to discard the box before Pat stops support). There is no need to change to 13.37 if you are happy with what you have.

Slackpkg uses the mirror selected in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors to look for changes. You appear to have a Slackware 13.1 mirror selected. Any new packages will likely appear in the /patches directory and slackpkg will recognise them as new and offer them for upgrade.

Slackware-current is the name given to the development version of Slackware. After a stable release like 13.1, development continues and the changes appear in slackware-current. When Pat is happy, a snapshot of that -current version is released as the new stable release. This has just occurred with the release of 13.37.

sjampoo · 05-12-2011, 01:07 AM

And I wonder what mirror you have uncommented from the /etc/slackpkg/mirrors file.

I get the feeling you got updates just about every week until 13.37 was released, and now it's all quiet?? It might just be -current that you have been following.. or am I mistaken?

----

If it's 13.1 in the mirrors file, don't worry: you will recieve security updates and patches for as long as...?... long. The previous versions have been receiving updates quite some time now. Slackware 8.1, which was released in 2001 has received recent updates until in april 2011, and continues to be supported. ( http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-8.1/ChangeLog.txt )

ruario · 05-12-2011, 01:13 AM

The reason you are not seeing updates is that your slackpkg mirror is pointed to the 13.1 directory (look at the uncommented line in '/etc/slackpkg/mirror' and you will see what I mean). If you do decide to upgrade you could just point your slackpkg mirror file to the correct location (the 13.37 directory) then and issue a 'slackpkg update', followed by a 'slackpkg upgrade-all', then 'slackpkg install-new'.

Oh and if you don't have a full install you might want to temporarily comment out the aaa_elflibs line in '/etc/slackpkg/blacklist' (be sure to uncomment again after your 'slackpkg upgrade-all').

Alternatively, you could upgrade via the official route as outlined in UPGRADE.TXT within the 13.37 directory of your selected mirror (or on a 13.37 DVD).

To answer your other question, no you don't have to upgrade, if you find that 13.1 does everything you need. Though I have the suspicion you do want to.

dive · 05-12-2011, 06:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ruario

If you do decide to upgrade you could just point your slackpkg mirror file to the correct location (the 13.37 directory) then and issue a 'slackpkg update', followed by a 'slackpkg upgrade-all', then 'slackpkg install-new'.

Wrong. The correct order is:

slackpkg update
slackpkg install-new
slackpkg upgrade-all
slackpkg clean-system

If you don't do install-new first you will break the system.

ruario · 05-12-2011, 07:07 AM

dive, why does install-new have to be before upgrade-all. What difference does it make? Also not everyone wants to clean-system. Some people don't want to rebuild all of their non official packages. Granted some might now work but I didn't experience any issues with this on my last update.

allend · 05-12-2011, 07:21 AM

Quote:

why does install-new have to be before upgrade-all. What difference does it make?

Had you not used install-new before upgrade-all when upgrading to Slackware 13.1, then you would not have installed the xz package. Then you would not have been able to handle the .txz package format.

Quote:

Also not everyone wants to clean-system

You are prompted with a list of packages to remove. You can deselect the packages you want to keep.

bonixavier · 05-12-2011, 07:22 AM

If you don't do a clean-system (it's a list so you can choose what to remove), you may end up with conflicts. For example, between 13.1 and 13.37, util-linux-ng was replaced by util-linux. If you don't remove the old one, I suppose you can get to some weird situations.

ruario · 05-12-2011, 07:22 AM

Edit: This reply was started before I saw the other two above. I'll leave it here nonetheless but please read my later reply before telling me I am still wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dive

If you don't do install-new first you will break the system.

I actually don't use slackpkg to upgrade my system but rather stick with the official upgrade instructions in UPGRADE.TXT. That said I based my advice on what I have seen others do and said works for them.

Looking again at the official upgrade instructions two things that are worth noting:

1. The only packages UPGRADE.TXT asks you to upgrade first are pkgtools, tar, xz, findutils and glibc-solibs. Everything else is upgraded with 'upgradepkg --install-new /root/slackware/*/*.t?z'. There is no equivalent to your suggestion of installing the new packages first, which is what slackpkg's install-new option does according to its man page (upgradepkg's --install-new is different because it modifies the default upgrade behaviour to install brand new packages in addition to upgrading existing ones but this does not affect the install order).

2. UPGRADE.TXT does not tell you to do anything equivalent to 'make-clean' (i.e. remove unofficial packages). It simply states that you should old, obsolete, or discontinued packages and provides you a list of official Slackware packages that are now considered old/obsolete/discontinued.

So unless I have misunderstood something, it doesn't look like you are basing your suggestions on any official recommendations from Pat.

ruario · 05-12-2011, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allend

Had you not used install-new before upgrade-all when upgrading to Slackware 13.1, then you would not have installed the xz package.

He is talking about upgrading to 13.37 but I take your point. It is safer because you wouldn't be so easily caught out by a similar change in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by allend

You are prompted with a list of packages to remove. You can deselect the packages you want to keep.

Hmm ... could be time consuming but sure good point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bonixavier

If you don't do a clean-system (it's a list so you can choose what to remove), you may end up with conflicts. For example, between 13.1 and 13.37, util-linux-ng was replaced by util-linux. If you don't remove the old one, I suppose you can get to some weird situations.

Ok, gotcha. So in that case it is somewhat similar to the official instructions telling you to remove old/obsolete/discontinued packages, although the official instructions are easier to understand in this regard.

I'll probably continue to stick with doing system upgrades via the instructions in UPGRADE.TXT. Seems safest.

jamesf · 05-12-2011, 08:10 AM

You can easily avoid having clean-system remove all non-Slackware packages by modifying the /etc/slackpkg/blacklist file. I have a few SBo packages I want to not be prompted to remove, so the end of my blacklist looks like this:

Code:

# You can blacklist using regular expressions.
#
# Don't use *full* regex here, because all of the following 
# will be checked for the regex: series, name, version, arch, 
# build and fullname.
#
# This one will blacklist all SBo packages:
[0-9]+_SBo

And dive has the correct order for upgrade, going from the slackpkg man page.

ruario · 05-12-2011, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamesf

You can easily avoid having clean-system remove all non-Slackware packages by modifying the /etc/slackpkg/blacklist file.

Yep, that'll work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamesf

And dive has the correct order for upgrade, going from the slackpkg man page.

Yep, I see that now. Though I'll probably still stick to UPGRADE.TXT for my own upgrades.

Woodsman · 05-12-2011, 01:23 PM

0men,

Don't feel pressured into updating to the latest release. I am using 13.1 on my office machine and I use 12.2 on my home theater PC (HTPC). I will keep 12.2 on my HTPC for a long time because that computer is used an appliance. That is, the system works the way I want and updating is not going to change the nature of my usage or needs.

Pat has a pleasant history of supporting security patches for previous releases for a long time. Don't worry that 13.1 is going to be "obsolete" any time soon.

As a side note, I have Slackware 11.0 installed on an old 486 machine. I power up the machine maybe two times a year, but that release remains supported with security patches.

With respect to using slackpkg, as other have mentioned, check your mirror selection in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors. Don't panic if you discover you mistakenly had a Slackware Current mirror selected rather than a 13.1 mirror. Edit and save the mirrors file and then run slackpkg again. If you have been updating with Current packages (now 13.37 packages), slackpkg will nonetheless update all of those packages to the correct version.

slac-in-the-box · 05-14-2011, 12:15 AM

I still have an old school way of upgrading... I have never used slackpkg because it seems like I'm relinquishing control of my system to a package manager... what I like about slackware is stability and control that comes from managing the packages myself, even though this takes more time...

So what I do to upgrade is firstly, I keep my /home directory on it's own partition, so I can upgrade without affecting my personal data... then I just use the install media's setup program to reformat my other partitions (I have separate partitions for root (/) and for /var and for /tmp (so logs and temporary files don't swallow entire drive), and once reformatted, I continue in the setup program, and install all packages, because I'm too lazy to manually select them, and I have enough space and ram where it is not an issue. When done with installation, I recreate my user with same username, user id, and group id... it automatically finds the user's folder on the /home partition, with all the old data still intact. Then I use slackbuild scripts and source from slackbuilds.org to create new packages for the upgraded OS, install these packages, and I'm through...

But slackpkg probably works too... I just like knowing as much of what's going on in my system, as my little brain can handle, lol.