What is the proper way to upgrade from 12.0 to 12.1

em21701 · 05-03-2008, 02:41 PM

12.0 is my first slackware version, how do I properly upgrade to the new 12.1 version so that I minimize the risk losing data?

Thanks,
Eric

T3slider · 05-03-2008, 02:54 PM

The UPGRADE.TXT and CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT files (on the CD/DVD or from a mirror) basically explain it all. Follow the instructions carefully (make sure you upgrade your glibc libraries first, as explained in UPGRADE.TXT) and it should be easy. The only part that's iffy is merging your .new files. If you haven't changed any config files in packages that will be upgraded it should be safe to overwrite them -- however, I would always advise making a backup. There's a little script in UPGRADE.TXT that automatically backs up all of the configuration files that need to be changed and overwrites them. You can then just add your changes from the old (.bak) files. Alternatively, you could just search for all *.new files in /etc (by doing `cd /etc; find . -name "*.new"`, for example) and look at your existing file, compare it to the new file, and just add your changes to the .new file (then move the .new file over to the correct config file's name). Again I would suggest backing up your existing configuration files here. You could also use `merge` to merge configuration files, but I find that's a bit messy for my taste (though it's a perfectly reasonable option if you know what you're doing).

lorton · 05-04-2008, 12:09 PM

With regarding upgrading from Ver 12 to 12.1
Do I need to download all the iso's to upgrade or is there an easier way?
Thanks
Lez

onebuck · 05-04-2008, 12:31 PM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorton

With regarding upgrading from Ver 12 to 12.1
Do I need to download all the iso's to upgrade or is there an easier way?
Thanks
Lez

If you download the dvd then you only need that. But if you want cds then download cd1, cd2 & cd3.

lmo-installer 0.2 should work.

But 12.1 does support network install;

Code:

excerpt from Slackware-Howto;

For the network options, you'll need to have a network card that's
supported by one of the installer's modules, and preferably a DHCP server
running to make the network setup easy.  The network install options are
to use as your source an NFS server, an FTP server, or an HTTP server
(along with an optional port).  If you use DHCP to set up, odds are
you'll have working name resolution and won't need to enter an IP
address to specify the server (but you can if you wish, of course).

The network installation feature is intended primarily to facilitate
installing to many machines on a local network.  Please don't use it to
bog down the Slackware mirror sites.

Thanks to Eric Hameleers for finally bringing FTP/HTTP installtion
support to the Slackware installer.  :-)

I would suggest that you read the documentation that PV has provided; Announce 12.1, Slackware-Howto, CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT, UPGRADE.TXT. Plus the other text files relevant to your needs.

T3slider · 05-04-2008, 12:38 PM

lorton, you could always upgrade to -current (which is the same) or download all of the files from a mirror, but they're being hit pretty hard right now because of the new release, so it would be better to download the CDs/DVD using torrents. You only need the first 3 CDs (or just the one DVD) to install (CDs 4, 5 and 6 are source code). It's nice having a set of CDs or a DVD just in case you need to boot in an emergency or in case your system is totally screwed up in which case you can always install fresh right away -- but it's up to you. You *could* use rsync to download all of the files and upgrade as instructed in UPGRADE.TXT -- but again, if you want to be nice to the mirrors, you'd just download the torrents and use the CDs/DVD. You don't necessarily have to burn a CD if you use the .iso images -- you can always just mount the image using `mount -o loop /path/to/image.iso /root/slackware` or some such thing and then upgrade from there.

No matter what you do, you'll have to download a lot (unless you order the CD/DVD set).

number22 · 05-04-2008, 12:53 PM

First; back up my home directory; all my personal files are stored in there;

Then; freshly install 12.1

restore my files back in.

T3slider · 05-04-2008, 03:04 PM

number22, that's the ideal method.

(But upgrading packages really isn't that risky and 12.0 to 12.1 isn't overly incompatible. For the next major release, maybe.)

lorton · 05-05-2008, 02:34 PM

I think I'll download the DVD, I know it will take a while then upgrade.
My system has a vanilla kernel with only the config files changed as required, so I'll go for an upgrade.
I'll let you know if I had any problems.

Thanks
Lez

shadowsnipes · 05-07-2008, 04:03 AM

Check out my HowTo on Upgrading from Slackware 12.0 to 12.1.