Can I do this? I have the Slack 11 CD to boot from, and am putting the current packages on a FAT32 partition. Is it like FreeBSD which knows the version number and makes it really hard to insist on installing a different version than the boot CD contains. I have no floppy drive, cant USB boot, and have no extra CDs.

Based on a recent post on this subject by LQ's rworkman (Rob Workman, a Slackware developer, whom I am NOT directly quoting here) you may run into more troubles than you want, by trying to upgrade to -current by this method. As I understand it, there are enough changes in -current from 11.0 to warrant installing -current as a whole, rather than trying to upgrade TO it.
While I am not an authority on this issue, I'd wager that your best bet would be to download and burn the -current ISO, if available.
Alternately, if you really want to, then install your 11.0 CD, then navigate to the directories where you have stored the -current packages, and use 'pkgtool' to either install or upgrade from that location.

You may wish to get more/wait for more indepth opinions on this exact situation before proceeding, as I am just paraphrasing what I've read, and giving input based on my own limited knowledge of how Slackware works, with regards to the -current release.

Well, I would think that I would run into endless problems if I tried to upgrade Slack 11 packages to current. Patching would really be the only way to do that without breaking the box. I don't actually wanna install 11, I just wanna use the install disk to do a mounted fs install. I've used Slackware for years, but have always at least had a floppy drive. Now I'm doing this on my laptop and I don't really feel like going to buy a blank CD. Plus my wife has the car

I see no reason why you can't use a Slackware 11.0 CD as boot medium and then install Slackware-current from your package collection on the hard disk.

In fact that is exactly how I installed -current many times (at that time it would be 10.1 or 10.2 as the most recent stable release), out of laziness and unwilling to burn CD's every week (when I did not have a CD/RW burner).

Nowadays I just use a USB stick to boot from. Much easier and faster.

Eric

Well, as it turns out, it is a very possible scenario, however, current does not contain packages for the whole system. so it has to be installed ontop of version 11. Unfortunetly, installing all the packages draw out a number of issues, so I will have to find exactly what I'd like and slowly work around the dependancies.

Where did you get this misconception? The Slackware-current package tree is a complete Slackware and does not have to be installed on top of any previous version of Slackware.

Eric

You might be interested in this mini how-to:

Installing Slackware Without a CD Drive

Well, that's a bit strong - I happen to have some space on the Slackware site, and I might get some mentions in the ChangeLog every now and then, but Volkerding is *the* Slackware developer. Thanks anyway

As Eric already advised, it's certainly possible to install -current using the 11.0 ISO. In fact, I did so several times back in the earlier stages of -current development (I was too lazy to make a -current iso). Basically, boot the install cd, use fdisk or cfdisk to create your partition layout, format them manually (or you can certainly use setup to do that, but drop back to a shell after formatting them), mount your partitions (starting with /) on /mnt, mount the directory containing the -current packages, and then use installpkg's -root switch or set the ROOT environment variable to install them. Once they're installed, chroot into /mnt, run the necessary setup scripts with pkgtool (or manually, if you choose), make sure you've got a good kernel and initrd if needed, run lilo, and reboot.

LOL, no problem Rob compared to a regular user such as myself, I say you're a developer
You have developed *something* haven't you? Hehe, anyways.. Keep up the great work! (How about "Slack-stuff" developer, rather than "Slackware" developer) and yes for clarity/brevity for the sake of others, Pat is the final word on Slackware in the same sense that Linus is the final word on the Kernel.
Sasha

I can live with that, I suppose I guess it's just that I tend to think the term "developer" carries with it the implication of a lot more qualifications than I have...

If you boot the Slackware Disc 1, just install like you normally would from CD EXCEPT:

For source, use the dir where your -current files are kept.

To me, that's the easiest way. Why complicate matters? Sometimes KISS is the best.

(BTW, I've installed -current that way just a week ago)