Hi, this is a pretty newbie kind of question, I hope it makes sense!

I have been running Slackware for about 8 months now, and some of the important packages have had new releases. I havent been keeping up to date with all the changes, but I know there has been new releases of KDE and Xfree86 and stuff. Im sure there are also newer releases of Gnome and Fluxbox etc etc, and they are just the window managers. what about all the underneath stuff? How do I even know what's running there?!

My question is, how do I know what I should upgrade? I know, "if it aint broke..." but I think there are security issues in some packages, and I dont want to leave holes in my system. How do you manage upgrades to your system?

Sorry, kind of a wishy-washy question - but with Mac and PC its just a "wait 3(to 6) years for the next version and wipe everything and start again..." How do you do it on linux?

Thanks!

nmoog

This is a more human than a technical question. In linux almost every month updates are released. You can fix a time limit. You can also try to evaluate the software updates before ou actually install them. I do the updation every 6 months.