I installed a version of Slackware in VMWare, and got it running there now. What I would like to know is where in Slackware do they embed the information for the version number that I am using? The information is not readable on the CD_ROM.
Mandrake has it in plain view on the desktop, and that makes it easy, but this is not the case for Slack.

Also the other thing that I would like to know is, doesn't Slackware have an automated critical package update, like Debian has? Or does this have to be done piece-by-piece, manually? Or, do Slack users simply stand-by and wait for the next OS version to come out? I noticed that DPKG is designed to only allow package manipulation locally in the CD_ROM drive. There doesn't seem to be anything in the commands for Internet access to bring in new stuff from there.
I just read on another post here on the Forum something about using Swaret for manipulating the packages. Does this application come in version 9.0, or is this someting new in version 9.1? Does this application have to be accquired elsewhere?

Im not sure what you are talking about... but slackware is pretty straightfoward.. if you installed v9.0, then you have version 9.0, if you upgrade to 9.1 you have 9.1 If you go to current.. you have "current"

See my thread a few down. It seems as though security updates should be installed manually. It does not look like this can be done with swaret. Swaret however is not included in the distro. It must be downloaded. Search google for swaret

/etc/slackware-version

The first part of my question was because I acquired a CD_ROM of Slackware, but the version number was not readable on the platter. I did not know if I was up-to-date, or whether what I was using was an old version of Slack. And Slack doesn't put this information up-front. Now, when I read at the bottom page of my post, I noticed that the version number was available in /etc/slackware-version.

So this is what I will check out when I restart VMWare. Also, I guess that I will have to go hunting on the Internet to find a source for Swaret. Anything is better than having to lose a lot of time manually chasing and updating files.

Swaret is easily findable - www.swaret.org

Just as an FYI - the stock Slack v9.0 installation is running kernel 2.4.20 and the stock Slack v9.1 installation is running kernel 2.4.22. You can use the uname command to determine the kernel version. For more info: man uname

-- J.W.

Thanks, you have all been very helpful with your information. It is being really appreciated.

Swaret is located on the slack cd2, in the directory /extra.
Packages (with security too) updates are done with swaret.
Kernel security updates are done via kernel recompiling.

And you could use wget to download the latest swaret off the net.. which is what I did

Mr Duffy:

Could you give me a concise example on how you used wget to download swaret off the net? I tried without much success, but of course, I didn't use wget. I was also trying to get slapt-get, and not much luck there either.

I guess that I am not fond of a Mexican style of updating files and packages. The Mex. style that I am writing about is called "Manual".
I'd rather let the machine do the automation for updating it's own files/packages.

I'm not smart enough to know how to use wget, either. I just use a browser to go to http://www.swaret.org and get the package that way.

Easy on the Mexicans, guy! I've seen a lot of references to Slackers- didn't know we were all Mexican!
What I mean is, Slackware is a manually configured distro. The 'machine' can't do anything by itself. I see you are a Knoppix user, so you have the best of the 'self-configuring' distros. mandrake and redhat are also probably better at what you want.
If you want to know HOW they do that, then Slackware is great. Slackware will teach you more about how Linux really works, but those who just want to 'use' and not learn about Linux will be better served with some other distro.

Actually I was referring to Manuel. Got nothing against Mexicans. I would have preferred a better choice of a distro to work with, but at the moment, Slack was the only one of the bunch of attempted distros, that I could successfully install in VMWare. And now I am paying the price of time and great effort to manually maintaining it. Because of that narrow choice, automated update options has not been available. Red Hat failed because of disk2, which had corrupted files in the files beginning with 'x'. Vector Linux would not go beyond the partition formatting point, and SOT Linux couldn't even get going. This is just some of the bunch that I unsuccessfully tried. I didn't want to try Mandrake, since it is my main distro that is permanently installed in it's own separate drive. Supposedly, VMWare allows me to sample different distros, to see which is the most preferable. Evidently, short-comings prevent being able to try them all.

People think that "Live" cd's is a new technology. As it turns out, many years back, Slack was one of the first OS's that I had installed and used. I still have that CD. The vendor had setup that CD to have the choice of a regular installation, or as a trial option, being able to use it from the CD-ROM drive. I guess that at that time, they took all the files that had variables in them, and put them in the hard drive or memory, and things that didn't change were left and used on the CD.

Cheers!