How are people keeping Slackware up to date
 

I suspect most people use slackpkg but I am curious if any of the regulars here do anything else. I know from this thread that Lufbery and H_TeXMeX_H do (or did) use their own scripts and of course there are plenty of other options, e.g. a local mirror (+upgradepkg), slackroll, slapt-get, swaret, etc.

I was using slackpkg but since I tend to stick with stable (only switching to -current around the first RC stage) I realised that I didn't really need its full range of features so I also wrote my own update script. Not because it was needed but just to see what it would involve. ;)

P.S. My script basically mirrors the patches directory but only for packages I have installed and not blacklisted, checking the md5sums and signatures. Nothing else but then that is all I need.

I use slackpkg with a local mirror mounted via nfs (with a line cdrom://slackware/slackware64-current/ in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors).

slackpkg with a local mirror (serving the files using apache) for both, my stable and my -current systems.

Hmm ... ponce and TobiSGD, It seems I should have also provided a combined slackpkg+local mirror option. ;) Ah well, these polls are never perfect.

I have the following run daily from crontab:
And than, every now and than, upgradepkg /data/slack/64-current/slackware64/*/*.t?z. Occasionally I also look at upgrading instructions to figure out removed packages.

rsync + own script

slackpkg with a local repository which is updated with my own rsync-script.

Markus

Personally i tend to use slackware where i need a linuxbox to work in a known state without errors not bothering me for year after another.

It is easy to get a full slackware install with 95% of what i need installed once. And merely having to add some few custom packages, and then do my configuration.

And seldom i have to do updates because of vulnerabilities or need of new functionality. Slackware has been a workhorse that once installed and tested, it just runs and runs...

If something really need updating i will do it manually from a local verified package repository.

I keep a full mirror of current using rsync and then have a script that will identify differences between what is installed and what is available from the mirror plus any other local package sources I specify. The output of that script can then be used with upgradepkg, installpkg, removepkg as needed. The slacklist script only lists differences to stdout, it takes no actions itself.

I normally have 3 package trees stored locally:

1. 'patches' - packages that replace stock packages
2. slackware64-current - which s my local mirror
3. 'extras' packages that are additions - from slackbuilds or elsewhere (these are my extras not "slackware64-current/extra", though I could add that one to the list if I wanted)

Should I need to I can simply add additional package sources, e.g. if i were testing a new version of xfce, I might add a new /local/slackware/xfce directory to the beginning rather than dump it all in with the rest of my stuff in 'patches'.


Here's an example with my usual PKGPATH
I haven't installed the stock kernel packages which is why they are showing up in the results of the install option.


By changing the PKGPATH I can get different results. i.e. by removing extras or patches from the PKGPATH I can easily see what I've changed or switch back
to a stock install

Here's an example with just current and extras.
In this case slacklist can still see that the kernel packages aren't installed, but for 'upgrade' it can see that the installed packages for MPlayer, sed and shadow are different versions to the ones found in the package sources in PKGPATH and so it lists them as possible updates. Just like upgradepkg it doesn't care what is older or newer, only what is installed and what is available.


And if I also drop the 'extras' directory I can effectively do a 'clean' of my system.
This time 'remove' returns some results as it has found packages that are installed, but which have no .t?z available in the configured package sources.


The PKGPATH approach is quite flexible. Instead of pointing it at the whole of slackware64-current/slackware64, you can point it to one or more individual package-sets if you wanted to only include certain sets:
e.g.
In the case above remove wouldn't really make sense as it would decimate your system, but 'install' could be used to install any missing packages from xap, and 'upgrade' could be used to do an upgrade operation limited to only a single package-set.

There is also a 'reinstall' option which works exactly the same as upgrade but lists the available package file regardless of whether the installed version is different or not.


Anyway, I think that gives you a flavour of how it all works. :)

What do you choose if using slackpkg with local mirror? I'm using Alien's mirror script.

I voted for slackpkg, simple as slackware

I use the script for the Alien "mirror-slackware-current.sh" . So I download all of the updated files current. After slackpkg I use to update my system ...

So when a new version of slackware is released, I can burn to a DVD media as well.

I voted other, but: a local mirror rsync'ed on my laptop's hard disk, then slackpkg update && slackpkg upgrade-all.

This is for Slackware-14.0.

EDIT after reading mails from root@slackware

Other - I just keep up with security updates via emails from slackware.com.

I use slackpkg with a rsync'ed local mirror exported via NFS.

I use Slackpkg with 'DELALL=off' in /etc/slackpkg/slackpkg.conf. After an upgrade I then do 'mv /var/cache/packages /var/cache/packages<date>'. This maintains an archive of older packages so that I can easily revert if required.