Whenever there is updates available (and I have time for it). If I notice updates that might impact non-official packages that I use, I generally delay installing just those packages and wait for the third party to catch up (mostly Alien Bob's stuff) or pass those updates only when I have a strategy to deal with the changes.

One annoying thing about -current is that previous versions of packages disappear rather quickly from all mirrors, and I'm not keen on keeping a local copy, which would be probably the easiest strategy.
So if I update a package and then I notice a problem and want to revert to the previous version, it can be tricky.

I may join you in this for now. I have a deadline on the 21st of this month and I shan't be updating till at least then.

I normally try and update current on my test box on a weekly basis. Really, though, it depends on upstream as I also need multilibs and ktown from alienbob.

I'm sort of stuck at the moment. Waiting for alienbob to recompile ktown qt5 against the new version of llvm from current.

Once that's done I can then recompile qbs, qt-creator and so on.

Alex

I update everything as available except the kernel. I do the kernel when a new firmware is available.

Let's see, I installed Slackware current back in November and never updated it. This week I performed a clean install of Slackware current. Been building extra packages for it and tweaking and I'll probably keep it frozen (not updated) until next Winter. I find it better to do a clean install every six months to a year or so rather than a gentoo-style upgrade treadmill.

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Keeping a local archive is not hard and can be kept so that it does not use an inordinate amount of disk space (<5GB).
My approach is detailed in this post. The only change I have made to the script to clean the archive is to add this stanza at the end.

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ravenbot in ##slackware-help IRC channel on freenode displays a summary when the slackware64-current ChangeLog.txt changes. For example:

When I see that, I wait a little while (half an hour or so, to avoid apparent race conditions) and then update my test system.

I'm not risking anything by updating on every update, since I only use current on the test system. All of my other systems use stable releases (slackware 14.1 or 14.2).

I usually read the changelog then update.
I suppose it averages about once a week.
Sometimes I check LinuxQuestions or AlienBob's blog
if it smells like upgrading will cause issues.

It's worked well for me.

I've gotten used to the need to rerun NVIDIA driver setup
and rerunning eliloconfig after each update.

I've forgotten to run eliloconfig a few times and
once I think I interrupted the script which caused it to fail,
I keep another copy of slackware on a different partition so
it is a piece of cake to go in and fix the bootloader problem.
I update that version of Slackware occasionally.

I also have install and boot USB's around in case I really foul something up
with my tinkering.

For me, -current is Slackware.

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Yes, I will probably start doint it sooner or later. Though being lazy is oh so sweet!
Thanks.

Once a week usually. Always looking out for potential problems on this forum -- almost always if something might break, there will already be a solution posted somewhere here.

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I haven't voted as I do not run -current, but my local mirror of all released Slackware /patches trees is updated whenever updates are available and mostly I update my system(s) too afterwards from that local mirror.
I've been doing it that way since 7.1 and from/for older systems I later added 4.0 and 7.0, so I've got a complete tree of all patches for 4.0 and later.
Since 11.0 (slamd64) for the 64-bit releases too.

Sorry for the delay.

This is what I maintain at SBo, so the stuff from "Academic" is a set of software that I like to have present on my system. Of course, I need things maintained by others, such as Gnumeric, Inkscape, etc. I used Ponce's repo for -current to build the packages. He is doing an outstanding job and has my sincere admiration for his work.

Some tools need additional configuration. For example RepeatMasker has this outlined in its README.SLACKWARE. Another example is the meme-suite, which needs motif and sequence databases to be downloaded from its website and placed in /var/lib/. Maybe I should submit SlackBuilds for the databases, as well...

Other programs do not have build scripts. For example UCSF Chimera has a nice command line installer. However, some changes in -current made the program unable to start. As you can see, noone could find a solution. What I did was revert those packages to older versions, by recompiling them. Also, upon some update of CUPS, my printer drivers were not supported anymore, so I had to downgrade it, too.

You see, if the system was not constantly changing, I would not mind to do all these gymnastics or be more persistent in searching for a solution. However, knowing that whatever 'fixes' I did will be lost upon the next update or made irrelevant was kinda discouraging.

When I purchased my work computer I specifically asked for an 'older' SSD, not M.2, because I knew this will be a problem. Ar first I installed 14.2, of course. The network adapter was not supported, as well as the video card. I upgraded the kernel, which solved the network issue, but not the graphics card. So, I decided to give -current a try and was pleasantly surprised that everything worked. I tried to keep the pace of updates, but this led to the problems I described above. So, in my case, using -current with constant updates does not suit me for production system. The main reason I switched to it was that my video card was not supported by 14.2. I even tried installing the proprietary drivers, but it did not work. I told myself that I just need a system that supports my hardware out-of-the-box and that I can use as a platform for all additional tools I need.

I understand that Slackware 15.0 will come out when it's ready, but we've reached a point where the latest -stable does not support modern hardware. I know that's a sensitive topic and I understand that Patrick has a lot of work. That's why I don't cry 'are we there yet?' here and patiently wait.

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I selected "Whenever I feel like it / it depends on the updates". In general I update when updates become available. I of course read ChangeLog.txt and determine based on that. One major item that might delay, is an update would effect Alien Bob's ktown. In addition to that I have around 216 third party packages installed and occasionally will delay depending on number of packages that will be affected.

I don't rebuild all third party packages after an update. Running each of those SlackBuild scripts each time would be time consuming. I rebuild or update (if new version available) only those packages that need it. This occasionally results in a package getting missed, but I find it eventually and rebuild or update as needed.

Right now I am behind on updates, way behind in fact (last update applied: Fri Mar 22 20:41:23 UTC 2019). I am very busy and just have not had the time to do the update and deal with possible problems. Of course the longer I wait, the more there is a chance sometime may not go well. Then again, all may go well (my experience). Perhaps tomorrow will be the day I tackle this on my main box. Then proceed to my laptop as well.

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Never was not an option in the vote.. I usually install a given release, and then add any package I need. Back in the day of 0.99.4.14pl4 or something, I updated the kernel much more often. Nowadays, I rarely need to.

I *KNOW* I should update more often, but.. if it works, I don't like to mess with it too much. I could use a newer kernel / nvidia driver on my main Ryzen desktop (at 4.12.2 now), but on my file server, I haven't seen any need to update.. I just did a recent upgrade on all machines to dump Core-2/DDR-2 era hardware and move everything to DDR-3 / DH61 / ivy bridge stuff, as several of my Abit IP-35 boards were on their last legs, so both the file server are on 14.2.

I went as far as installing a cron job to download updates, I just never got around to figuring out how to actually install stuff the right way - I always read the warnings about upgrading too much and then decide that, it's working, and I don't *NEED* to update, so I put it off. Yeah, I'm sure I COULD figure it out eventually.

Anyway - I'm about to upgrade again - got a couple of fsck errors on my SSD (probably 5-6 years old at this point), so I ordered an 860 evo to replace it. Just trying to figure out how soon 15.0 will make it and whether I should wait. I know, I know - when it's ready.

ps. anyone have a need for 2GB DDR2 sticks? I think I have like 11x2 gb and 2x1 gb or similar just lying around now doing nothing. Probably can't get more than $20-25 for the lot on ebay. If anyone knows of a school or someone low on funds who could use some extra RAM for their machines, drop me a line..

The last three posts in this topic have been great. solarfields, I particularly thank you for your post and going into the details for why you don't update more often. You and I are in the same boat, to an extent, but you are definitely in the engine room while I'm just sauntering on the deck. My Ultrabook was manufactured about two years ago and has an M.2 drive, so running 14.2 is out of the question. You and I are both engrossed in research and I do not have time to be constantly rebuilding third party packages - however, the only third party packages which are vital to me are Libreoffice, Vivaldi, Spotify, Evince and Cherry Tree. In spite of those not being demanding - and three of those being binaries - I still won't do it [actually the only thing I probably will upgrade regularly is Vivaldi]. Everything is going absolutely swimmingly with my -current install, and jr_bob_dobbs's technique of reinstalling biannually, for me once in the Spring and once in the Autumn, is looking increasingly attractive. Seeing as I have a separate /home partition, I really don't see it being any issue when Winter rolls around. The "if it ain't broke don't fix it" adage seems to be increasingly relevant to my use-case.

Yes, sorry about that, as I said, I would inevitably omit some options.

I could but I'm in the UK. My desktop runs 6GB RAM which for me is ample. I could upgrade to 8GB at some point but at the moment it's no issue whatsoever.