Slackpkg?

vharishankar · 08-04-2006, 10:33 AM

This is the third time I'm installing Slackware, folks. After a hiatus, I'm back!

Anyway, this time I've decided to ditch swaret or slapt-get as reliable means of updating the system. Instead I've decided to go with slackpkg and using only official updates and the changelog. It seems to be a breeze to use...

So what are the things to watch out for, particularly with reference to upgrades (apart from reading and following the changelog of course)?

masonm · 08-04-2006, 10:54 AM

You already answered your own question. Changelogs. I've been using slackpkg for a long time to stay abreast with -current and have had no problems at all.

I use the slackpkg blacklist command to blacklist those things like the kernel, headers, and such that I don't want it to touch.

vharishankar · 08-04-2006, 10:55 AM

Hokay, chief.

I'm also impressed by Checkinstall (which I use in Debian to install packages not found in the repositories) and it's pretty impressive for the occasional custom package.

hrp2171 · 08-04-2006, 11:16 AM

Is there a gui for slackpkg? Now that I'm comfortable enough with Slackware, I want to start doing updates on a regular basis. Thanks.

dive · 08-04-2006, 11:51 AM

I don't know of any gui but I want to reiterate about reading the changelog before doing an upgrade. It's v important.

You could set up a cron job to check the changelog daily and go by that if you need to upgrade or not. This is what I do. My crontab is:

Code:

 0 6 * * * /usr/bin/aterm -fn sabvga -e /home/dave/scripts/changelog 1>/dev/null 2>&1

And the script is:

Code:

 #!/bin/bash

 cd /home/dave/slack-changelog
 mv ChangeLog.txt ChangeLog.last
 wget ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/ChangeLog.txt
 diff ChangeLog.txt ChangeLog.last > dfile
 if [ -s dfile ]
     then
     cp dfile "changelog_`date +%Y%m%d`"
     cat dfile
     read
 fi

This compares the latest changelog with the day befores and if theres a change it outputs it to a terminal. I have this run at 6am daily so I can read it over breakfast. Then I use slackpkg sometime in the evening when the mirrors have had time to update:

slackpkg update
slackpkg upgrade-all

aquaboogie90 · 08-04-2006, 12:08 PM

Checkinstall is awesome for a paranoid source-builder like me who doesn't feel like writing SlackBuilds or .tgz's.

dive · 08-04-2006, 12:14 PM

*Edit: Seems the version of slackpkg in -current (2.05 I think) has a curses gui now.

masonm · 08-04-2006, 12:24 PM

Yeah, the new one in current is curses based. Freaked me out the first time I ran it LOL

hrp2171 · 08-04-2006, 01:01 PM

Cool! Thanks. this thread is becoming very informational. I think as long as it's kept on topic, it could become a great resource for future reference.

simcox1 · 08-04-2006, 01:36 PM

I wouldn't recommend updating to current now though. Updating from 10.2 is likely to cause problems. It did when I tried it.

gilead · 08-04-2006, 03:45 PM

You're right, upgrading now would be painful. If you've got a real itch to be at -current though and have a box you can run a new install on...

You can run a local slackware -current mirror using rsync with Alien Bob's script from http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tool...are-current.sh which also creates the install CDs/DVD. Once you have them...

vharishankar · 08-04-2006, 08:43 PM

I'm currently pointing to 10.2. Will upgrade only when 11.0 comes out.

theoffset · 08-04-2006, 09:08 PM

You don't need Slack-11 erh.. Slack-current to run the latest Slackpkg, you can grab the latest version at http://slackpkg.sourceforge.net/

vharishankar · 08-04-2006, 09:10 PM

I wasn't referring to slackpkg. I was just referring to Slackware packages in general.