Is it possible to upgrade Slackware on one computer and use the downloaded files to upgrade Slackware on a 2nd computer so you don't have to download all the files a 2nd time?

Of course. The simplest way would be to store all the new packages in some directory accessible from the 2nd computer and only that, cd there and type upgradepkg *t?z.

Another option would be to set up your own mirror. Eric (Alien Bob) has a script that will do just that. It will completely mirror the selected version of Slackware (by default, it will do -current, but you can change it to any version). Then you can set slackpkg to use your server as the mirror.

I have mine mirrored to /share/slackware-mirrors/ (I have both 14.2 and -current in there -- both 64bit), then I symlinked that to /var/www/htdocs/mirror/ and started my rc.httpd service. Then I can just add my own entry to the slackpkg mirrors for my local IP:

I do this on all my local machines and then set Eric's script to run at 6AM every morning to sync my local copies with the slackware.mirrors.tds.net mirror.

This would be a more permanent setup that could minimize your downloads overall and the effort in future updates. But if you're just wanting to do it once or twice, it might be easier to use Didier's method. The method I detailed is one of those that will take some effort to get set up, but once it is, it will save you a lot of time in the future (and bandwidth, if your ISP cares about that -- mine doesn't, but the mirrors will always be slower than my gigabit network at home, so it saves me time when I use slackpkg to update my systems).

My first answer would be "yes". On a second thought "no"!

May I explain myself: If your first install system is a 32-bit architecture system, then you can install it in a 64-bit architecture based computer.

If the original computer where you install linux has a processor capable of 64-bit instructions, and you install a variant of linux tailored for 64-bit, then your second system, if it is a 32-bit processor system, that is, will not be able to handle the instructions given to it, because it is a different architecture.

My second point will be: What medium is the second computer/device able to accept for an installation? USB, CD, DVD, etc...


So, in conclusion:

Get information on the system you have the hardware system install, and on the computer you want to install it.
Then, are they the same architecture? Will the installation software that I got will suffice? Or will I need to acquire a variant to conform to the needs of this other system/

Post data:

As a matter of fact, I do not "Upgrade" my system! Whenever there is a Slackware upgrade, I backup my personal files and then I make a clean install. The reason being that I do not want outdated scripts to linger around with the new installation.

Besides you can only upgrade Slackware from the previous release.

I hope you focus on the best of this experience that is Slackware. It is trying! Nevertheless awards await you! Enjoy!

2 members found this post helpful.

Each new version of Slackware comes with a text file that includes detailed instructions of how to upgrade from the previous version. I tried to do a version upgrade once and I botched it.

That's why I run --Current.

frankbell's answer makes me realize that maybe I misunderstood the question. My answer in post #2 assumes that you just want to upgrade some packages in Slackware stable. But if you want to upgrade to a new Slackware version of course is not sufficient as then you will have to handle removed packages (you could just add the option --install-new to include the new packages).

If you use slackpkg make sure DELALL=off in /etc/slackpkg/slackpkg.conf

This makes sure packages are not deleted after an update. You can then export them to the other machine using NFS.

I guess I wasn't specific enough in my original question. I am talking about upgrading Slackware64-14.2 with the patches that are released from time to time (that contain security fixes, bug fixes, etc).

Didier's suggestion would work; however, I used slackpkg to upgrade and as Gerard pointed out its default behavior is to delete the packages after they are installed. So I no longer have the packages.

I liked bassmadrigal's suggestion to maintain a local Slackware mirror and since there is already a script to create and maintain a local mirror, I thought I would give it a try.

It took a while but I managed to get it to work. I excluded pasture, extra, and the source files. It takes up about 3 GB of space. Now I can easily use that to upgrade any Slackware computer on my LAN and it is much faster than doing it over the Internet.

I set up a cron job to run the script once a day to check for upgrades.