OK, I installed Slackware64 current from a dvd iso on a Dell Vostro laptop, to try and find out if current is as easy for a new Slackware user as it sounds. The first thing that I did after install and adduser, was to set a current mirror in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors, so I was a bit surprised when I was asked if that I was aware that I was upgrading to current, when I ran "slackpkg update"... Next, when I ran "slackpkg install-new", I got the following:

This continued with the other commands that are supposed to be run after an install, "slackpkg upgrade-all" and "slackpkg clean-system". Is this expected behavior for a new current install? My system reads as:
OS: Slackware 15.0 x86_64 (post 15.0 -current) x86_64

Short Answer: Yes, that is expected after performing a "full" install.

Long answer: install-new looks at the packages you have installed and compares that to the packages that ship with slackware. Any NEW packages (as stated by that message) that are found are then listed for installation.


slackpkg install-new is not a mandatory part of the upgrade process and will usually result in nothing happening. People here only recommend it because if we don't then someone will inevitably skip it and be confused after their install breaks. When running -current my habit is to ALWAYS check the changelog before updating. If packages were added then I add install-new after upgrade-all.

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I'd disagree with your take. My opinion is that current is probably "less than ideal" for a newbie.

If you really want to learn how Slackware works and not have things breaking themselves, then I'd suggest that you run the stable release of 15.0, and keep it up to date with slackpkg.

The reason for my comment is that current is the development version. While Patrick stays quiet about release schedules (releases happen when they're ready) what we know from reading the ChangeLog is that at this point current is still 'pre-beta.'

If you're not comfortable dealing with situations like this: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...es-4175719905/, then you probably should run the stable version. This issue did not happen with the stable release.

Of course, if you want to help by being a beta tester, then by all means go right ahead.

My own situation: I'm on 15.0 stable everywhere (3 servers + 1 desktop at the office, my home NAS, and my laptop)... Haven't seen any reason to switch to current yet.

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While rkelsen's advice in his post above is basically sound, I would nevertheless like to say that I can't agree with his description of -current as "pre-beta" (or in other words "Beware! Here be bugs!")

-current has its drawbacks. One of them is the multitude of upgrades. And yes, occasionally an upgrade is flawed or introduced prematurely. If this happens, it is generally rectified almost instantly (within 24 hours or less). Even so, having run -current for six years I can only recall one one instance when my system broke and I had to fix it by booting from a live media, chroot into the SSD, and replace whatever it was (can't remember right now, it was years ago).

Another drawback is that the frequent upgrades will break 3rd party packages compiled against older libraries.

I switched to -current in 2015 after getting my first 64bit machine. I realised that I needed a multilib (32/64) system, and AlienBob's liveslak was the easiest way to get multilib up and running. Since his liveslak isos are based on -current, that was what I ended up with. And 99,999 percent of the time, my system has been perfectly stable. Yes, I have often had to rebuild 3rd party packages, but the official Slackware system hasn't let me down ever (apart from the abovementioned instance).

So if you want to stay on -current, do so. A few recommendations and hints:
1) Always read the changelog before upgrading.
2) It might also be worth to check this forum before upgrading. Should a fresh upgrade cause issues, this will be the first place where it is mentioned.
3) If you build packages using buildscripts from slackbuilds.org, remember that they are written for the stable version. They might work for -current as well, but sometimes they don't. Ponce (Matteo Bernardini) generously maintains a fork with buildscripts for -current: https://github.com/Ponce/slackbuilds

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To add to kgha's post; this script by Sébastien Ballet I found very helpful to find slackbuilds to rerun after a current upgrade:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/chk3ppdeps/

Note, that it can throw up some false positives, i.e. packages with missing dependencies that would never be on the normal system (in my case for Ardour, VirtualBox) but you'll recognise those quick enough.

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My first Slackware experience was going current-only for about a year before 15.0 came out. It's certainly doable for a new slacker (and I learned a lot in the process), but managing a release version is a bit easier. 15.0 is a great system, and it's still recent. Use it if you can!

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I've been using -current for pert near 8 years now and upgrade it a couple times a month on the average. The only problems I have had is me carelessly forgetting to reconfigure my bootloader after a kernel upgrade. I run ReFind as my boot manager which bails me out most of the time, and I also have another copy of slackware on another partition that i can start and use to edit my borked efi stuff.

But, to me, Slackware is Slackware64-current, and it's what run on my DIY luggable filtered air desktop box that goes everywhere with me. For the web, I am running Slackware64-current on a HostHatch instance bootloading with grub2. A standard Debian/Ubuntu or Rhel knockoff will get your website going but lacks the steam engine ram force of Slackware. Slackware is like a well trained workhorse. "It just works."

...and if you run -Current, always install AlienBOB's -compat packages and keep them updated [boost-compat, icu4c-compat and poppler-compat]

Get them here:

http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/

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The only thing I found difficult about using -current was finding the instructions for configuring sbopkg for -current, which are hidden away in the dark crevices of a help menu on the sbopkg website. But even that is not a problem, so i dont know what the problem with -current should be if you follow the principles of the 3 points provided by kgha

I've always found debates regarding whether -current is easy or hard to be missing the fundamental point. Computers are tools and everyone builds their computer as tool to provide whatever function or solution they need, for their particular situation. Relative to other rolling release distros slackware-current is pretty easy because it clearly outlines what packages are being installed, where they came from, and how they were built.

But Pat offers a stable release version for a reason, and I apppreciate the fact that he does. Avoiding -current is not an attack on Slackware or the Slackware way, it's simply a result of my wants and needs.

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I have a question to the people running current (and there seem to be many!).

At this point in time, what does current provide that the stable release doesn't?

Helping to make the 15.1 (next) stable
Which is basically the main purpose of a development release

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Of course, I understand that... But there seem to be many people who see it as a rolling release rather than the development tree.

Because that's exactly what a rolling release is. When a distro adopts their development branch as an actual release (or the only release like in arch/gentoo) then we call that a "rolling release". You can usually spot this by the use of dates to identify a "release" rather than actual version numbers, but of course Ubuntu has to go and blur the line.

You could refer the Arch Linux as one big development branch with no actual releases. They might tell you "no, it's rolling release" but that's just semantics.

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OK. Maybe I missed something, but at what point was it announced that the development tree of Slackware is an actual release? And by whom?

This is news to me!