I've been reliably using AlienBob's kde5 and when I completed the most recent updates I was getting the blank screen. I thought maybe it was an Xorg issue. My desktop is running -current and I use slackpkg+ (including the update/install-new/upgrade-all/clean-system steps) for updating. When looked at X.org.0.log the xorg server is still trying to load nv, but errors because the ABI version is older than the server version. That seemed strange, so I went in hunt of answers. Freedesktop.org describes the nv_drv.so as deprecated, but it was still present in /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers with an 11-12-15 date. While most other drivers had a 11-17-16 date on them. This was odd, so I checked the -current changelog and saw that Patrick had a number of xf86-video-{xx} drivers 'removed".

When Patrick updates current and shows a package removed, how does slackpkg execute that? I ask because /var/log/packages still shows all the changelog marked "removed" packages as installed, /var/log/remove_packages doesn't show them uninstalled, and a slackpkg search xf86-video doesn't show the removed packages as installed or uninstalled. Yikes. Explanations will be enlightening.

Lastly, How do I now uninstall the "removed" drivers, is it simply a matter of deleting them from the directory?

To remove a package try "slackpkg remove" or "removepkg". Also read "man slackpkg" and "man removepkg"

I've also been reliably using AlienBob's kde5.

Although i had no issues with kde after the Sat Nov 19 update, now 10 days later my external monitor resolution have been capped.

Same here.

Graphics Card:

Again, that a package be removed from the (remote) Slackware repository in no way automagically removes it from your system.

You are responsible of removing packages from your installation. Patrick J. Volkerding won't do that for you[1]

If you do not understand that and do not know how to remove a package from your installation, you are not ready to follow (rather than "run") -current.

[1]Well, maybe unless you give him a ssh access to your box and a lot of money

slackpkg doesn't handle packages removed on the changelog specifically. The only thing it supports for that is using slackpkg clean-system, which will show you any packages that don't exist on the Slackware mirror. This will show any packages that were removed in the changelog as well as any packages that were installed that are not on the mirror (including any 3rd-party packages).

This is why when running -current, it is always advisable to check the changelog before updating. With the stable releases, it is highly unlikely you'll see a removed or added package as they tend to only be upgrades to fix vulnerabilities, so it isn't as bad to blindly upgrade stable, although, you could still get surprised with a new kernel, ssh lockdown (a 14.1 patch prevented root from logging in over ssh), etc. So, it is always recommended to check the changelog before updating, but much more so on -current.

Didier, thanks for the answer. Can you recommend some reading material for "understanding that" about current? I think it a bit tongue in cheek to suggest that someone asking a question about slackpkg+ package management under current isn't ready to run -current. Also just because freedesktop.org says nv is deprecated doesn't mean that Slackware may not continue to include it (that deprecation was imposed a couple of years back and yet 14.2 still has it present!) so I wasn't sure if the latest xorg had finally deprecated, or if Patrick removed it for conflicts with other other software and the newest xf86-video-nouveau package had a process that removed the xf86-video-nv package.

As for who should follow current, my understanding was that
1) -current is a testing platform for the next Slackware release
2) while Patrick and other do their best to assure things don't break, sometimes they just might
3) one should be prepared to hunt down problems and possibly repair them yourself
4) changes will occur more frequently than on stable, which means sometimes things will break.
5) if feeling up to the above facts then if possible run -current and report problems to the maturing of Slackware

As for how to remove a package, I know the process. What I didn't know is whether slackpkg+ has a routine for acknowledging those "removals" or if it was a manual task, such as AlienBob describes in his write-ups when upgrading kde5. I'll now proceed to removing the packages manually. I wonder if it would have been bad form to have the latest slackware package of xf86-video-nouveau complete that step.

But on a lighter note: I have annually renewed my Slackware donation, not asking for CD's and instead downloading and burning. So in the giving season let's all make sure we renew our support of Slackware and make Patrick's holiday even brighter. Agreed?

bassmadrigal, thanks I agree. I'm wondering why the "removed" didn't show up in the "clean-system" command step after the upgrade back on the 19th? They still don't show with slackpkg "search" commands now, even though they are in the /var/log/packages file. But I just now ran the same 'clean-system' and they show. Perhaps it is due to a change made today for slackpkgplus.conf which might have been masking for priority? The change was I have a private repository copy of ponce's current, and it was first in the priority list, now it's last in the priority list. Anyway a learning experience. Learned 1) don't always trust /var/log/packages or /var/log/removed_packages, 2) try slackpkg "clean-system" after a reboot, 3) make a stronger habit of reading changelog before ANY updates.

Cheers, BrianA_MN

Bamunds, bear in mind that slackpkg+ is an extension of slackpkg, and that slackpkg itself is a front end to installpkg, removepkg, upgradepkg, with the added feature of downloading the packages. No more, no less.

That being said, slackpkg+ is now so complicated (as I see it) that I renounced to use it, finding too hard to set it up properly, so I understand that its usage can raise questions like yours.

I now use exclusively slapt-get and gslapt to perform the same functions as I find slapt-get a lot easier to configure and use. It has not all the features of slackpkg+ but suffice for my needs. But, I digress it seems.

Oh and I agree with your understanding of -current, especially that it is a testing platform for the next Slackware release.

But then, for that purpose it is better to run a "vanilla" current, without any third party package. Else it is hard to tell if an issue is due to the distribution itself, to a third party package or to a misfit between components of the whole system (distribution + third party packages).

And if you run a vanilla -current, there is of course no need to use slackpkg+.

As an illustration of the need of testing -current without any add-on, I am setting up a distribution based on Slackware and spend a lot of time reinstalling it from scratch in virtual machines. I can make some tests on my current system, but as it includes additional packages doing so I am for instance unable to detect the lack of a dependency among the set of packages that will be shipped.

I don't think either is the case here. I imagine that Pat saw it was deprecated and was replaced by the nouveau package, so when the Xorg 1.19 upgrade came about, he decided to remove that along with a bunch of other deprecated drivers. It is very likely that if you just recompiled the nv driver with the 1.19 Xorg, it would work just fine (although, it is possible that the nv driver wouldn't compile against 1.19, so that's why Pat removed it).

I don't see any reason why slackpkg wouldn't remove those except for 2 cases. One, the mirror wasn't fully updated yet, so the packages still existed in those directories, byt since they were the same version, slackpkg obviously wouldn't upgrade them. Once the mirror was updated, and the packages no longer existed on the mirror, then slackpkg's clean-system routine would find them and notify you. Or two, you somehow had them blacklisted and ended up removing them from the blacklist before you ran it again. I find this situation highly unlikely unless you specifically remember removing them from the blacklist.

I don't see how a change in slackpkgplus.conf would've affected that unless some other repo had those same packages available without a tag and the same build number (not likely).

Didier and bassmadrigal, thanks for the feedback.

I understand the possible issues running third party applications against -current and would agree, but the xorg error didn't occur until the -current upgrade of 11-19. Thinking back on this issue (learning), one step I could have taken was to remove the upgrade and go back to previous xorg, but I was looking for answers why the error occurred and decided to investigate this path after finding nv was suppose to be deprecated years ago.

The installation is from LIVESLAK CD 1.1.3, which is -currrent plus some special sauce of AlienBob's, Ktown, and SDDM. After installation I had considered going back to a pure 14.2, by following a discussion to simply reference 14.2 repositories, but AlienBob warned me off that idea since he has a number of packages in LIVESLAK which aren't in 14.2, LIVESLAK is based on -current, a later kernel, later xorg and special builds for KDE. His suggestion was to stay on -current plus his repositories for ktown, restricted and alienbob. Following that lead was why I'm using slackpkg+.

Additionally, I have installed without issue a maybe twelve other slackbuild packages from ponce's -current repository and local slackbuilds. I've created a local "myrepo" which is a sync of ponce's -current and is maintained with sbotools. I have sbotools and local slackbuilds output to the same directory, so that anything locally built (ex. palemoon) can be found by slackpkg for installation/upgrade/removal.

In the end I believe this error occurred because I failed to follow the slackpkg clean-system step after the upgrade (or possibly after a reboot and re-update of the slackpkg), or because I had the slackpkgplus.conf with wrong PKG_PRIORITY being ponce first. Because "slackpkg clean-system" now is showing the xf86-video's to remove I'm marking this solved.

I do highly appreciate your advice to eliminate any third-party packages. Going forward to stay with AlienBob's advice to use -current and his repositories only. Perhaps I can find ktown applications for the alternatives I've added from ponce's and the local slackbuilds, like palemoon.

Cheers, BrianA_MN

I now realize that you have a highly customized system, more customized than I would have inferred from your first post, and that's where slackpkg+ comes handy.

Of course theres's nothing bad in that and if that helps to test software that could make their way in a stable version of Slackware in the future, like some of Eric's packages, that's fine. I am just too lazy (read: not enough skilled and lacking the motivation) to maintain such a configuration myself