Upgrade new laptop to -current or wait on 11.0?

SpelledJ · 06-17-2006, 09:38 PM

Hi all. I'm a longtime lurker at LQ and finally decided to register and start helping out a little around here. I've started learning Linux four years ago on Red Hat and have been using Slackware for about three, starting with 9.0. First of all I'd like to thank all of the contributors to the Slackware forum - one of the reasons I've never needed to register is I've always found the answers to any problems with a Google search, which usually pointed me here. STFW and RTFM - the Slackware way.

I'd like to get an opinion on if it's worth the trouble of upgrading a new 10.2 installation to -current with the impending release of 11.0. I bought an HP Compaq nx6110 notebook in April, and haven't gotten it into full use yet because of its Intel i915 (GMA900) video. The i915 needs at least X.org 6.9 to work properly with the i810 driver, and I've been expecting 11.0 to come out any day now for the past two months. I tried just upgrading xorg, but KDE acted flaky after that. I've also tried out Kubuntu 6.06 on it a couple of weekends ago just to see what the hype was about. Uh, no - I'd like my Slackware, please.

So, I've never tracked -current, but I've upgraded to stable releases numerous times so I'm familiar with the routine. Searches of LQ don't reveal an easy but proper method of upgrading to -current. It's either use one of the auto-upgraders like swaret (which I don't normally use), or go through a lot of manual labor to work through nine months of the changelog. I have a feeling that about the time I get that done my subscription CDs of 11.0 will show up.

Anyone have any thoughts on a just-prior-to-release -current upgrade?
Thanks again.

detpenguin · 06-17-2006, 10:07 PM

personally, i use slackpkg to keep current. but first and foremost, i read the changelogs to see how the upgrade is gonna affect my system (read: whats gonna break). i make great use of the blacklist in slackpkg so that things like kernels, alsa drivers and such aren't automatically updated, which can and will cause huge problems.

whether you wanna update to current, or use 10.2, there are 2 schools of thought on this from me.
the first is, if 10.2 works, why change it?

second...i love the latest and greatest, which is why i keep current. even if that means some of the stuff is buggy...but thats part of current for me...working my way through the bugs...

in the end, it's up to you. what are you looking for out of your system...stable and trusty, or latest and (not always) greatest...

*edit...

just out of curiousity, how do you upgrade to the latest stable?

nykey · 06-17-2006, 10:18 PM

Hi. I've just updated my 10.2 installation to -current and I have to say it's pretty stable till now and quite faster. I always liked to install everything then start tweaking and cleaning my install, so I installed a full 10.2 downloaded the whole slackware dir from slackware-current containing all the packages using lftp mirror and get -R slackware. Then I upgraded it just like you upgrade from a stable ver to a new stable one (e.g. from 10.1 to 10.2).

Code:

# telinit 1

# upgradepkg /root/slackware/a/glibc-solibs-*.tgz

# upgradepkg /root/slackware/a/pkgtools-*.tgz

# upgradepkg --install-new /root/slackware/a/sed-*.tgz

# upgradepkg --install-new /root/slackware/*/*.tgz

Make sure your system will boot.  If you use LILO, make sure the
    paths in /etc/lilo.conf point to a valid kernel and then type 'lilo'
    to reinstall LILO.  If you use a bootdisk, you'll need to use
    makebootdisk to make a new bootdisk using the kernel in /boot.

and afterwards ran Pat's little script

Code:

     #!/bin/sh
     cd /etc
     find . -name "*.new" | while read configfile ; do
       if [ ! "$configfile" = "./rc.d/rc.inet1.conf.new" \
         -a ! "$configfile" = "./group.new" \
         -a ! "$configfile" = "./passwd.new" \
         -a ! "$configfile" = "./shadow.new" ]; then
         cp -a $(echo $configfile | rev | cut -f 2- -d . | rev) \
           $(echo $configfile | rev | cut -f 2- -d . | rev).bak 2> /dev/null
         mv $configfile $(echo $configfile | rev | cut -f 2- -d . | rev)
       fi
     done

and finally

Code:

# telinit 3

And ofcourse a reboot could do good. You can also remove any package you really don't want to upgrade/install before starting the upgrade. I don't really like upgrade manangers lately too this is the best choice at least for me. So in my opinion I think it's worth giving it a shot especially if you have at least a decent transfer rate so you can download the packages quite fast. Good luck. Hope this was helpfull.

o_O looks like someone replayed while I was typing :P. Just wanted to state that as I mentioned above I did install everything, including kernel 2.4.32 and alsa-* (including the alsa-drivers for kernel 2.4.32) and really, it worked like a charm. As I said it works just fine, untill now, but just did the update and haven't had time to check/see all the bugs or problems.

SpelledJ · 06-17-2006, 10:22 PM

Quote:

the first is, if 10.2 works, why change it?

Well, that's the problem on this particular laptop. With X.org 6.8.2 in 10.2, I can only use the vesa driver. I'd like to have DRI acceleration, and fonts look pretty bad with the vesa driver. This laptop also has a mediocre screen and needs all the help it can get. Testing with Slax 5.1 showed that the laptop could produce a decent desktop image with the latest i810 driver.

That said, I have 10.2 running perfectly on my desktop and 10.1 on the ancient laptop I intended to replace, so I've never bothered to try -current.

Quote:

just out of curiousity, how do you upgrade to the latest stable?

I have a CD subscription, so I wait until a stable set is released. I then use Pat's UPGRADE.TXT included on the CD. I modify the procedure a bit since I don't run a full install. I only upgrade what I've installed, then do some examination of the output of upgradepkg --dry-run vs. upgradepkg --dry-run --install-new to see what's been added in the new release, and add anything necessary or interesting. After that I go through the chore of cleaning up /etc and /etc/rc.d to update config files.

SpelledJ · 06-17-2006, 10:38 PM

I had thought about doing a recursive get of the slackware-current tree and then just treating it like a normal stable upgrade as you mentioned. One thing I'm anticipating in 11.0 is a fully integrated 2.6 kernel. On my newer hardware, I've usually installed Slack with the 2.4 bare.i and then installed 2.6 straight from kernel.org with a custom .config. A couple of years ago, I remembered thinking that one of things I liked about Slackware was that Pat's stock kernels were so modular that I never had to tinker with them to get new hardware working. It's not that I don't want to compile my own kernel, it's just a chore that would be nice to avoid if 11.0 has a similar 2.6 setup as 2.4 has been in the past. Doing a make menuconfig on 2.6 seems to take about 4 times as long as it used to on 2.4.

I guess the main thing I was trying to gauge was how much manual labor would be involved with a -current upgrade, and if I could get it close enough to what 11.0 will be that I wouldn't want to do just a clean install when it comes out.

Thanks for your replies, guys.

detpenguin · 06-17-2006, 10:44 PM

one suggestion, and i've used this before, it's pretty sweet, is to download the current iso's from here
they build them pretty regularly, usually weekly and instead of manually installing the packages using something like slapt-get or swaret or slackpkg, you can simply burn the iso's and use it as you would a new cd release, and upgrade it that way.

as for the kernel, i just upgrade using the latest kernel in testing, which currently is 2.6.16.20.
i've never compiled a kernel, i just use the kernels pat puts out. i've never had a problem, but then i don't run anything exotic that would require me to compile a kernel, either. one day i'll have to try it tho.

SpelledJ · 06-17-2006, 10:59 PM

Hey, that is sweet. I've only found one other place that had current iso's, but they had no bandwidth and the download was going to be 40 hours per disk or something. I'm currently pulling down disk one from VT at 563KB/sec.

Early on in my adventures with 2.6 on Slackware I kept having issues with Pat's choice of modules and his use of an initrd to support things like reiserfs. To get around it, I found that just downloading the kernel source and doing it myself was reliable. I should probably learn a better way of doing it, but once I found something that worked I stuck with it. I have gotten really good performance out of custom kernels, though.

detpenguin · 06-17-2006, 11:07 PM

VT is really decent. usually i start the download, go to bed and when i wake up, it's good to go. if i fall way behind in updates, i usually just snag the iso's and catch up that way...quick, easy and it works great.

sounds like you have a lot more experience with kernels than i do. for some reason, kernels are like the final frontier for me. half fear, half confusion and half (kernel) panic is mostly what keeps me from doing it. one day tho....one day

SpelledJ · 06-17-2006, 11:34 PM

Disk one down - on to two, then bed.

I broke quite a few kernels playing with Red Hat 7.3 on my old Thinkpad a few years ago. I was determined to make all of the hardware work (including the Winmodem!) so I got the hang of configuring kernels then. It helps to have an old box to beat on and tweak until you get it right. Once you learn how to be careful with adding new kernels to LILO, you can test things out on a good box and if it doesn't work just fall back to a working setup.

tronayne · 06-18-2006, 08:20 AM

I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 with the Intel chip set and, although it worked with "stock" 10.2, the display was "big-gunky" and things just weren't quite right. I grabbed all the X packages from current and upgraded to those and the display is much, much better (higher resolution) but... some things don't work quite right (and I don't really give a hoot about them); imagemagick does not (missing library), I can't close and then reopen the lid (the display will not come back no matter what).

So, you can try that or wait (if you can live without imagemagick and the lid, maybe). Six of one.

Anonymo · 06-18-2006, 08:56 AM

why don't you just update x.org and maybe the kernel with alsa?

hsimah · 06-18-2006, 11:51 AM

I run 10.2, with a custom kernel and Xorg 6.9 for the i915. I just downloaded those packages and it was good to go.

SpelledJ · 06-18-2006, 12:03 PM

I tried just grabbing X.org 6.9 and updated to a 2.6.16 kernel (I think it was around .11). It worked up front - that is, X would start cleanly with the i810 driver, but I kept finding odd things happening. One thing I remember was the KDE info center wouldn't open most of the items in the tree. I know, not critical, but a sign that something wasn't right. It seems like DRI was active but not performing well either. OpenGL screensavers wouldn't display the full frame, and glxgears had mediocre fps (400-500, where Slax was giving 1000+).

I downloaded both the -current isos last night, and I'm burning them right now. Everyone seems to be saying that -current is in pretty stable condition now, so I'm going to give that a try.

Thanks for everyone's input.

detpenguin · 06-18-2006, 01:04 PM

pat says

Quote:

This, BTW, will be sometime after the 11.0 release. This current to
stable cycle has already taken too much time (10.2 is in need of
replacement), and introducing changes that might break things at this
point would be foolhardy. Although there's still quite a bit in the
TODO queue here I'm making my steps carefully as -current is very
stable, and I think it should ship as a stable 11.0 soon so that we can
get back to the business of breaking things in -current. :-)

which to me says current is stable now...i've had no problems really, other than a few glitches that i think were related to my box which i needed to tweak...all is good

emereck · 06-19-2006, 02:04 AM

Simplest approach used by a noob like me:
* install everything on the 10.2 CDs
* use slackpkg to upgrade slackware