Hello Everyone,

I know this topic has been covered completely, so I am not posting to ask how to do it. I came across this from Robby Workman:

So, I want to upgrade using this. But, I had a silly occurance when I first installed back in October last year. I was originally running 12.1 at the time and had a hard drive disaster and had to re-install. I took the opportunity to install Slack current, which I did. However, I had inadvertently uncommented a SLACKWARE 12.1 mirror in Slackpkg mirrors, and on the first update/upgrade, it promptly (and very smoothly, I might add) downgraded me to 12.1 from current. At the time, I just said to heck with it and stayed where I was because everything was running fine.

Anyway, I now would like to upgrade back to current from my 12.1 install (which actually used to be current; whew!! I hope that makes sense.)

My question is two part:

1. I had to jump through some hoops to get some of the hardware working in 12.1 (sound, volume whell, etc.) Will those config files still remain after an upgrade? And, fglrx will not work anymore with some of the newer distros because it is not supported for my chipset anymore. Will this be true with Slack-current as well?

2. What particular pitfalls might I incur going from 12.1 to current?

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to comment.

Bob

As to question number one: you may need to delete /etc/asound.state if your sound does not work anymore. Slackware will re-create that file upon next boot trying to reconfigure your sound with sane defaults. Your fglrx will be partly overwritten as well by upgrading the xorg-server and mesa packages. I know that the fglrx driver has problems with recent Slackware kernels (including that of Slackware 12.2 iirc) and it will need a recompile for fglrx to work. Read this thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...module-703590/

About question number two, I can make no forecasts. You'll find out soon enough. Check what slackpkg tells you, and especially take care to move important *.new files into place, overwriting the older ones. Hardware autodetection for instance will stop working if you forget that.


Eric

Thanks, Eric. That information is what I thought to be the case, but I feel braver now that you have replied. I am competent enough now to fix most things that break. If I cannot fglrx to work, it is not the end of the world. I'm not a gamer.

Thanks again for your reply.


Bob

That quote from Robby is not the full upgrade procedure. That is an overview, but there are many tid bits here and there that make all of the difference for a clean upgrade (particularly across multiple versions). UPGRADE.TXT and CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT should be used.

Also, I mentioned a problem with slackpkg upgrades across multiple versions in another post in your other thread, but I am going to touch on it briefly here.

Don't use slackpkg to cross multiple Slackware versions at once unless you know what you are doing. Some packages will likely be lost in the mix otherwise.

Other than that the pitfalls from 12.1 to -current depends on just what -current is. For someone reading this thread in the future -current could be Slackware 99. Regardless, usually the process is the same. Just check all of the CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT for each version you crossed to see if you missed anything. For instance, did you add the new groups?

The upgrade HowTos linked in my signature are an example of using the official Slackware docs (CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT, UPGRADE.TXT) for clean upgrades. I also show how to use other tools including slackpkg.