Your experiences (and advice) regarding -Current
 

Alright, I've been running Slackware 13.37 for a couple of months now, have learned a lot, and have had no problems other than the ones caused by me. And I've always been able to dig my way out of them, so no big deal, part of the learning process.

A while back I had KDE 4.7.3 installed (I switch back & forth between KDE & Xfce depending on the task), and that was fine. But recently, when attempting to upgrade the kernel to 3.1.5, something happened where both the new kernel and old kernel would boot, but I couldn't use the keyboard or the mouse. On a whim, I just decided to wipe out & reinstall the whole thing. Well, now KDE 4.7.3 has been replaced by 4.7.4, which we are strongly advised to only use when running -current.

I have no qualms with upgrading to current if it's just a few minor snags here & there. While I consider myself a good "Google detective" who knows enough to eventually figure things out, I'm no pro by any means and without Google & this forum I'd be sunk pretty quickly.

Based on all that, I'd like to hear from some folks running -current.

How "dangerous" is it? Yes, I know anything can happen and am not asking for any sort of confidence interval or guarantees that everything will be a-ok. Hopefully you get the drift.


I ran Arch for a while and never had a problem, which from what I understand is less thoroughly vetted and more bleeding edge than Slack -current.

Thanks.....

At the moment I am running Slackware-current (32 bit) on two machines. I am finding -current to be very stable and without glitches. In the future it is possible some glitches may appear as we get closer to 14.0. (on occasion things do break in -current).
You should be able to safely upgrade your 13.37 installation to -current without too many hiccups (back-up your stuff). :)
I also run Arch (in a VM). Slackware-current is very conservative compared to Arch. I'll always be a Slacker.

Yeah that's exactly how I perceived it from what I've read.

And of course hiccups are always possible. Like I said, the problems I've had while using Slackware have been of my own making, like the kernel upgrade. I had upgraded to kernel 3.04 before with no problems, so I must have muffed something this time.

I've been running -current on my notebook for quite a while now, and have never run in to any issues. I can't speak for KDE, though, as I use Openbox instead. In all the years I've used Slackware, I've never found -current to be any less stable than the fixed releases, aside from a few occasional oopsies.

I do know how to compile my own kernel, but, I am very happy with the slackware-current kernel.

Alien Bob (a Slackware developer) has an excellent kernel compile guide.

http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=linux:kernelbuilding&s[]=kernel&s[]=compile

It is a lot of fun :).

Thanks for the responses, gents (and ladies if any). :)

Speaking of current, is it sufficient to just switch slackpkg mirrors to a current one? Or do I need to run the script & burn an iso? I'm a little confused I guess as to what constitutes an official switch.

Yes. You can upgrade to -current by changing mirrors in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors

Then run:

Run lilo after the upgrade is complete. You may also wish to run:

You can also create a -current ISO(s) and do a clean install of -current

To add to hitest's advice, please peruse the CHANGELOGS (he has a link) so that you're better prepared for any oopsies....


cheers,

Or you can maintain a slackware -current tree and do your upgrades from this. There is a very nice script from alienBob to maintain the tree.

Thanks again for the help with both of these questions.

And.... to current I shall go.

You are welcome. :)

have been running slack-current on a desktop and a bunch of laptops for over a year now, seems to be just as stable as the official releases (and I'm no pro either).

Easy like Sunday mornin' baby.

Post upgrade, smooth as glass. :)