I've been using slackware for many years, but slackpkg not so much. I've just installed a new Slackware-64 14.1 from DVD. I then did:

slackpkg update
slackpkg upgrade-all

which took well over 12 hours to download. When it finished, I rebooted. I ran slackpkg check-updates and the response is "no news is good news", meaning, I assume, I'm up-to-date. Yet when I check things, it does not appear that the system has actually been updated. For example, when I do:

> slackpkg info openssl

PACKAGE NAME: openssl-1.0.1m-x86_64-1_slack14.1.txz
PACKAGE LOCATION: ./patches/packages
PACKAGE SIZE (compressed): 2912 K
PACKAGE SIZE (uncompressed): 13070 K

PACKAGE NAME: openssl-1.0.1e-x86_64-1.txz
PACKAGE LOCATION: ./slackware64/n
PACKAGE SIZE (compressed): 2844 K
PACKAGE SIZE (uncompressed): 12670 K

This shows both openssl 1.0.1m and 1.0.1e (both in the repository?). 1.0.1e is what was shipped on the DVD and `openssl version` shows 1.0.1e actually installed.

Why do I have 2 version listed by `slackpkg info`, shouldn't I only have the lastest? Why didn't 1.0.1m get installed and I still have the-as-shipped version?

I'm confused!

From man slackpkg:

I do not use it often actually, but have never had problems with this method.

Also you can try slpkg.

# slpkg -c slack --upgrade

I'm running --Current. This is what I get:

You might try running the command against Firefox, which changes much more frequently than openssl. This is what I get:

astrogeek: I did what you suggest except for the install-new bit as I really didn't need/want any new packages. Also, I didn't do the clean-system. I have installed some 3rd party software but didn't use slackpkg to install them. I wasn't quite sure from the man page that these would be left alone. Have you confirmed that when you ran it it actually updated something?

frankbell: so, you only show 1 openssl and that one is the latest. Why do I show 2? Why do I still have the older 1.0.1e as the installed version? My firefox is as follows:

> slackpkg info mozilla-firefox

PACKAGE NAME: mozilla-firefox-31.7.0esr-x86_64-1_slack14.1.txz
PACKAGE LOCATION: ./patches/packages
PACKAGE SIZE (compressed): 34580 K
PACKAGE SIZE (uncompressed): 91560 K

PACKAGE NAME: mozilla-firefox-24.1.0esr-x86_64-1.txz
PACKAGE LOCATION: ./slackware64/xap
PACKAGE SIZE (compressed): 23524 K
PACKAGE SIZE (uncompressed): 59360 K

Once again, I list 2 version, and the latest is not even the same as what you have, yet I just did this update 3 days ago. The version installed on my system is 24.1.0; again, the older version.

Is not slackpkg supposed to update the installed software to the current version?

If so, I think something went horribly wrong. I may have wasted 12+ hours of updating. Is there a way to fix this?

dslackw: I have no slpkg installed on my system.

btw /var/cache/packages/ appears empty on my system

Check the actual package manager, not slackpkg to see if packages were updated. You can use either pkgtool or check /var/log/packages. It's better to see what is actually installed vs what slackpkg is outputing to you.

Slackpkg may (and this is just speculation since I don't really use it) show both the original version and the latest patched version. If that is the case, frankbell's wouldn't show that since he is running -current and there are no patches.

1 members found this post helpful.

slpkg is not part of the standard Slackware release.

mfoley, I don't haven't learned enough about how slackpkg works to answer your questions. I know how to use it, but I don't know its inner workings. I've been using pretty much the same script for five years on various machines and it has worked smoothly throughout.

For updates, I use the same script that astrogeek posted above, so I always run slackpkg clean-system after an update because it's in the script. I don't know whether that particular command has any bearing on your situation; maybe someone else in the thread will.

Incidently, pkgtool gives me the same information about Firefox as did the slackpkg command.

The man page describes slackpkg as follows:

I don't think one can say that slackpkg is any less a package manager than pkgtool. Both are part of a standard Slackware install and each one fills a particular function in Slackware package management.

pkgtool is not on the 14.1 system.

Checking /var/log/packages/openssl-* give me:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 27932 2007-10-08 10:12 /var/log/packages/openssl-0.9.8e-i486-3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 27952 2012-09-22 20:09 /var/log/packages/openssl-0.9.8r-i486-3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33262 2015-06-04 15:47 /var/log/packages/openssl-1.0.1e-x86_64-1

The last is dated 6/4 which is when I built from DVD, but before I did the slackpkg update/upgrade procedure. `slackpgk info openssl` give (as above):

PACKAGE NAME: openssl-1.0.1m-x86_64-1_slack14.1.txz
PACKAGE LOCATION: ./patches/packages

PACKAGE NAME: openssl-1.0.1e-x86_64-1.txz
PACKAGE LOCATION: ./slackware64/n

searching for openssl-1.0.1*-x86_64-1 on my system show NO version m.

I'm getting nowhere fast. If I cleaned out /var/log/packages and /var/log/scripts and started completely over, would that work or completely mess me up? Are there other files I should remove first?

pkgtool is on 14.1 and on --Current. My --Current on this computer started from 14.1. You must be root to use it.

pkgtool is my preferred tool for installing slackbuilds after compiling them.

Hmmm, well I tried it from root and search the drive and nada!

1 00:11:29 root@webserver:~
> pkgtool
-su: pkgtool: command not found
1 00:11:35 root@webserver:~
> find / -xdev -name pkgtool
1 00:11:45 root@webserver:~

Maybe it should have been updated by slackpkg?

OK, I'm cleaning out /var/lib/slackpkg/ /var/log/packages and /var/log/scripts/, removing /tmp/slackpkg.* and starting from absolute scratch. For postmortem analysis I changed /etc/slackpkg.conf to set DELALL=off (don't delete files after installing) and DOWNLOAD_ALL=off (to install as it goes instead of waiting until the end).

I'll let 'er rip and post back result.

pkgtool is a base package. If it's not there your installation is probably seriously screwed up. Maybe you could consider reinstalling from scratch after having backed up all your data.

Clearing /var/log/packages and /var/log/scripts likely just prevented you from removing or updating packages on your system.

Since /var/log/packages showed (before it was cleared) multiple entries for openssl (including mixed 32bit and 64bit packages), it is likely you installed them using installpkg instead of upgradepkg.

As others have stated, pkgtool is part of stock Slackware and it is included in the a/ series as pkgtools and is located in /sbin. If you're missing this, you either didn't do a full Slackware install (even if you do a selective install, you should almost always include everything from the a/ series unless you have a really good reason to leave it out) or something else happened that caused it to be deleted. But seeing as you have multiple entries for openssl and installpkg/upgradepkg are both included in the package that includes pkgtool, I'm guessing that it is the latter issue and something screwed up the pkgtool package (maybe you accidentally used removepkg on it).

Considering /var/log/packages and /var/log/scripts are cleared out, pkgtool is missing, there's multiple versions of openssl installed with mixed architectures, and slackpkg isn't working properly, I would echo Didier's suggestion of reinstalling Slackware. It would likely take someone pretty skilled with Slackware to repair your installation without a reinstall (which would still require reinstalling every individual package so /var/log/packages and /var/log/scripts are repopulated), and I just don't think it's worth the attempt at this point.

Didier Spaier:Well, very interesting. After running `slackpkg install-new` There was an error that it could not find pkginstall! So yes, I think this installation is screwed up. I searched for pkginstall on the 14.1 system I build several months ago. Not there either. I used the same DVD for both. I think I need a new DVD.

I may try re-installing this weekend, meanwhile is there a way to download just the slackpkg programs only? Possibly just pkgtool and pkginstall? I could re-try the update then.

You can download pkgtool from here. Hopefully only that one is missing and not the other components in the package (like installpkg and upgradepkg). If the others are missing, you'd probably need to install it after booting the Slackware dvd, mounting the system, and then running installpkg --root=/mnt /location/to/pkgtool-14.1-noarch-2.tgz (assuming /mnt is where you mounted your system drive to).

I'm very confused with all this. I was wrong about pkgtool and pkginstall not being on the other 14.1 system. They were, installed from the package exactly as bassmadrigal referenced. I copied all those program to the new machine and ran slackpkg update; slackpkg install-new; slackpkg upgrade-all; slackpkg clean-system, again, but it still didn't seem to upgrade anything.

I ran `slackpkg install openssl` by hand and it did, finally, install openssl 1.0.1m.

I guess for now I'll do that by hand for anything I want to update and possibly go through the list of packages to search for ones to update.

Is there no way to force a reinstallation/update of every package?