Upgrading to Slackware -current
Posted: 2012-08-03 Filed under: system | Tags: slackbuilds, slackware, slackware current Leave a commentI do not use -current, but since Slackware 14.0 is just around the corner I need to test my SlackBuilds on it. So, I booted my Slackware64 13.37 DVD and did a direct netinstall of -current on my desktop PC. All went flawlessly and the system is very stable. It was more tricky to install slackware32 -current in a virtual machine, where I check how my SlackBuilds work on the 32bit architecture. I tried the netinstall approach, but the network somehow stops from time to time in the guest machine. Very, very annoying — especially when doing an installation.
So, I installed a very minimal Slackware32 13.37 — just the A
, AP
, L
and N
series. After a reboot, I uncommented a -current
mirror in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors
and tried to search LQ for a good way of doing the upgrade. After viewing several posts, I finally came across a small tutorial by AlienBob. So in the end I did the following for my particular case:
slackpkg update slackpkg upgrade glibc slackpkg upgrade findutils pkgtools slackpkg tar xz slackpkg update
The last update
step is repetitive, but necessary if slackpkg
was upgraded. Continue:
slackpkg install a ap l n slackpkg upgrade-all
I unselected kernel-*
at the upgrade-all
step. Now get the kernel:
slackpkg download kernel
The new versions will be in /var/cache/packages/slackware/a
.
Now install the -current kernel-*
alongside the old one. The kernel source got downloaded, too. Navigate there:
cd /var/cache/packages/slackware/a
Only the kernel-*
were there, so:
installpkg *.txz
Now edit and run LILO to have both versions of the kernel:
nano /etc/lilo.conf lilo -v
REBOOT! It boots fine, so time to remove unneeded:
slackpkg clean-system
REBOOT again and install the rest of the system:
slackpkg install d e k t tcl x xap xfce
Edit again lilo.conf
to remove the old kernel entry and run:
nano /etc/lilo.conf lilo -v
That’s it!