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Slackware Upgrade Howto This document explains how to upgrade from Slackware-9.1 to Slackware-10.0   Preliminaries Slackware-10.0 is the latest release for Slackware. Although the upgrade is relativly easy caution should always be taken.  So before starting, the prudent slacker will back up any important data, including critical configuration files in the /etc directory. But perhaps you're not the prudent type -- perhaps you experience a mind-blowing adrenaline rush from the thrill of tempting Eris. The risk is yours to take of course. In order to upgrade to Slackware-10.0, you have to first obtain the packages from the Slackware-10.0 tree. This is a big download. In fact, it is the entire distribution, enough to Slackify two full CDs. There are oodles of FTP and HTTP mirrors from which you can grab these packages, and there also exist services that will custom burn your favorite distribution and version. Use your favorite method to obtain these packages. Specifically, you'll need the entire slackware-10.0/slackware directory and all its subdirectories. If you use a kernel other than the default bare.i, you will also need the slackware-10.0/kernels directory and all of its subdirectories. Place your copies of these directories somewhere out of the way in your local filesystem, such as /home/slackware and /home/kernels. You should now have a directory called /home/slackware which contains other directories with short little names like a/ ap/ d/ (etc ...) which in turn contain all the slackware packages from the Slackware-10.0 tree. You can call your directory something other than /home/slackware of course, so long as you remember to substitute your directory name into the following examples. If you're lazy, and like to cut and paste from HOWTOs, then stick with /home/slackware and /home/kernels. Liminaries And now the upgrade process itself, in 10 easy-to-follow steps. Drop down into run-level one, a.k.a. "single-user mode": # telinit 1 Log in as "root", and supply the root password. Remove deprecated packages from your Slackware-9.1 installation. Also remove the bind package, to ensure proper upgrading of libraries with strange version number progressions. # removepkg devfsd oggutils bind db1 db2 acme gal2 gnome-extra-themes linc # removepkg /var/log/packages/xfree* The glibc shared libraries must be upgraded before any other packages: # upgradepkg /home/slackware/a/glibc-solibs-*.tgz Next, upgrade the package utilities and sed. The new versions of these tools will be used to perform the remainder of the package upgrades: # upgradepkg /home/slackware/a/pkgtools-*.tgz # upgradepkg /home/slackware/a/sed-*.tgz Upgrade every other package, and install any new pacakges that aren't present in your Slackware-9.1 installation (some may be critical to proper operation): # upgradepkg --install-new --reinstall /home/slackware/*/*.tgz Choose your printing software. Slackware-current contains both lprng and cups printing packages, and having both installed can cause conflict. The examples below assume that you choose cups. If you prefer to use lprng, then reverse the instructions. First, uninstall the printing package that you do not want to use. # removepkg lprng Then, reinstall the printing package you do want to use, to ensure that all symbolic links are pointing to your print system of choice. # installpkg /home/slackware/a/cups*.tgz Install your kernel. If you use the default bare.i kernel, then the new kernel is already installed at this point. If you use a different kernel, copy the bzImage, config, and System.map.gz files for the kernel you want to use to your /boot directory. You may want to rename these files as well, to remind you which kernel you installed. This example describes how to install the scsi.s kernel, for SCSI support. # cp /home/kernels/scsi.s/bzImage /boot/scsi-2.4.26 # cp /home/kernels/scsi.s/config /boot/config-scsi-2.4.26 # cp /home/kernels/scsi.s/System.map.gz /boot/System.map-scsi-2.4.26 Re-configure LILO (your boot loader). Make sure the image specifications in /etc/lilo.conf still point to a valid kernel image (edit them if they do not) and then reinstall LILO: # lilo Merge the new configuration files with your old ones. The newly installed configuration files will have the file extention ".new" Most, if not all, of the new configuration files will be located in your /etc directory. You can generate a list of these files like so: # find /etc -name \*.new Fold any changes you made to the previous versions of the configuration files into the new files, as necessary. Then rename the new configuration file to the name of the old configuration file (the same name, without the .new extention, conveniently.) You will also need to copy your configuration file for X to a new location: # cp /etc/X11/XF86Config /etc/X11/xorg.conf Reboot your computer to begin running your fresh new kernel: # reboot Postliminaries Congratulations, you are now running Slackware-10.0! © 2004 by Jeffrey Froman