I have installed Slackware9.1 on my hardrive, without much thought to
upgrading it in the future. I would now like to reinstall it with a bit
more thought.

I have read the upgrade.txt file but I'm under the impression that a
reinstall is better than an upgrade.

I have my root partition hdb1
I have /usr on partition hdb2
I have /home on hdb3
and swap is hdb4

Looking under /usr/local I have only one program rdesktop installed there
and the SDL libraries for some games I've installed. The games are
installed in my home directory.

I also have /opt which has /kde installed. I installed /OpenOffice1.1.0
to here, and /www was installed here. being under the root partition these
are all on hdb1

The only programs I have compiled and installed are Open Office, the SDL
libraries, a new version of Gaim and a couple of games. Sorry I've also
compiled samba 3.0.0 but that is installed under /usr/local/samba

Now if I were to reinstall I could set it so that my home directory was
not over written but the /root would be this would mean that /opt was over
written and hence my kde install and OpenOffice. KDE would n't be too much
of a problem as it would probably be upgraded as well any way, but I
should have install /OpenOffice to a different partition? or could I just
put /opt on a different partition and it would only overwrite /opt/kde?

If I weher to put /usr/local on a seperate partition rather than /usr,
when I do a reinstall everything in /usr would be overwritten (and
hence the programs installed would be upgraded) but would my programs in
/usr/local, that I compiled be effected? so this may be a better place to
install OpenOffice1.1.0

so would this be a better partition scheme

/ on hdb1
/usr/local on hdb2
/home on hdb3
swap on hdb4

Thanks for any suggestions

Stuart

Stuart wrote:

> I have installed Slackware9.1 on my hardrive, without much thought to
> upgrading it in the future. I would now like to reinstall it with a bit
> more thought.
Yup everyone does
>
> I have read the upgrade.txt file but I'm under the impression that a
> reinstall is better than an upgrade.
Takes care of that pesky rooted problem when you didn't even know your box
was hacked
>
> I have my root partition hdb1
> I have /usr on partition hdb2
> I have /home on hdb3
> and swap is hdb4
>
<snip>

> If I weher to put /usr/local on a seperate partition rather than /usr,
> when I do a reinstall everything in /usr would be overwritten (and
> hence the programs installed would be upgraded) but would my programs in
> /usr/local, that I compiled be effected? so this may be a better place to
> install OpenOffice1.1.0
I assume your talking about reinstall #2,3,.. here after you have gone to
your new partition layout. The easiest way is don't tell setup what to do
with what will be in this case /usr/local partition. Then after the
install/setup see if there is anything in /usr/local from the install you
want to keep, probably not, delete the existing files there, edit fstab to
include the ignored partition as /usr/local, mount it, and your off to the
races.
> so would this be a better partition scheme
>
> / on hdb1
> /usr/local on hdb2
> /home on hdb3
> swap on hdb4
>
I too prefer that
Extended partitions work just fine so if you opt for more than 4 partitions
give consideration to:
/var for when logrotate can't keep up with the log entries and you run out
of disk space
/keepers I always create a not standard directory partition which is
distribution proof. Then I copy from where ever files I want to reuse after
the next reinstall. (and don't forget the named files in /var like I always
forget)

> Thanks for any suggestions
sure hope it helps
ppd

> > I have installed Slackware9.1 on my hardrive, without much thought to
> > upgrading it in the future. I would now like to reinstall it with a bit
> > more thought.

I find reinstallation a big pain - I have a lot of "custom" things on my
system and it would take weeks to get it right again. I often end up
switching distros out of frustration.

Is it reasonable to keep upgrading your system from slackware-9.1 (or
whatever version) on the mirror? I see that 9.0 is being kept up to date.

I managed upgrade from 9.0 to 9.1 painlessly recently. There were several
packages that needed to be scrapped and replaced with other ones (eg.
coreutils). swaret --dep also came in useful.

I hope that this ease of transition continues!