I have just learnt how to update my Slackware installation and am impressed
at the simplicity of it. However it has lead me to the following questions.

As Swaret is required to update the packages in Slackware why is it not part
of the original installation, I was suprised that it had to be downloaded
and installed before I could upgrade.

After upgrading the packages I noticed a number of conf.new files. These
files appear to have the .new suffix so they don't replace my settings.
Does this mean that every time I get a new conf.new file I need to manually
transfer my settings over ? For example I noticed my cups.conf.new file did
not contain any of my printer settings whereas the original did.

--
Thanks

Murph

I read on this group the other day that when new config files are
written by official Slackware packages (i.e. from Pat), they have .new
appended to the end. This is so that you can review the changes before
choosing to accept them. Its the Slackware way!

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 11:26:40 +0000, Murphy wrote:

> As Swaret is required to update the packages in Slackware

No it's not.

> why is it not part of the original installation,

It used to be included in /extra ...

> I was suprised that it had to be downloaded and installed before I could
> upgrade.

Rumor has it, some people use Slackpkg instead:
ftp://ftp.scarlet.be/pub/slackware/s...xtra/slackpkg/

(Or maybe: Slapt-get , SlackUpdate , something home-grown , or whatever.)

--
-Menno.

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In alt.os.linux.slackware, Murphy dared to utter,
> I have just learnt how to update my Slackware installation and am impressed
> at the simplicity of it. However it has lead me to the following questions.

Sorry man, but you haven't yet learned the true way to upgrade packages.

> As Swaret is required to update the packages in Slackware why is it not part
> of the original installation, I was suprised that it had to be downloaded
> and installed before I could upgrade.

swaret is _NOT_ required to upgrade packages, end of story. In fact, I
believe[0] that the vast majority of Slackers wouldn't touch swaret
with a ten foot pole. swaret is third party software that sometimes
does a good job and more often (IMHO) gets in the way. For true
understanding, read the Good Book.

http://www.slackware.com/book/index....rce=c3984.html

For more information, RTFM.

man pkgtool
man installpkg
man removepkg
man upgradepkg

These have been the Slackware package management tools since day 1, and
that isn't likely to change in the forseeable future.

And FYI, there are several little automagical update tools like swaret
out there. If you're hooked on that kind of stuff, google knows more.

[0] I admit I have no empirical evidence to prop up or tear down this
belief.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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+Alan Hicks+ wrote:

> swaret is _NOT_ required to upgrade packages, end of story. In fact, I
> believe[0] that the vast majority of Slackers wouldn't touch swaret
> with a ten foot pole. swaret is third party software that sometimes
> does a good job and more often (IMHO) gets in the way. For true
> understanding, read the Good Book.
>
> http://www.slackware.com/book/index....rce=c3984.html
>
>
> [0] I admit I have no empirical evidence to prop up or tear down this
> belief.
>

Moral of the story, always keep an 11ft pole to hand

There is basically nothing wrong with swaret, it can be a very useful tool.
Im not sure why it gets the amount of bad press that it does, mainly from
people moaning that it overwrote their custom kernels, but in the
swaret.conf is a setting to stop kernels and fundamental bits of the system
being updated if you don't want them to be.

Why use swaret when you can just bumble over to a mirror and read the
changelog and decide which bits need updating, because its available and
can sometimes be simpler to switch to a shell and quickly:

swaret --update (gets new changelog)

swaret --list -u (show a list of packages which are installed and have
updates available)

swaret --upgrade -a (happy with the list then upgrade them all)

swaret --upgrade whatever_package (just want to upgrade some packages)

swaret --dep (check the dependencies of the system)

swaret --changelog (Just want to read the changelog)

I prefer swaret to the other slackware apt-get wannabe's

Wasn't there a spat between Swaret and slapt-get at one point? Or was
it one of the other multitude of slackware updaters? I seemed to
remember reading something about it on the slapt-get forum some time
ago. All a storm in a teacup I'm sure :-)

reclusive monkey wrote:
> Wasn't there a spat between Swaret and slapt-get at one point? Or was
> it one of the other multitude of slackware updaters? I seemed to
> remember reading something about it on the slapt-get forum some time
> ago. All a storm in a teacup I'm sure :-)

I remember a "fight" about slapt-get and swaret, too. Regarding
slapt-get and swaret, then I have the principle only to use packages
provided by Patrick, and compile the things, that are not availble there.

--
Mads Jensen
To email me, remove z's in my address

Q: Why shouldn't I simply delete the stuff I never use, it's just taking up
space?
A: This question is in the category of Famous Last Words..
-- From the Frequently Unasked Questions

Steve'o <na@na.com> wrote:
> There is basically nothing wrong with swaret, it can be a very useful tool.
> Im not sure why it gets the amount of bad press that it does, mainly from
> people moaning that it overwrote their custom kernels, but in the
> swaret.conf is a setting to stop kernels and fundamental bits of the system
> being updated if you don't want them to be.

I'm surprised to hear it - I'm pretty fond of swaret myself. I'd
thought that the "don't overwrite the kernel" setting was the default,
actually. I'm pretty sure when I installed it a couple months ago
that's how it was set. Maybe that's a relatively recent change?
Anyway, it seems to me that the only way any update tool should be used
is strictly on demand: you review what's available, and you tell it what
to update. If it updates the kernel without asking you, it's broken; if
you told it to do so, well... :-)

JDW

Mads Jensen wrote:

> Regarding slapt-get and swaret, then I have the principle only to use
> packages provided by Patrick, and compile the things, that are not
> availble there.

Swaret only works with slackware mirrors, so its mostly the same as you
going to the mirror and downloading the updates based on what you've
decided after reading the changelog. The difference with swaret is you can
do a few extra things, such as the dependency checks, the listing of
updates available for what you've actually got installed, or a list of
stuff you don't yet have installed but are available etc But its all based
on a Slackware mirror, so it wont get packages that were not made by pat.

I suppose that in theory it could, as someone could write custom
ChangeLog.txt, FILELIST.TXT's and PACKAGES.TXT's (which is what it looks
for when you point it to a mirror, eg
ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-current)

In short, yes swaret is simply used to add to the process of retrieving the
official Pat packages

Just out of interest, what is the true way to upgrade packages?