On Thu Aug 27 1998, Francisco Matias Cuenca =?iso-8859-1?Q?Acu=F1a?= wrote:
What is this ugliness with your name?
> How can I upgrade my slackware 3.3 to 3.5? I have patched the kernel many
> times, but I think it's time to upgrade the whole set of utilities. I have
> made many customization to my system and I don't wanna lose them. What can
> I read? When can I find more info. on the subject?
Bzzt! You loose.
The only way to upgrade a slackware distribution is to junk your old
installation and do it all again. Doing anything else, like installing
over the top of your old installation, is fraught with danger. (Believe
me... been there, done that).
Next time go for Debian or RedHat, much better.
Hint: Next time leave the main filesystem installation alone (/bin,
/usr/bin, /lib, /usr/lib and so on). Of course, make changes to /etc as
you need. But put all your "customised" utilities into /usr/local/.
Then you can safely save off (or leave alone) /usr/local and /etc (and, of
course, /home) and then do a reinstall while keeping all your customisation
intact.
I do this even with RedHat... RH installs virtually nothing into
/usr/local/ so I can put all my non-RH (non-rpm) install packages in there,
then upgrade the rest of my system without having to worrying about
managing the packages in that part of the directory tree.
Slackware has some advantages, but in the long run you are much better off
to ditch it.
[Please, I'm not trying to start any "distribution wars", this is purely my
humble - but informed 4-years-of-experience-with-linux - option.]
Cheers
Tony
