How to Upgrade Salix 13.37 to 14.0

Preparing for the upgrade

You first need to change the default repositories to the ones for Slackware and Salix 14.0. Open file /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc and change all “13.37” instances to “14.0”. Also make sure the Slackware repositories have an OFFICIAL priority. Example setups are show below:

i486 architecture

SOURCE=http://salix.enialis.net/i486/slackware-14.0/:OFFICIAL
SOURCE=http://salix.enialis.net/i486/slackware-14.0/extra/:OFFICIAL
SOURCE=http://salix.enialis.net/i486/14.0/:PREFERRED

x86_64 architecture

SOURCE=http://salix.enialis.net/x86_64/slackware-14.0/:OFFICIAL
SOURCE=http://salix.enialis.net/x86_64/slackware-14.0/extra/:OFFICIAL
SOURCE=http://salix.enialis.net/x86_64/14.0/:PREFERRED

After you make the changes, run:

slapt-get -u

slapt-src

Although slapt-src has nothing to do with the upgrade process itself, better make sure its repos are pointing to 14.0 so that they work correctly after the installation. Open your /etc/slapt-get/slapt-srcrc and change the SOURCE lines to these ones:

SOURCE=http://salix.enialis.net/slkbuild/14.0/
SOURCE=http://salix.enialis.net/sbo/14.0/

Upgrading packages

First upgrade spkg, glibc and make sure you install the new kmod package and openssl-solibs (it also has the old 0.9.8x openssl libraries included). Also you can make sure mtdev is installed:

slapt-get -i spkg glibc kmod openssl-solibs mtdev

Then upgrade slapt-get itself (along with its dependencies):

slapt-get -i slapt-get

And then upgrade all other packages to their new versions:

slapt-get --upgrade

DO NOT use:

slapt-get --dist-upgrade

in any case. Although it might seem to be the best option for upgrading to a different version, it really isn’t.

Upgrade your udev package, it’s locked for upgrades in /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc so you have to ask for it explicitly:

slapt-get -i udev

Also udisks is new to 14.0 so you will need to install both udisks and udisks2:

slapt-get -i udisks udisks2

After the upgrade you can also update the previously installed glibc-solibs package:

slapt-get -i glibc-solibs

Xfce

One of the major changes in 14.0 is the replacement of the single xfce package with many individual packages. If you’re using xfce, to install a full xfce envirnment, run

slapt-get --install-set xfce

MATE

Do all the above, and continue below for the kernel and other updates. Finally, add one extra package for retaining the correct look and feel and retain the same look and feel from 13.37. Otherwise, your DE/GUI wil break.

slapt-get -i clearlooks-phenix

ratpoison

These two additional packages must be installed. If these are omitted/not installed, the vimprobable2 browser completely stops working. Do all the above steps followed by this, and continue below for the kernel and other updates.

slapt-get -i glib-networking  gsettings-desktop-schemas

Obsolete packages

Some packages have been obsoleted and should be removed. Some have been replaced by new packages. You can do this automatically with:

slapt-get --remove-obsolete --remove

Careful, because this will also remove all personal packages that you might have installed, if any. It will also remove any packages that used to be part of the Slackware or Salix repos in 13.37, but are not anymore in 14.0. And it’s never a bad idea to have a look at the Slackware CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT file:

• Changes and Hints File for i486
• Changes and Hints File for x864_64

Packages that have been removed from Slackware according to the ChangeLog (use this list at your own risk):

hal
hal-info
wv2
jre
raptor (reinstall raptor2 afterwards)
jdk
module-init-tools
ntfsprogs
iwlwifi*
rt2860-firmware
rt2870-firmware
rt61-firmware
rt71w-firmware
radeon_ucode
scripts
xaw3d
xf86-video-radeonhd
xf86-video-sisusb
xf86-video-tseng
xf86-video-xgi

And this NOTE: After upgrading, the following obsolete KDE packages should be removed:

kdeaccessibility kdebase kdebase-runtime
kdebase-workspace kdebindings kdeedu
kdegraphics kdeutils koffice konq-plugins
kopete-cryptography polkit-kde-1 koffice-l10n-*

Upgrading the kernel

Run:

ls /var/log/packages/kernel*

to see which kernel packages you have installed and do a slapt-get -i for each one of them. (Do not include the package version in ).

If you have switched to the kernel-generic package instead of the default kernel-huge package, don’t forget to recreate the initrd.gz file which will be needed for booting you upgraded system. If you’re still using the default kernel-huge package, an initrd is not needed anyway and you needn’t be concerned about it.

After upgrading the packages, don’t forget to edit your /etc/lilo.conf file accordingly and run:

lilo -v

to inform the bootloader about the kernel upgrade.

On similar note, users running multi-boot systems on GRUB2 must log into the distro that controls the bootloader and re-run

update-grub

to inform the bootloader about the kernel upgrade.

Update caches

You’ll also need to run this command:

update-all

This updates icon caches, font indexes, desktop and mime databases, pango files, glib schemas etc. You’ll need to run this, or you’ll probably won’t be able to start a graphical environment and even if you do, you’ll probably see garbage instead of readable characters.

Configuration files

After doing all the upgrades, run:

dotnew

to accept or reject new configuration files. Make sure that you DO NOT replace your /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow or /etc/group files. If you do, you will lose all users/groups/passwords you have in your system. However, even if you do, you can get the old files back, they will be kept in the same locations, with an .orig suffix.

If you are starting your system in init 3 (console), instead of init 4 (graphics) and you start the GUI by running ‘startx’, you’d better refresh the xinitrc file in your home directory by running (while in init 3):

xwmconfig

and selecting your preferred Desktop Environment.

Edit /etc/slackware-version file to fill in:

Slackware 14.0

This is not required but this is used by some apps to show your version (for example grub).