13 Feb
2005
13 Feb
'05
10:49 a.m.
I am not sure how many Slackware users are subscribed to this list, but
just in case, I have created a detailled instruction list to do the above.
Please feel free to give me feedback.
http://www.homepages.lu/pu/slackupgrade-10.1.pdf (120k)
13 Feb
13 Feb
2:03 p.m.
Patrick Useldinger wrote:
I am not sure how many Slackware users are subscribed
to this list, but
just in case, I have created a detailled instruction list to do the above.
Please feel free to give me feedback.
http://www.homepages.lu/pu/slackupgrade-10.1.pdf (120k)
Thanks for your description :-)
I am still waiting for the ordered CD's... But the old version is still
good enough, so I can still wait, no need to download ;-)
I have to admit that I have never tried to update on OS (be it Linux or
Windows) beside security updates (and service packs on Windows).
I always do a fresh install. It may even be not more time consuming than
an update. Just keep /home and /usr/local on different partitions and
install a new version of the distro (or even another distro) on a spare
partition. Now you can add the new version to lilo (and still keep the
old version bootable). Then you have two systems where you have access
to the same home directory and self compiled programs (/usr/local). The
advantage of this approach is that you have a fully functional system
during the upgrade and you can take your time to adapt the config files
on your new system. This may be less important if you have a second
computer where you are still able to do your daily work. No supplemental
backup of your config files is needed either, because you have a full
copy of the old distro.
On a server I would do a fresh install on a new machine and switch to
the new machine after having tested the new install.
But I am glad that you accomplished your upgrade successfully.
By the way: Is the upgrade worth doing? What are your impressions
compared to 10.0? I have not yet seen an osnews story on 10.1.
Greetings, Patrick
3:42 p.m.
Patrick Kaell wrote:
I am still waiting for the ordered CD's... But
the old version is still
good enough, so I can still wait, no need to download ;-)
I got mine from www.liniso.de. I have no clue how long it takes for the
official set to arrive, but although I have a subscription I always
choose not to wait. Makes for an extra backup, too.
I always do a fresh install. It may even be not more
time consuming than
an update.
Not sure. It *is* time consuming to update, but when you update at least
you have a chance of some settings being kept. Otherwise you can be sure
they won't, which may be OK for me but my girlfriend wouldn't
appreciate. And I certainly do not have a log of the customisations she did.
During the update, I wondered how other distros handle this. I'd be
surprised if you had to go through all this with a SuSE or Fedora, for
example. And I caught myself thinking, "the next machine will be a
Macintosh...".
Just keep /home and /usr/local on different partitions
and
install a new version of the distro (or even another distro) on a spare
partition.
Which takes twice the disk, that could be a problem.
advantage of this approach is that you have a fully
functional system
during the upgrade and you can take your time to adapt the config files
on your new system.
True, the upgrade has to work. But that's the challenge ;-)
No supplemental
backup of your config files is needed either, because you have a full
copy of the old distro.
As long as you don't mess the partition table up. No risk with
Slackware, but I have heard of other distros believing they should be
alone on a disk, very Windows-like.
But I am glad that you accomplished your upgrade
successfully.
Me too... I thought about a fresh install, believing that it was
actually easier. But I had to do an upgrade at least once in order to
find out how hard it is and how you have to manage your system so that
updates are less painfull. I believe that I should have used something
like tripwire in order to monitor exactly what changed. Next time.
By the way: Is the upgrade worth doing? What are your
impressions
compared to 10.0? I have not yet seen an osnews story on 10.1.
I had one lock-up, but I am unable to reproduce it. I have a slight fear
that this version might be a little less stable than usual, seeing how
it was rushed out. But I can't say for now, I need to run it for some
time. I'll keep you updated.
As glibc hasn't noticably changed, I haven't come across any program
that had to be recompiled yet.
XFCE is cool in version 4.2, I have the impression that freetype 2.19
renders fonts a little worse than 2.17, but I am not sure.
Most of these are just first impressions, I did my upgrade yesterday and
haven't used it a lot since. Again, I'll keep you updated, as well as
the document mentionned in my first post.
Regards,
-pu
4:23 p.m.
Patrick Useldinger wrote:
Or 4Gb on a 80Gb disk ;-) Your user data is not duplicated.
Not sure. It *is* time consuming to update, but when
you update at least
you have a chance of some settings being kept. Otherwise you can be sure
they won't, which may be OK for me but my girlfriend wouldn't
appreciate. And I certainly do not have a log of the customisations she
did.
I do not know your girlfriend. But isn't keeping config files in the
home directory enough? If you have a separate /home directory everything
is kept during a fresh install. Or did she manipulate /etc files?
During the update, I wondered how other distros handle
this. I'd be
surprised if you had to go through all this with a SuSE or Fedora, for
example. And I caught myself thinking, "the next machine will be a
Macintosh...".
I have an ibook. In principle MacOSX is a wonderful system. Just install
X11 and run all Linux apps (gimp, openoffice, etc.) natively along with
MacOSX applications. It is also very easy to configure. You have a fully
functional BSD system and tools like bash, vi, apache, rsync, perl,
python, ... are all installed by default on every modern Mac. Linux apps
can be installed from source simply by doing a ./configure; make; make
install. You have a RISC processor and OpenFirmware (an open standard
also used by AIX and Solaris systems).
But:
1. OS updates costs (Panther: 150 Euro) and happen very often (almost
yearly)
2. If you do not update (ie save 150 Euro/year), Apples let you in the
rain. I still get security updates for Jaguar, but many new things only
run on Panther.
3. Apple omitted MacOS classic when releasing Panther. This means that
you are no more compatible with the pre-2001 Mac world. Many people
protested and Apple had to reconsider MacOS classic for Panther.
4. Many pre-2001 Apple users have peripherals which are still not
supported by MacOSX.
I still recommend Apple, especially as a Linux/UNIX user (Linux runs on
Apple hardware). But be prepared to invest more often in updates and
peripherals than on other systems. In a sense Apple is more open than
the PC world (Open source Darwin as a foundation for MacOSX,
OpenFirmware, improvements to Safari are integrated back to Konqueror,
etc.), but as an overall system Apple is more proprietary.
Just keep
/home and /usr/local on different partitions and install a
new version of the distro (or even another distro) on a spare partition.
Which takes twice the disk, that could be a problem. As long as you don't mess the partition table up.
No risk with
Slackware, but I have heard of other distros believing they should be
alone on a disk, very Windows-like.
This is still gpart... Just kidding. But backing up /etc on the same
disk is no better ;-) The backup must be on a separate disk if you want
to go for sure.
like tripwire in order to monitor exactly what
changed. Next time.
Modification dates on files should normally be enough. Only hackers make
sure that modification dates stay unchanged after changing a file.
I had one lock-up, but I am unable to reproduce it. I
have a slight
fear that this version might be a little less stable than usual,
seeing how it was rushed out.
We all know that Patrick Volkerding needed the money to pay his bills
(and medical treatment) ;-) I was surprised to hear that Slackware is
his only income.
Most of these are just first impressions, I did my
upgrade yesterday and
haven't used it a lot since. Again, I'll keep you updated, as well as
the document mentionned in my first post.
Thanks. Hope that the lock up doesn't happen again!
Greetings, Patrick Kaell
7:59 p.m.
Patrick Kaell wrote:
There's always cp -p. Tripwire is an 100% certain solution, I like
those. It might also spot more subtle issues like chmods, chowns or
whatever.
I do not know your girlfriend. But isn't keeping
config files in the
home directory enough? If you have a separate /home directory everything
is kept during a fresh install. Or did she manipulate /etc files?
I hope not ;-)
You're right, the /home backup should be sufficient.
1. OS updates costs (Panther: 150 Euro) and happen
very often (almost
yearly)
Convenience comes at a cost, as usual. An Apple computer is always the
most expensive solution, IMO more expensive than a Windows system.
2. If you do not update (ie save 150 Euro/year),
Apples let you in the
rain. I still get security updates for Jaguar, but many new things only
run on Panther.
That's normal procedure, also with other systems, SuSE for example.
3. Apple omitted MacOS classic when releasing Panther.
This means that
you are no more compatible with the pre-2001 Mac world. Many people
protested and Apple had to reconsider MacOS classic for Panther.
Which is not a problem for me... DID Apple bring support for MacOS
Classic in 10.3?
This is still gpart... Just kidding. But backing up
/etc on the same
disk is no better ;-) The backup must be on a separate disk if you want
to go for sure.
As I said, there's basically no risk with Slackware. I'd do a backup on
DVD or another system if I had to face some automatic update system that
I cannot control.
like tripwire
in order to monitor exactly what changed. Next time.
Modification dates on files
should normally be enough. Only hackers make
sure that modification dates stay unchanged after changing a file. We all know that Patrick Volkerding needed the money
to pay his bills
(and medical treatment) ;-) I was surprised to hear that Slackware is
his only income.
And it's OK if we can help now that he needs it. It just means that we
*might* expect issues.
Thanks. Hope that the lock up doesn't happen
again!
I knew Linux was boring...
Regards,
-pu
14 Feb
14 Feb
11:03 a.m.
Patrick Kaell wrote:
I do not know your girlfriend. But isn't keeping
config files in the
home directory enough? If you have a separate /home directory everything
is kept during a fresh install. Or did she manipulate /etc files?
I've been thinking about this - YES. She does have a system password
(/etc/passwd and /etc/shadow), and she does have a samba password as
well (/etc/samba/private/smbpasswd).
So there are some user-specific settings that are not in the $HOME
directory.
-pu
15 Feb
15 Feb
6:14 p.m.
Patrick Useldinger wrote:
I've been thinking about this - YES. She does
have a system password
(/etc/passwd and /etc/shadow), and she does have a samba password as
well (/etc/samba/private/smbpasswd).
You are right. But you would have to create some users anyway on the new
system, along with the correct UIDs and so on.
Greetings, Patrick
6:17 p.m.
Patrick Useldinger wrote:
I've been thinking about this - YES. She does
have a system password
(/etc/passwd and /etc/shadow), and she does have a samba password as
well (/etc/samba/private/smbpasswd).
You are right. But you have to create some users anyway on the new
system, along with the correct UIDs and so on.
Greetings, Patrick
13 Feb
13 Feb
4:35 p.m.
Patrick Useldinger wrote:
During the update, I wondered how other distros handle
this. I'd be
surprised if you had to go through all this with a SuSE or Fedora, for
example. And I caught myself thinking, "the next machine will be a
Macintosh...".
SuSE keeps the configuration in a central repository. Everytime you
change something in Yast, SUSEconfig recreates all the configuration
files. Older SuSE versions did overwrite your manual changes (in
/etc/hosts for example). Newer versions simply do leave "hacked config"
files unchanged. I suppose that during an update SuSE keeps its central
repository and recreates all config files with the data contained in the
central repository. Maybe I am wrong, SuSE users should correct me!
Greetings, Patrick Kaell
14 Feb
14 Feb
3:47 p.m.
Patrick Useldinger wrote:
I had one lock-up, but I am unable to reproduce it. I
have a slight fear
that this version might be a little less stable than usual, seeing how
it was rushed out. But I can't say for now, I need to run it for some
time. I'll keep you updated.
If anyone is interested in the details:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2900…
7:13 a.m.
Hi,
On Sun, Feb 13, 2005 at 03:03:06PM +0100, Patrick Kaell wrote:
I have to admit that I have never tried to update on
OS (be it Linux or
Windows) beside security updates (and service packs on Windows).
I always do a fresh install.
You really want to have a look at Debian and apt.
It is the first system I've encountered where I *don't* fear
updates and actually (well, most of the time anyway) don't get
nasty surprises - especially on the stable version (unstable
moves a lot and does have surprises, testing moves and has
surprises only sometimes - like the upgrade from KDE 3.2 to
3.3 which did mess some things up for a while, i.e. uninstalls
3.2 on one run, and installs 3.3 only during one of the consequent
runs).
With any RPM-based distro, I've had really nasty stuff happening
with upgrades (changing distro version number, not securtiy
updates), and let's just not talk about proprietary systems.
There I'll grant you the fresh install right away.
With Debian, I still keep a separate /home partition, otherwise
I'm quite happy with apt. apt-get update; apt-get upgrade normally
gives me all I need.
Greetings, Eric
11:13 a.m.
Eric Dondelinger wrote:
You really want to have a look at Debian and apt.
Not sure ;-)
I did look into Debian when I was looking for the "right" distro, but it
failed to impress me.
BTW, apt-get isn't perfect either, the folks at Conectiva are working on
a replacement that is cross-distro, see http://www.smartpm.org/ and
http://zorked.net/smart/doc/README.html.
It is the first system I've encountered where I
*don't* fear
updates and actually (well, most of the time anyway) don't get
nasty surprises - especially on the stable version (unstable
moves a lot and does have surprises, testing moves and has
surprises only sometimes - like the upgrade from KDE 3.2 to
3.3 which did mess some things up for a while, i.e. uninstalls
3.2 on one run, and installs 3.3 only during one of the consequent
runs).
I'm the 'stable' guy, but Debian-stable is too outdated. Testing might
be OK. But it's not that I am afraid, it's just that it takes a lot of
work with Slackware.
With any RPM-based distro, I've had really nasty
stuff happening
with upgrades (changing distro version number, not securtiy
updates), and let's just not talk about proprietary systems.
There I'll grant you the fresh install right away.
I thought that SuSE was pretty painless, but I've always done a fresh
install because I always managed to uninstall it between 2 versions...
With Debian, I still keep a separate /home partition,
otherwise
I'm quite happy with apt. apt-get update; apt-get upgrade normally
gives me all I need.
Pacman (from ArchLinux) also seems easy to use. But even Slackware comes
with an automatic upgrade tool if you want to follow the current branch.
But my aim was to go from stable version 1 to stable version 2 on
several machines without downloading stuff more than once.
I'm pretty happy with Slackware, I am just thinking on how to do the
next upgrade more easily. I have a Python program in mind that, after
the upgrade, checks all major settings and corrects tbem automatically.
It could then be used on a fresh install and on an updated one, always
applying the same 'home-standard' settings.
Regards,
-pu
15 Feb
15 Feb
8:20 a.m.
Hi,
On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 12:13:08PM +0100, Patrick Useldinger wrote:
Eric Dondelinger wrote:
Precisely my point - with "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade" it
normally doesn't make any work at all. The exceptions are very
rare, I mentioned those. Even an "apt-get dist-upgrade" is rather
painless - the equivalent of which on RedHat or SuSE has always
gone badly wrong for me.
Yes, stable may be outdated - but it's *stable* and does it's job,
which is exactly what you want in a server.
The current stable is about to be replaced (woody -> sarge), sarge
is what I'm currently using on several desktops. It's quite recent,
it's quite stable, but still does move a bit (lots of stuff to
download when updating).
Unstable, which is often said to be more stable than certain other
distro's "stable" versions, well I've had bad suprises with that
one myself, which is why I don't use it at all.
If I want bleeding edge, with good docs, I'll go Gentoo thank you
very much - which of course is a lot more work.
Still, next occasion I'll give FreeBSD a run (again, I've used it
before).
Greets Eric
You really want to have a look at Debian and apt.
It is the first system I've encountered where
I *don't* fear
updates and actually (well, most of the time anyway) don't get
nasty surprises
I'm the 'stable' guy, but Debian-stable is too outdated. Testing might
be OK. But it's not that I am afraid, it's just that it takes a lot of
work with Slackware.
9 a.m.
Eric Dondelinger wrote:
Precisely my point - with "apt-get update;
apt-get upgrade" it
normally doesn't make any work at all. The exceptions are very
rare, I mentioned those. Even an "apt-get dist-upgrade" is rather
painless - the equivalent of which on RedHat or SuSE has always
gone badly wrong for me.
After giving it much thought, I decided that I wanted 3 distros:
- one live distro for system maintenance in "emergency" cases (I
currently use Kanotix)
- one to learn Linux well (which I chose Slackware for)
- one commercial in case I have the opportunity to do Linux at work
(which is SuSE for now).
Why 3? Starting as a complete Linux "n00b" a few months ago, my main
concern was that I would install a lot of distros but fail to learn at
least one correctly. And, as Patrick Kaell said back then, they all turn
out to be basically the same, so I did want to learn one very well,
hoping that in the end I could easily adapt to any other. So I
deliberately limited the number of distros I'd look into.
Now, I am not a guru yet, so if I have to replace one of these 3 distros
(because it ceases to exist, or it does no longer respond to my
criteria), I will look into other distros. But not at this point.
I consider the "pain" to upgrade Slackware something I have to go
through in order to understand what is happening, which was my main
point. Before this, I will stay clear of apt-gets, portages and make worlds.
Yes, stable may be outdated - but it's *stable*
and does it's job,
which is exactly what you want in a server.
Slackware has a good reputation for being stable, being good for
servers, and *not* being outdated. Even for servers, I think that having
Samba 3 is an advantage. Honestly - what's the point of having Samba
2.2.3 on a server today?
I never understood why Debian equals stable and archaïc. A stable
version is IMO the last minor version of a product, i.e. KDE 3.2.3 when
KDE 3.3.0 comes out. It's not KDE 2.
The current stable is about to be replaced (woody
-> sarge), sarge
is what I'm currently using on several desktops. It's quite recent,
it's quite stable, but still does move a bit (lots of stuff to
download when updating).
One of my criteria was regular updates on CD; Debain fails that. For my
criteria, you might want to have a look at
http://www.homepages.lu/pu/Distros.html.
If I want bleeding edge, with good docs, I'll go
Gentoo thank you
very much - which of course is a lot more work.
Still, next occasion I'll give FreeBSD a run (again, I've used it
before).
I have become allergic to source compiles. Also, FreeBSD seems to lack
stability in version 5. If you want to try BSD, I'd recommend NetBSD at
this point.
Regards,
-pu
19 Feb
19 Feb
10:41 a.m.
New subject: Slackware upgrade from 10.0 to 10.1 (Ubuntu)
On Tue, 2005-02-15 at 10:00 +0100, Patrick Useldinger wrote:
Eric Dondelinger wrote:
AFAIK, the main reason why "stable" is so slow to evolve and often
somewhat outdated is that they want Stable to be stable on _every
supported platform_ (!!) that means a lot of different hardware.
I'd suggest you take a look at Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/).
Ubuntu is a Debian based distro which has chosen to limit the number of
platforms to three : x86, PPC and AMD/Intel 64.
They release as soon as the Debian packages are stable _for these
platforms_ not waiting for other platforms such as m68k and so forth.
The current stable is about to be replaced (woody
-> sarge), sarge
is what I'm currently using on several desktops. It's quite recent,
it's quite stable, but still does move a bit (lots of stuff to
download when updating).
One of my criteria was regular updates on CD; Debain fails that. For my
criteria, you might want to have a look at
http://www.homepages.lu/pu/Distros.html. From what I've seen they release 2 - 4 times a
year. And it's a CD
release and includes also a live CD.
For those interested, I obtained a batch of CDs (5-10 Cds for each
platform - mostly through Lionel) and those are to be distributed
amongst LiLux members. Lionel sent an e-mail a while back about this
and asked me to deliver the CDs to those people who had been interested,
but I don't know who they are.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Software patents kill software innovation!"
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation http://swpat.ffii.org/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Serge Marelli, Luxembourg
Linux user #267552
E-mail : serge.marelli(a)linux.lu
LiLux : http://www.lilux.lu/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
9 Apr
9 Apr
8:53 a.m.
Eric Dondelinger wrote:
>>You really want to have a look at Debian and
apt.
I admit that Debian is a system to know, but stock Debian is not what I
was looking for. But there are so many Debian-based distros which have
IMO an added value.
I installed Kubuntu 5.04 last night, and it was very impressive. It is
the first distro which worked completely on my outdated Hauser laptop.
Slow, but 100% working. As opposed to SuSE and all other distros I
tried, it starts USB devices before setting the network up, meaning that
my USB-network card worked right away. Also, it is the first distro that
finds out that the BIOS on this machine has a broken ACPI implementation
and automatically reverts to APM. Wow!
Yes, stable may be outdated - but it's *stable*
and does it's job,
which is exactly what you want in a server.
The current stable is about to be replaced (woody -> sarge), sarge
is what I'm currently using on several desktops. It's quite recent,
it's quite stable, but still does move a bit (lots of stuff to
download when updating).
(K)Ubuntu has a release cycle of 6 months, that's a little more often
than stock Debian ;-)
-pu
2:45 p.m.
Patrick Useldinger wrote:
I installed Kubuntu 5.04 last night, and it was very
impressive. It is
the first distro which worked completely on my outdated Hauser laptop.
Slow, but 100% working.
maybe try ubuntu with xfce, ver. 4.2 is already in the hoary universe
repository.
by the way, there's a nice starter guide on ubuntu:
http://ubuntuguide.org/
best regards,
kymon
4:05 p.m.
Kymon MacDaire wrote:
maybe try ubuntu with xfce, ver. 4.2 is already in the
hoary universe
repository.
I really don't use the laptop anymore except to test new distros
whenever I am not sure that it will not mess up existing partitions. So
I'll play around with it some more, and if I'm fully convinced, I'll
move it to my desktop machine.
by the way, there's a nice starter guide on
ubuntu:
http://ubuntuguide.org/
Thanks,
-pu
14 Feb
14 Feb
7:48 p.m.
Eric Dondelinger wrote:
You really want to have a look at Debian and apt.
It is the first system I've encountered where I *don't* fear
updates and actually (well, most of the time anyway) don't get
nasty surprises - especially on the stable version (unstable
moves a lot and does have surprises, testing moves and has
surprises only sometimes - like the upgrade from KDE 3.2 to
3.3 which did mess some things up for a while, i.e. uninstalls
3.2 on one run, and installs 3.3 only during one of the consequent
runs).
It is a shame that there is a major distro (even a completely free one),
that I didn't give a serious try. I should definitely do that. I already
use apt-get with fink on MacOSX (which basically is a Debian package
system adapted to MacOSX with many Debian packages precompiled for
MacOSX). apt-get gave me a positive impression of Debian. The major
reason why I didn't try Debian extensively was the fact that I was put
off by dselect some while ago...
With any RPM-based distro, I've had really nasty
stuff happening
with upgrades (changing distro version number, not securtiy
updates)
I imagine that updating SuSE manually may not be an easy task. I once
tried to install a minimal SuSE by removing all RPMs I could. At the end
there were still over 100 packages left which I couldn't remove because
of dependencies issues (even cyclic ones). Upgrading RPMs step-by-step
without breaking dependencies my be difficult.
Greetings, Patrick Kaell
15 Feb
15 Feb
9:19 p.m.
We are often looking for presentations subjects during our LiLux meetings.
I read lots of interesting considerations about packaging systems in
this threat.
What about a presentation comparing various packaging systems ? The
hidden features of some of them, such as RPM ?
Who wants to prepare this ?
--
Brent Frère
Private e-mail: Brent(a)BFrere.net
Postal address: 5, rue de Mamer
L-8280 Kehlen
Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg
European Union
Mobile: +352-021/29.05.98
Fax: +352-26.30.05.96
Home: +352-307.341
URL: http://BFrere.net
If you have problem with my digital signature, please install the appropriate au
thority certificate by browsing https://www.cacert.org/certs/root.crt.
16 Feb
16 Feb
6:52 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 10:19:10PM +0100, Brent Frère wrote:
We are often looking for presentations subjects during
our LiLux meetings.
I read lots of interesting considerations about packaging systems in
this threat.
What about a presentation comparing various packaging systems ? The
hidden features of some of them, such as RPM ?
Who wants to prepare this ?
Good idea, I've added it on the Wiki page
http://www.linux.lu/wiki/index.php/IdeasForFuturePresentations
It doesn't answer the "who", but maybe someone will be inspired
by that list...
Greetings, Eric
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