From: mdw@db.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh) Subject: How to upgrade your system (was Re: SLS constantly changing -- is updating easy?) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 20:29:39 GMT
In article <BKUHN.93Feb11013619@cs.loyola.edu> bkuhn@cs.loyola.edu (Bradley " b " Kuhn) writes:
>I downloaded SLS 0.99 pl 0 some time ago. I got everything running pretty
>good and proceed to collect software that I wished to use. I ran into
>problems with the libraries being incompatable and such, since the kernel
>version changed. So I wanted to update my SLS dist.
Upgrading SLS for many people is going to be difficult, because each SLS
release is more or less geared to have all of the softs in one release
work together as a unit, not individually as most systems tend to be upgraded.
Basically, I think it's easier for anyone to just upgrade individual
programs as they're needed. To upgrade the kernel, get the new sources and
recompile it. To upgrade GCC ot your libraries, get the tar files from
sunsite in /pub/Linux/GCC. For other programs, watch for announcements in
c.o.l.a and get the new sources or binaries from the sunsite Incoming
directory (or wait 'til they're moved out with the other software on tsx-11
and other sites).
Upgrading "by hand" is usually very easy and you only have to upgrade the
individual things that you need. For example, roughly half of the software on
my Linux box is outdated. However, there's NO reason to upgrade anything
blindly until I find a need for it. If I ever notice that a program that
I'm using is old or broken, I'll go get the new version of it then.
Plus, you learn a lot about how the software is set up and how it works
just by installing it yourself or recompiling it. Upgrading to an entire new
SLS release is quite silly, since you probably only use 20% of the softs
on it regularly, and there's no reason to upgrade most of the time.
That's how I do it, in any case, and it saves me a lot of trouble and I
don't have to practically wipe my entire system to install new software.
mdw
-- Matt Welsh, mdw@tc.cornell.edu "What are you doing, Dave?"