On 2006-05-13, Mahy <jkotuc@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I am currently in the process of upgrading and customizing my Slack. I
> downloaded slapt-get, but after install, it told me it can't execute
> /usr/<something>/slapt-get, so i tried swaret. It performed update and
> upgrade (to "current"), downloading about 800 MB. After that, it
> started dependency checking. I was shocked when it found hundreds of
> missing libraries, that were nowhere to be found. After updatedb and
> reboot, the system is quite crippled. It states that openssl is built
> against a different version that I have now. Moreover, the X can't be
> started, complaining about fonts, about libcairo and several other
> things. I guess it all has something to do with swaret. Is it a way to
> resolve it?? TIA for any advice.


It's certainly possible to get your system back working properly, but
it's not something I'm willing to walk through here. It will involve
booting the Slackware installation cd (or perhaps the Slax livecd),
mounting your / partition (and other system partitions if applicable),
and using some combination of installpkg -root /somedir and/or tar -xzf
to make the system somewhat usable again. I'm guessing that you tried
to upgrade glibc in a multiuser runlevel, and that's one of your problems;
also, there have been quite a few *new* packages added to -current that
would not have been installed with an "upgrade."

I really wish people would realize that there is a very good reason why
Pat doesn't include slapt-get, swaret, et al in the base Slackware
installation (if anywhere at all): using those tools without understanding
how they work is a recipe for disaster. I have personal experience with
slapt-get, so I know that it can be a very *good* tool, but then, I also
understand how it works and I know its limitations.

As a general rule, a distribution update (10.1 --> 10.2 or 10.2 --> 11.0,
but this includes 10.2 --> -current) should never be done with an
automated tool. There will usually be a glibc and/or kernel upgrade, and
almost always new packages that need to be installed for some of the
existing ones' upgraded versions to work properly (see openldap-client
and samba in the -current cycle now). Automated tools will not (and
should not) just automatically install packages that are not already
installed on the system, and this is most likely why you saw so many
missing libraries. Along those same lines, packages are often removed
from the system during a release cycle (for example, see abiword during
this cycle), and although it won't affect whether your systems runs
correctly, housekeeping issues should be enough reason for you to want
those removed.

Finally, the last word on upgrading a Slackware system should logically
come from Pat himself, so here it is:
http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackwar...nt/UPGRADE.TXT

RW

--

http://rlworkman.net