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Say you've got three or four or more machines at home (yes, some of us
are computer geeks...)

Anyway, when keeping the machines up to date, do you do one machine at a
time, or one piece of software at a time?

I was doing one piece at a time, say I updated Samba from 3.0.21 to
3.0.21a (just picking version numbers from a hat here) on all my
machines, instead of just updating machine X to the latest version of
everything.

I'm now thinking that maybe it would make more sense to pick one machine
and just update everything on it that needs updating and tweaking,
getting it "perfect" and then working on another machine.

What do you guys (and gals) do?

Fwiw, (horror of horrors) this includes some windows stuff and one day
may even include a Mac too... but it's mostly Slack and I'm keeping it
that way ... my new laptop came with two hard drives, so I'll be dual
booting Slack 12 on it as soon as the recovery cd's finish burning...

Ray

news wrote:
> Say you've got three or four or more machines at home (yes, some of us
> are computer geeks...)
>
> Anyway, when keeping the machines up to date, do you do one machine at a
> time, or one piece of software at a time?
>
> I was doing one piece at a time, say I updated Samba from 3.0.21 to
> 3.0.21a (just picking version numbers from a hat here) on all my
> machines, instead of just updating machine X to the latest version of
> everything.
>
> I'm now thinking that maybe it would make more sense to pick one machine
> and just update everything on it that needs updating and tweaking,
> getting it "perfect" and then working on another machine.
>
> What do you guys (and gals) do?
>
> Fwiw, (horror of horrors) this includes some windows stuff and one day
> may even include a Mac too... but it's mostly Slack and I'm keeping it
> that way ... my new laptop came with two hard drives, so I'll be dual
> booting Slack 12 on it as soon as the recovery cd's finish burning...
>

Well, with the possible exception of "getting it perfect" before you
move on to the next machine, your idea is perfectly fine.

For what it's worth my policy is to always upgrade everything when a
major version of Slackware comes out. I usually upgrade to the minor
versions; not always, I think I skipped 10.1. Then I upgrade the
packages I 'maintain' whenever I feel like I want 'new features.' For
example I always have the latest version of Blender, but the
version of Eterm (the world's greatest terminal emulator) that I'm using
is more than four years old. Also I'm subscribed to Slackware's
security list, so whenever something that I use comes up on that
list I usually upgrade. Not always though since they're usually
not remote exploits and everything inside my firewall is 'trusted.'

news wrote:

> Say you've got three or four or more machines at home ...

6 currently performing various functions in mine, not counting the
spouse's NetBSD workstation:

- gateway/NAT system (and another being groomed to replace that one)
- mail, DNS, web server
- X10/Zoneminder (CCTV) system
- music workstation
- "regular" workstation
- laptop for wandering with ...

> Anyway, when keeping the machines up to date, do you do one machine at
> a time, or one piece of software at a time?

I upgrade things as needed. I'll upgrade the same software on all
systems if there's an urgent need to do so (such as security
vulnerability). Otherwise I tend to upgrade a system at a time, but
only as time permits or I feel a strong pull towards newer versions of
software. The workstations and laptop are going to be upgraded much
sooner than the other systems.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille syl@alcor.concordia.ca

Systems and Network analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sylvain Robitaille wrote:
> news wrote:
>
>> Say you've got three or four or more machines at home ...
>
> 6 currently performing various functions in mine, not counting the
> spouse's NetBSD workstation:
>
> - gateway/NAT system (and another being groomed to replace that one)
> - mail, DNS, web server
> - X10/Zoneminder (CCTV) system
> - music workstation
> - "regular" workstation
> - laptop for wandering with ...
>
>> Anyway, when keeping the machines up to date, do you do one machine at
>> a time, or one piece of software at a time?
>
> I upgrade things as needed. I'll upgrade the same software on all
> systems if there's an urgent need to do so (such as security
> vulnerability). Otherwise I tend to upgrade a system at a time, but
> only as time permits or I feel a strong pull towards newer versions of
> software. The workstations and laptop are going to be upgraded much
> sooner than the other systems.
>

Yeah, I think I've been doing it wrong - per package across all machines
is proving to be a pain and no one machine ever gets really caught up,
especially the desktops.

FWIW, my home lan looks like:
2 desktops, dual boot W2k/Slackware (soon to be one desktop and one
laptop if I can get one that's not broken, but that's an HP quality
control problem...)
one file server running Slack 10.x, soon to be upgraded - space...
one linux "operations controller" (dns, dhcp, wins, ntp)
one windows domain controller (I used to be an MCSE and the wife does
MSSQL Server support)
two windows MSSQL boxes (the wife's)
one external facing ftp box (and backup web server)
one external facing web server
one remote x windows box
so, yeah, I've got a lot of machines to patch/install/tweak...
....
and the server farm consumes 570-620W according to my little EM-100 from
Canadian Tire....

FWIW, my new HP 9644CA laptop is really nice... except the first one
came with a big scratch in the screen and the second one's DVD burner is
DOA... not yet sure if there's going to be a third one... that's not
very good quality control, but the 2 hard drives will make dual booting
easier.

Anyway, off to test the burner with k3b one last time before packing it
up...

Ray