Slackware 8.0 to 8.1 Upgrade HOWTO  <volkerdi@slackware.com>

This document explains how to upgrade from Slackware 7.0, 7.1, or 8.0 to
Slackware 8.1.

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Before you begin, I would strongly recommend making a backup of your
system, or, if not the entire system, at least the /etc directory.  You
might find that you need to refer to a few things about the upgrade
process is complete. Back it up, or take your chances.

OK, now that everything is safely backed up, let's proceed. :-)

To do this, you'll need the Slackware 8.1 packages.  If these are on a CD,
create a new directory to mount the CD on so that it doesn't get in the
way during the upgrade:

mkdir /packages
mount /dev/cdrom /packages

The packages don't have to be on a CD-ROM, as an alternative you could
copy the slackware directory (the one with the various package
subdirectories in it, basically the "slackware" directory from the install
CD) to someplace like /root/slackware/.  The important thing is that you
know where the slackware packages directory is.  We'll refer to this
location as $SLACKWARE in the following examples.

0.  Put your machine in single-user mode:
    telinit 1


1.  Upgrade your glibc shared libraries.  This is important, or things
    will go haywire during the first part of the upgrade:

    installpkg $SLACKWARE/a/glibc-solibs-*.tgz


2.  Upgrade your package utilities:

    installpkg $SLACKWARE/a/pkgtools-*.tgz


3.  Install everything else:

    installpkg $SLACKWARE/*/*.tgz


4.  Remove the old packages.  Since we're using a longer package naming
    scheme now, we know any package with a name shorter than 10 
    characters must be an old package.  Remove them with this command:

    cd /var/log/packages
    removepkg ? ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ??????? ????????

    This will remove all packages with names from 1 to 8 characters long.


5.  Install the new packages again.  If you don't do this, you might have
    a few missing files here and there.

    installpkg $SLACKWARE/*/*.tgz


6.  Make sure your system will boot.  The kernel location has moved from 
    / to /boot, so if you use LILO you might need to edit some paths in 
    /etc/lilo.conf and then rerun LILO.  If you use a bootdisk, you'll 
    need to use makebootdisk to make a new bootdisk using the kernel in 
    /boot.


7.  Fix your config files.  Some of the config files in /etc are going to 
    need your attention.  You'll find the new incoming config files on 
    your system with the ".new" extension.  You may need to fill these in 
    with information from your old config files and then move them over.


8.  Return to multi-user mode:
    telinit 3


At this point you should be running Slackware 8.1.  :-)


I wish everyone good luck with this!

---
Patrick Volkerding
volkerdi@slackware.com