Upgrade Perl version

[2009tester]

Salix 13.75

it has Perl version 12.
I could not find upgrade at Salix repos.
Gslapt unable to find new version 16 in Slackware repos either.
But Slackware did release Perl 16 on latest version.
Where can I get latest package of perl version?

[gapan]

There has never been a Salix 13.75.

There has never been a perl 12 or perl 16.

[ibka]

In a way he has right about perl

If i run "perl -v" the result is:

on salix 13.37
This is perl 5, version 12, subversion 3 (v5.12.3)

on salix 14.0
This is perl 5, version 16, subversion 1 (v5.12.1)

[mimosa]

Salix 14.0 will be released some time soon ("when it's ready" ) with more recent versions of things. During the lifetime of a release, as I understand it, policy is not to keep upgrading to the latest version of everything unless it's really needed (for security updates and other reasons I forget). The idea is to have a stable release rather than necessarily the latest version fo everything. This is also SLackware's policy, so Salix is just following that line. To some extent, you have to choose between stability and bleeding edge.

However, you might enjoy Slackel - search these forums for discussion of it.

[2009tester]

So, as I understand,
Slackware and Salix do not approve package upgrades unless OS version is upgraded.

Can I upgrade to new OS version without erasing the settings on present version?
My present Perl installation has many modules installed already in OS directories. (Not home directory)

[mimosa]

I don't know Perl, so I don't know to what extent you can just copy those files over. Maybe they're not compatible with the newer Perl anyway. It might be fiddly, in which case it could be less work to just reinstall everything.

When upgrading to a new Salix version, there are two paths: back up your data and do a fresh install, or upgrade an existing installation. I have always done the former, taking it as an opportunity to have a spring clean; but the latter is perfectly feasible and there shoud be instructions on the wiki, if not now, some time soon. That might just give you the result you want - Perl being upgraded along with all other packages, but leaving your libraries and so on intact.

[2009tester]

Thanks Mimosa.
is it possible to keep home in a seperate 2nd partition,
and install Salix system on another partition?

i think Salix creates its own home directory at fist installation.
How to define the home directory on 2nd partition?

[mimosa]

You can but it may not work quite as you expect, because the users in home each have per-user configuration files (either hidden or in hidden directories) that may be different from one Salix version to the next. You may also need to adjust permissions.

There are as many ways of going about it as there are users, but my suggestion is to have a separate /data partition and, if you like, symlink from folders in /home/youruser to /data/Downloads, /data/Documents, etc. You could back up any configuration files you actually want to transfer (for example, browser stuff, .bashrc, .xinitrc .... anything you've customised) and put them in the new /home. If you do it like that, there's no need to have a separate /home partition as well.

There are some posts on this topic in this forum, and certainly further afield.

EDIT

I see I've answered your question in the context of earlier posts on this thread, but if you're not interested in keeping stuff from an old Salix installation, just follow the instructions in the installer. You can mount whatever you like to another partition

[2009tester]

Thanks a lot Mimosa.
Well note. will follow yr advise.