Salix Forums

Running Salix 13.1 XFCE on a Dell Inspiron 6000 (shut up, it works fine!)
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Hey guys,

I have been quite happily using SalixOS for awhile now. I began my journey with PuppyLinux, then Slackware, then Zenwalk, now (and presumably permanently) Salix. A few distros I tried but just didn't personally connect with were Ubuntu, Knoppix, PCLinux and a few others. Nothing wrong with them, just not for me. The *only* other distro out there that has remained peripherally interesting is Arch -- for the obvious two reasons (a) rolling release, and (b) larger community, repo, etc. This said, I just read a conversation discussing differences between the two distros and in the end I have decided to stay with Salix.....


....which leads me to my main issue. I have spent years (literally) fine-tuning this system for my personal use. In fact, I can't even remember all that I've done; I only know that every problem I ever had required lots of research and sometimes solutions involving the tweaking of config files. Examples include:

* editing sudo (visudo) to allow certain programs with permission restrictions to run on restart using sudo;
* configuring Lilo (or was it grub?) such that my computer restarts and signs me in automatically (so that I can restart remotely);
* add chat scripts to etc to allow my pcmcia card to connect;
* downloading useful programs such as slocate, rfkill, i8kutils, src2pkg..... and created launchers pointing to scripts making all of my usual processes automated, not to mention programs installed from source or SlackBuilds.
* etc, etc, etc.

So my burning question, the one I have every time a new version of Slackware is released is: "Is there a way to completely automate the upgrade process such that my existing system continues to look like, and run like, it does right now?" This means that my existing settings are the same, XFCE settings are the same (launchers, etc all in tact), the kernel is upgraded to current, and I have the option keep or replace redundant programs (such as choosing to switch to Xfburn instead of keeping Brasero)?

I use my laptop daily, both for work and personal use, so while I will of course resort to a fresh install and rebuilding my personal system from scratch if I need to, it would be extremely useful to have this process automated. If you can come up with a solution that works both for this and future upgrades, I will gladly pay or donate or whatever the amount that seems appropriate.

And as always, thanks for a great product and fantastic support.

Dennis in San Diego

Unfortunately things change in unpredictable ways from one release to another too much for an automated upgrade to be reliable - especially in terms of your own tweaks. That's why Arch's rolling release makes it less stable than Slackware. It's also why Slackware doesn't include such a feature. Other Distros do, but it may well not work as expected.

The nature of "fine tuning" is that it is an interactive process, and maybe even something of a constant work in progress.

The wiki contains instructions for version upgrades; these are more likely to work than a fully automated process, because you have control at all times and can see if something doesn't appear to work as it should. However, that doesn't necesarily mean all your scripts will still work.

I have seen the suggestion of keeping a book of notes about one's tweaks, a sort of cookbook or personal wiki. I also have a package ("user-settings-mimosa") with some personal configurations in it. I created it when I was doing a lot of installs of the same version of Salix. However, when I tried to use it again later, it was really more trouble than it was worth, because my tweaks had evolved. To make such a system work, I would need to constantly maintain and upgrade the package. Maybe for the next release cycle, I will - and that would be an excellent way of keeping better abreast of what changes my system has undergone.

However, at the point of a version upgrade, it would probably need something of an overhaul and some testing.

While we would love to have a way of receiving donations, actually the best way you can contribute to Salix is by sharing your knowledge with the community, whether by responding to user queries on the forum, helping with testing, or adding documentation to the wiki

Thanks for the response, Mimosa....

I knew this was a shot in the dark, but I figured I'd try. I've always liked about Slackware that it works perfectly and will never do anything wacky and random *as long as you don't attempt to implement solutions within the system that conflict with the Slackware "keep-it-simple" philosophy.* In this case, "simple" seems to be debatable, but in the long run I guess I'll take a tedious update to pulling hairs out later due to dependency conflict, patch weirdness, etc.

At some point it occurred to me to create a directory containing files listing and describing inconspicuous programs, as well as noting common usage for those programs without man pages. I suppose that moving forward I may buy an up-to-date laptop and start with a fresh install, this time being thorough about every single tweak I've done. Gapan suggested Gpaco in a forum a year or so ago, so at least I have some record of packages installed from sources other than the official repo. *sigh* Oh well.... another project.

As for donations, I've been bringing this up for awhile. I'm not rich, but I make a decent living, and for as much as I despise being forced to pay for crappy proprietary software, I would love to donate to Salix as a way of strengthening our position in the global community, and I'm sure others feel the same. I still buy Slackware merchandise from their store (very good quality caps and tee-shirts, to their credit) as a means of showing support. At one point Shador mentioned using the Salix Duck-duck-go search, as a percentage of returns go to Salix, and I tried that for as long as I could stand it (about a year).

So to sum-up: No on the automatic upgrade; no way to make a donation yet. Got it. Well as always, thanks for the great OS as well as the excellent forum.

Dennis