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The endless upgrade
Soooo... Having no car at my disposal other than Gary's, which I prefer not to drive, I stayed home all weekend. Much of Saturday was spent updating my Linux here.
I needed to be able to edit open document format (.odt) files and the version of OpenOffice I was running (1.1.4) didn't cut it. Unfortunately, I tried and failed at getting the current version 2.1 to install. It wanted newer libraries and dependencies, apparently. So I had to bite the bullet and upgrade my Slackware from 10.1 to either 10.2 or 11. I chose 10.2 since I'm running that at work and I prefer to move by baby steps in these matters. Brought home my CDs from the library, and this time read the upgrade instructions. (In the past, I've usually upgraded by backing up my personal files, erasing the partition, doing a new install, and then restoring my home directory.) I was apprehensive about upgrading by replacing packages, which is the usual Slackware approach, but decided to try it.
It did work. Volkerding's instructions were spot on and could be followed literally except for one hitch. KDE is on a separate CD now, and he neglected to tell you to mount the second CD and repeat the steps to get KDE updated. I don't use KDE itself, but I do use selected applications from the KDE distribution, so I updated it along with everything else. Ran the LILO configuration, rebooted, and the system came up just fine.
Well, almost. The driver for my modem card got lost, but that was expected. It's a separately compiled module that gets copied into the module tree after compiling, and isn't actually patched into the kernel source. So each time the kernel modules are reinstalled, it goes away. It's easy to reinstall though. Then I realized that I had a real kernel patch that needed reinstallation. That's the one to enable pptp for VPN and I do use it. So I went and got the patch to fit the new kernel version (2.4.31) installed it, reran the menuconfig to turn on mppe compression, and again recompiled the modules and kernel. Of course that once more lost the modem so I had to recompile it again. A couple of minor tweaks to the startup scripts because networking startup changed a bit, and I was done. It wouldn't have taken so long if I hadn't had to recompile the kernel (takes about an hour on my machine) and hadn't messed up the config the first time so it took two runs to get it right. Anyway, it's all working now and this is a note to remind myself for next time, hopefully avoiding having to do things twice. I really should go to version 11 and the 2.6 kernel sometime, but I don't like fixing things that aren't broken.
The weather has been really springlike, maybe the lion read my post of earlier in the week. Not that I want to chase lions away, not at all. But I much prefer that they be, shall we say, gentle and sexy rather than fierce and angry. Made it into the 60s yesterday and the 70s today. The windows are open now, revealing all the dust that has clogged the screens since last year. I'm going to have to clean windows and screens, Yuck.
Frogs are shouting "Sex! Sex! Sex!" from every nearby wet spot. Cardinals, red-wing blackbirds, and chickadees join in with their own courting songs, and the woodpeckers are drumming furiously on anything they can find. I'm studiously avoiding the work I should be doing, finishing up a story for submission, cutting and sewing that shirt, or my spinning. The weather is too nice, and enjoyable even indoors now that the windows are all open. Last year's fox appears to have returned to the same spot, digging the den out again where the neighbor's chickens were disappearing. I hope to spot him again with any luck. Inspected the apple trees yesterday, and they had no deer damage, even though we failed to put the portable cages back around them this winter. I think the deer have fled the area since the subdivision construction began to the north of us. They used to come into and exit from our land over that route. Dogs and horses are shedding, and the sheep are sitting around looking distinctly uncomfortable this afternoon. We need to get the shearing guy out soon.
I needed to be able to edit open document format (.odt) files and the version of OpenOffice I was running (1.1.4) didn't cut it. Unfortunately, I tried and failed at getting the current version 2.1 to install. It wanted newer libraries and dependencies, apparently. So I had to bite the bullet and upgrade my Slackware from 10.1 to either 10.2 or 11. I chose 10.2 since I'm running that at work and I prefer to move by baby steps in these matters. Brought home my CDs from the library, and this time read the upgrade instructions. (In the past, I've usually upgraded by backing up my personal files, erasing the partition, doing a new install, and then restoring my home directory.) I was apprehensive about upgrading by replacing packages, which is the usual Slackware approach, but decided to try it.
It did work. Volkerding's instructions were spot on and could be followed literally except for one hitch. KDE is on a separate CD now, and he neglected to tell you to mount the second CD and repeat the steps to get KDE updated. I don't use KDE itself, but I do use selected applications from the KDE distribution, so I updated it along with everything else. Ran the LILO configuration, rebooted, and the system came up just fine.
Well, almost. The driver for my modem card got lost, but that was expected. It's a separately compiled module that gets copied into the module tree after compiling, and isn't actually patched into the kernel source. So each time the kernel modules are reinstalled, it goes away. It's easy to reinstall though. Then I realized that I had a real kernel patch that needed reinstallation. That's the one to enable pptp for VPN and I do use it. So I went and got the patch to fit the new kernel version (2.4.31) installed it, reran the menuconfig to turn on mppe compression, and again recompiled the modules and kernel. Of course that once more lost the modem so I had to recompile it again. A couple of minor tweaks to the startup scripts because networking startup changed a bit, and I was done. It wouldn't have taken so long if I hadn't had to recompile the kernel (takes about an hour on my machine) and hadn't messed up the config the first time so it took two runs to get it right. Anyway, it's all working now and this is a note to remind myself for next time, hopefully avoiding having to do things twice. I really should go to version 11 and the 2.6 kernel sometime, but I don't like fixing things that aren't broken.
The weather has been really springlike, maybe the lion read my post of earlier in the week. Not that I want to chase lions away, not at all. But I much prefer that they be, shall we say, gentle and sexy rather than fierce and angry. Made it into the 60s yesterday and the 70s today. The windows are open now, revealing all the dust that has clogged the screens since last year. I'm going to have to clean windows and screens, Yuck.
Frogs are shouting "Sex! Sex! Sex!" from every nearby wet spot. Cardinals, red-wing blackbirds, and chickadees join in with their own courting songs, and the woodpeckers are drumming furiously on anything they can find. I'm studiously avoiding the work I should be doing, finishing up a story for submission, cutting and sewing that shirt, or my spinning. The weather is too nice, and enjoyable even indoors now that the windows are all open. Last year's fox appears to have returned to the same spot, digging the den out again where the neighbor's chickens were disappearing. I hope to spot him again with any luck. Inspected the apple trees yesterday, and they had no deer damage, even though we failed to put the portable cages back around them this winter. I think the deer have fled the area since the subdivision construction began to the north of us. They used to come into and exit from our land over that route. Dogs and horses are shedding, and the sheep are sitting around looking distinctly uncomfortable this afternoon. We need to get the shearing guy out soon.