Update Everything

[luvis8]

Hi All,
I read in an old post (2006) that you should not "update everything" in Gslapt; that this could lead to serious trouble.

Is this still true or has this issue been resolved since then?

I have experience with Debian based distro's and Synaptic and they do not have similar warnings against updating everything (they actually encourage it).

I would greatly appreciate you input.

[bigpaws]

Update everything is still discouraged. There were many problems
with people borking their systems from update all.

Bigpaws

[luvis8]

Is this a problem that is being worked on?
If not then how are we supposed to update anything with any confidence that it won't wreck our system?

[bigpaws]

Is this a problem that is being worked on?

To the best of my knowledge it is not a priority or a real problem.

If not then how are we supposed to update anything with any confidence that it won't wreck our system?v

Use the system tools to uninstall the package you want upgraded.
Then install the new package.

There is a perception that you need to upgrade every time a package
has been upgraded.

There are two reasons to upgrade. One for security fixes or two to be able to
use something that was not included in the previous release.

HTH

Bigpaws

[luvis8]

Hi Bigpaws,
Okay now I'm even more confused.

In your last post you stated:

To the best of my knowledge it is not a priority or a real problem.

but in your post prior to that you stated:

There were many problems
with people borking their systems from update all.

Please excuse my ignorance and no offense intended but if you can "bork" your system by simply electing to "update all" of the programs then that does sound like a problem to me.  Just for background I should tell you that I've used Ubuntu for over a year and more recently Freespire 2.0.8, both of which are based on Debian and updating all is a feature that can be automated in both OS's.

That leads me to two other questions:

If "Update All" is frowned upon, then why is it even an option in Gslapt?

If the work around is to uninstall the program and then reinstall it, why isn't this step automated in Gslapt?

I know you said it isn't necessary to update everything, but it is a nice a simple way to ensure you not only have the latest security or bug fixes, but that you also have the most up-to-date software (this has it's own advantages).

Also the process of having to uninstall everything prior to installing it seems rather onerous and something that could/should be automated.

As I said please take no offense to my questions or comments.
After much deliberation I have whittled my distro selection down to Freespire and Vector (having Vector on my system kinda makes me feel patriotic) and am exploring both in terms of their respective pros & cons.

And right now not being able to update all without "borking" my system is definitely a big con among a sea of pros.

[bigpaws]

As I said please take no offense to my questions or comments.

I never take offense to questions. Without questions it is hard to learn

Please excuse my ignorance and no offense intended but if you can "bork" your system by simply electing to "update all" of the programs then that does sound like a problem to me.  Just for background I should tell you that I've used Ubuntu for over a year and more recently Freespire 2.0.8, both of which are based on Debian and updating all is a feature that can be automated in both OS's.

I follow most of the distro's out there. Gentoo is probably the best at updating the OS,
Slack will run in the second or third place. Following Ubuntu the recent updating to
the current version is borking systems more than previous. The problem is that when
a piece of software is altered updating becomes a problem.

If "Update All" is frowned upon, then why is it even an option in Gslapt?

When Update All was introduced the complexity was realized, as such it came to be that
using such an option was not a good idea.

I know you said it isn't necessary to update everything, but it is a nice a simple way to ensure you not only have the latest security or bug fixes, but that you also have the most up-to-date software (this has it's own advantages).

If the software does not include much other than code cleanup what is the advantage? There are
servers, Desktops and firewalls all running older versions. In fact I know of firewalls that are still
using the 2.2 series kernel. Old does not mean bad or broken.

In contrast to the above do you compile your kernel to stay current? In keeping pace with the
kernel 2.6.24.2 using the BCM43xx wireless driver and ndiswrapper, since a new ssb module
was added. Again latest and greatest does not equal the best.

Your question about why Gslapt does not automatically uninstall software while updating. It may
do that, it is not a feature that I use personally.

Other than running a server why is it that a new install appears to be a problem. It takes me about 1
hour to do a new install and transfer my settings back. Mostly due to the size of my data and also
that I have not taken the time to finish my scripts to make a new install faster. This is not like Windows
where a fresh install can takes 2-3 hours.

I hope this may shed some light on your questions.

Bigpaws

[luvis8]

Thanks for your response Bigpaws.

And to answer your question:

Other than running a server why is it that a new install appears to be a problem. It takes me about 1
hour to do a new install and transfer my settings back. Mostly due to the size of my data and also
that I have not taken the time to finish my scripts to make a new install faster. This is not like Windows
where a fresh install can takes 2-3 hours.

I never said there was a problem installing the OS; my question was with regards to updating the software that is included on the installation cd downloaded from Vector's website.

This past weekend I was chasing down a hardware problem and had to reinstall all three OS's on my computer.

Win XP took 2 hours (1 hour for XP and one more hour for all the drivers and programs that I use/need).
Vector 5.8 SOHO took 20 minutes.
Freespire 2.0.8 took 6 minutes flat.

My times are for fresh installs without having any data to back up.