I am still running 14.2 and I am wary about upgrading to current because
of unpleasant results from a prior attempt. I just tried to install the
brave-browser from Slackbuilds and it will not run because my nss(?) is
too old. Brave requires nss new than 3.26.
Although I haven't checked, I suppose that current version of nss would
suffice.
If you run current Slackware do you have any problems?
After upgrading to current in '00s I had problems, and do recently.
Things seem better now, mostly from more experience, but also Slackware
team grew and updates better/faster/ On the other hand, there are always
new things one has to get experience with next. In '00s there many not
have been any GPUs, at least multi-core. Now there are, and some of the
drivers are tens of millions of lines of KB of code, even though Free/
Libre/Opensource Software (F/LS, OSS, FOSS, FLOSS.) I was told that's
what might be preventing some X/KDE programs (some audio/video players)
running, but also seems like with these drivers I have to compile for
every kernel, then update for that kernel.
Mplayer (and various interfaces to it like KMPlayer) is a nice, simple
option, but there are increasingly-many alternatives you might consider
from SlackBuilds.org (SBo) without having to upgrade to current.
I'm dual-booting FreeBSD-current Unix, and while I consider Unix to be
the most clean/stable (designed ahead of time) code (GNU/Linux
historically not much, rather than making it up as they go along, mixing
in locally-installed files with system files, which you don't see happen
on Unix,) it appears LILO might be a safer boot-loader in ways than
FreeBSD's (BTX?) boot-loader(?,) though that might be more powerful.
After I thought Slackware-current's latest Linux kernel had a problem
(actually I botched the update) it seemed only LILO would boot both
anymore (new and old Linux kernels... BTX might need more reinstallation
to recognize updates) I tried to switch to LILO. I lost my partitions (I
have backups!) Now I don't really think that's a Slackware-current
problem, as LILO is old, but might be a FreeBSD-current problem, as they
had some such in the past... FreeBSD 12.0 didn't boot unless you
installed boot-loader from 11.2 or used something else (LILO) as I and
several/many others found/reported.
But anyway, a main problem is kernel updates can be difficult and
sometimes don't go well especially if one update regularly even at night
when tired. Documentation says don't upgrade running kernel... well, you
can, but it's risky. It wasn't the kernel's fault this time rather than
configuration. However I'm not sure slackpkg yet gives a way to keep
your current kernel *and* download a new one to install alongside then
add to /etc/lilo.conf. So I was lazy and paid for it.
Such a problem with Slackware-current is it's regularly (sometimes daily/
weekly) installing kernel updates. One might think a problem has to do
with drivers compiled for some kernel (as I did) and be quick to upgrade
to new kernels... and be tempted to. For that and other reasons (less
experience with FreeBSD since 1990s, just OpenBSD, and how they work with
Slackware) earlier this month I did maybe 20 reinstalls/week. Sometimes
it's trying other current things, but sometimes it's just one doesn't
feel like taking all the time to use current more safely (and can take
much time, like I'm updating maybe 500 or 1000+ SBo builds) then stuff
happens.
They say don't use Slackware-current on a 'production system,' but
sometimes people don't feel they have much choice. Some have good
results; often I didn't because I do too much. It's up to you. You
could try in the future if might help MPlayer or something, but sometimes
you'll end up wasting more time than if you consider several similar
alternatives on SBo for Slackware-stable. I get good maybe 50% good
results installing a minimal amount of current packages on stable, but if
they have dependencies, they're more likely to break system. If not,
they maybe 50% work, 50% not or break system, but easy enough to roll
back (if you have an .ISO mounted and/or patches saved...)