Slackware aaa_elflibs and aaa_base packages
 

First off, let me say I know not to upgrade the aaa_elflibs and aaa_base packages and I don't intend to. What I'm curious about is what can potentially go bad if you do? In otherwords, what is the reason to not upgrade them? Please be specific with the answers if you can. Simply saying, "It will break your system." or something similar isn't what I'm looking for.

Anyway, it's really a curiosity question.

Thanks!

Brian

What exactly do those packages do?

The aaa_base only contains the directory structure of Slackware ( /* dirs, and I guess that /{usr,var}/* and /usr/local/* directories too)

Although there shouldn't be any risk updating that (other than maybe a few warnings when uninstalling it, saying that some directories aren't empty...), there shouldn't ever be a need to actually upgrade it.

The aaa_elflibs contains a collection of basic libraries already present in other slackware packages (a few required a/ and l/ libraries). The idea is to save you in the case you select a non-full installation and omit some crucial libraries.

But precisely because of that, you shouldn't upgrade the package, since it contains libraries present in other packages, and would end up overwritting them (aaa_elflibs sometimes contains an older version of a few libs).

If you followed me, then you might realize that it *could* (I haven't tried it) be possible to upgrade aaa_elflibs, if it's done before everything else. But once again, it shouldn't be needed, ever.

Ahh, so now I think I understand some. Sine aaa_elflibs is just a collection of libraries to save you if you don't install something critical then when you install it over top of the existing libraries you may replace a library with an older version rendering applications that require the newer version unable to run.

And besides, it sounds like if the libraries exist in other packages than there really will never be a need to upgrade aaa_elflibs as the libraries will be upgraded when you upgrade the package that contains them.

Thanks. Good answer.

Brian