[Jabooma]

I run a slackware server now that was setup by someone else. Thus there is alot of stuff setup i don't understand or know how to configure. i started with slack 7 with many updates done.

1. Is what i really want to know is if there is a foolproof way to upgrade to the newest slackware without messing things up?
2. Is there and easy until for slackware to setup and administer a good firewall and domain names for slackware.
3. or is there a good flavor out there that has all this that i can switch to?

[tdi_veedub]

To answer your questions:

#1: No,
#2: No,
#3: No. Well, maybe

Why #1: You don't upgrade distributions as a whole. You upgrade the packages and such that are included with the distribution. Distributions such as Gentoo ease the pain by automating this for you. No more updating dependancies manually or anything. It just works (so I heard. Ask Xneon, he is the gentoo nut)

Why #2: There "may" be some nice graphical scripts to help you create a rc.firewall script for iptables, but I have always done this manually. It's not hard, and there are alot of example files out there. Google is your friend, try searching example iptables scripts.

Why #3: A good graphical web based administration tool that works on pretty much any distribution is called "webmin". Basically you run a mini-webserver on your linux machine, and through a web browser interface, it takes care of all the scripts and such that you need. It's as point and click as you get for *nix administration. It will take care of just about anything for you(including your above 2 questions), on any distribution.

Check it out here:
http://www.webmin.com/