On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 20:08:14 +0300
Jukka Marin <jmarin@embedtronics.fi> wrote:

> I have, say, 6-month-old packages installed on my system.  One day, I
> decide I want to update, say, xine-ui.
> 
> What (on earth) should I do?
> 
> I tried "make update" (although I know it does NOT work - and it didn't)
> and sooner or later, the system complains "xxx is already installed -
> perhaps an older version?" - why doesn't it _update_ the package as I
> told it to do?
> 
> So, HOW do I update installed packages without first removing all packages
> and then installing everything from scratch.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
>   -jm

I know one way of doing it, but there is a lot to describe how it's done...
Basically I build all packages inside a chroot jail, this way it doesn't affect
system wide packages currently installed. I use various scripts to build and
update packages. If you can wait a few days, I'll write up a complete howto and
put it on my website, so that next time somebody asks the same question, I can
just point them to the howto document.