[gentoo-user] Re: emerge - Tips and Tricks

[Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@ist.utl.pt>]

On 2024-09-02, Michael wrote:

> On Monday, 2 September 2024 07:59:20 BST Wols Lists wrote:
>> On 02/09/2024 06:11, Dale wrote:
>> > If you have a laptop where heat is a issue, you may want to do things
>> > different but if you can, that will give you the most stable system for
>> > updates.
>> 
>> Another tip - if you run into any problems, try to emerge @system, not
>> @world.
>> 
>> If you know you've successfully emerged @system and you get loads of
>> stuff blocking with an @world, I tend to just unmerge all the blockers
>> until @world fires successfully. You need to be a bit careful, you could
>> still unmerge something important, but it's unlikely. Although these
>> problems also tend to be fixed by backtrack=100.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Wol
>
> You can remove blockers manually and I admit to do it occasionally, but it can 
> sometimes break your system if you don't pay particular attention and you 
> inadvertently remove some critical toolchain software - e.g. python, glibc, 
> gcc, et al.  It is safer to run:
>
> emerge --depclean -v -p <some_package>
>
> and check what dependencies of <some_package> are complaining about your 
> attempt to remove it.  Should you come across python or something portage 
> depends on, it's best to back off and ask before you decide how to proceed.  
> Soft blockers (b) are dealt with automatically by emerge, it is hard blockers 
> (B) you'd have to pay attention to.
>
> My typical update runs like this:
>
> eix-sync
> emerge -uaNDv @world
> dispatch-conf
> emerge --depclean -a -v
> eclean-dist
>
> If the emerge output asks me to, I also run:
>
> revdep-rebuild
>
> and when perl itself goes through a major update, I run:
>
> perl-cleaner --reallyall
>
> Enjoy your gentoo!

Could --ignore-world be of use in cases where blockers are complicating
things too much? Might make sense e.g. if an emerge upgrade is needed
before other upgrades but python eclass changes are blocking things
creating cyclic dependencies.

(Requires a lot of careful analysis, of course...)

-- 
Nuno Silva