[gentoo-amd64] Portage Fails To Find Updates

[gentoo-amd64] Portage Fails To Find Updates

[Frank Peters]

Today, doing an "emerge -pvDu world" I get the report that no packages
need to be updated.

But while checking the status of another package, I happen to execute
"emerge -pv rpm2targz."  This then reports that the package rpm2targz
needs to be updated.

Why didn't the "emerge -pvDu world" tell me about this?

Further checking reveals that all packages that are installed on my
machine are contained in the /var/db/pkg directory.  However, the "world"
file, which is located at /var/lib/portage/world, should contain the same
listing but it does not.  I notice that some packages in /var/db/pkg
are not listed in /var/lib/portage/world.

Actually, the "world" file has 257 entries, while the "/var/lib/portage/world"
directory contains 414 packages.

Why has portage failed to add all packages to the "world" file?
Have I been doing something wrong?

In any case, I can rebuild the world file manually to accurately
reflect the state my system, but, based upon this current observation,
portage may fail to keep it accurate in the future.

What is going on here?

Frank Peters

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Portage Fails To Find Updates

[Frank Peters]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:43:09 -0500
Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> wrote:

> 
> Why has portage failed to add all packages to the "world" file?
> Have I been doing something wrong?
> 

Well, I found the answer to my own question.  From the portage man
page:

 "Every  time  you  emerge  a package, the package that you
requested is recorded here.  Then when  you  run  `emerge
world  -up`, the list of packages is read from this file.
Note that this does not mean that the packages that  were
installed  as dependencies are listed here.  For example,
if you run `emerge mod_php` and you do  not  have  apache
already,  then "dev-php/mod_php" is recorded in the world
file but "net-www/apache" is not."

But to use the example of the package rpm2targz, using the command
"equery depends rpm2targz" I discover that media-fonts/urw-fonts-2.4.6
is the only package that depends on rpm2targz.  Thus, when I installed
urw-fonts, rpm2targz must have also been installed but not listed 
in the "world" file.

However, this practice seems to be a bad idea.  Since the time that I
installed urw-fonts, the package rpm2targz has been updated but I will
never know this unless urw-fonts also becomes updated.  A similar situation
could exist for many other packages.  Portage should by default enter all
packages into the "world" file.

Frank Peters

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Portage Fails To Find Updates

[Barry Schwartz]

Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> skribis:
> However, this practice seems to be a bad idea.  Since the time that I
> installed urw-fonts, the package rpm2targz has been updated but I will
> never know this unless urw-fonts also becomes updated.  A similar situation
> could exist for many other packages.  Portage should by default enter all
> packages into the "world" file.

Update with "emerge -NuDv world", then run "revdep-rebuild -pv" to
look for more potential updates, then run "emerge --depclean -pv" to
look for packages you no longer need due to dependencies. Use "emerge
-n" if you want to keep any of those packages; that will put them in
the world file.

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Portage Fails To Find Updates

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 12/14/2009 07:43 PM, Frank Peters wrote:
> Today, doing an "emerge -pvDu world" I get the report that no packages
> need to be updated.
>
> But while checking the status of another package, I happen to execute
> "emerge -pv rpm2targz."  This then reports that the package rpm2targz
> needs to be updated.
>
> Why didn't the "emerge -pvDu world" tell me about this?
>
> Further checking reveals that all packages that are installed on my
> machine are contained in the /var/db/pkg directory.  However, the "world"
> file, which is located at /var/lib/portage/world, should contain the same
> listing but it does not.  I notice that some packages in /var/db/pkg
> are not listed in /var/lib/portage/world.
>
> Actually, the "world" file has 257 entries, while the "/var/lib/portage/world"
> directory contains 414 packages.
>
> Why has portage failed to add all packages to the "world" file?
> Have I been doing something wrong?
>
> In any case, I can rebuild the world file manually to accurately
> reflect the state my system, but, based upon this current observation,
> portage may fail to keep it accurate in the future.
>
> What is going on here?

What's going on is that you missed a few stuff about how Gentoo works :P

The world file contains the packages you merged yourself, not 
dependencies of packages pulled-in automatically.  Packages that are 
dependencies of other packages should never be in world.

"emerge -pvDu world" will not update packages that are build-time 
dependencies of other packages (as opposed to run-time deps).  If you 
want build-time deps updated too, you should also specify 
"--with-bdeps=y" in the emerge command.

Hope that helps :)

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Portage Fails To Find Updates

[Morgan Wesström]

Frank Peters wrote:
> Today, doing an "emerge -pvDu world" I get the report that no packages
> need to be updated.
> 
> But while checking the status of another package, I happen to execute
> "emerge -pv rpm2targz."  This then reports that the package rpm2targz
> needs to be updated.
> 
> Why didn't the "emerge -pvDu world" tell me about this?

Most likely rpm2targz is an orphaned package. Try "emerge -p --depclean"
and see if it's listed. Orphaned packages are not updated by an emerge
world update since nothing is using it.

> Further checking reveals that all packages that are installed on my
> machine are contained in the /var/db/pkg directory.  However, the "world"
> file, which is located at /var/lib/portage/world, should contain the same
> listing but it does not.  I notice that some packages in /var/db/pkg
> are not listed in /var/lib/portage/world.
> 
> Actually, the "world" file has 257 entries, while the "/var/lib/portage/world"
> directory contains 414 packages.
> 
> Why has portage failed to add all packages to the "world" file?
> Have I been doing something wrong?

Your world file should only contain your top level applications. All the
other packages are dependencies and should not be listed there.
Dependencies can come and go as functionality is moved between packages
and by not listing them there they can easily be removed by an "emerge
--depclean". If you insist on listing every package in your world file
you will end up with a bloated system, full of packages that aren't used
for anything.

> In any case, I can rebuild the world file manually to accurately
> reflect the state my system, but, based upon this current observation,
> portage may fail to keep it accurate in the future.
> 
> What is going on here?

Nothing is going on. Everything is perfectly fine and is working
according to its design. :-)

> 
> Frank Peters
> 

/Morgan
>