[gentoo-dev] Re: profiles cleanup

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Chris Gianelloni posted <1120255303.13274.4.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net>,
excerpted below,  on Fri, 01 Jul 2005 18:01:43 -0400:

> Last time that I checked, each arch needs at least one non-cascaded
> profile, due to older versions of portage not working with cascaded
> profiles.  Either this, or users will not be able to upgrade from old
> installations that have not been upgraded for some time.

IIRC (because I made a similar argument, tho likely not as well) when this
came up the last time, the decision was to create a rescue site with one
such profile per arch, getting them out of the tree and uncluttering it. 

Either that, or combine it with the rescue portage project, such that they
can download and untar a functionally usable cascade understanding portage
version to get them out of between the rock and the hard place, using the
same functionality now in place for when portage itself crashes.  This
alternative may actually already be in place only we hadn't thought about
it.

The idea being...  If someone has been offline for two years or whatever,
it's really sort of unreasonable for them to expect a problem free upgrade
in the first place.  They can post a question on the lists or forums or
irc, and be directed to the proper location and procedure as necessary. 
Alternatively, and /not/ that much less practically if you think about it
anyway, given the number of packages they'll have to update if they've
been offline for well over a year, they can simply download the latest
LiveCD and start over with a clean install, even stage-3 plus GRP, if they
are impatient, and be caught-up with far less hassle than attempting to do
it in-place, starting from such an old snapshot that there's been no
testing nor real consideration of the upgrade path in the first place,
thereby creating far more hassle than necessary for themselves, getting
everything working.

IOW, just as Gentoo as it exists today isn't really suitable for nor does
it support the multi-year "freeze-frame" snapshots plus security-only
update routine of strict enterprise policy, because that simply doesn't
fit the continual update community focused distribution model Gentoo has
chosen, so a similarly outdated "offline for two years" Gentoo
installation cannot be expected to be able to update as if it were last
updated a week ago.  The Gentoo model does not support such, nor, without
dividing scarce developer resources, can it be made to do so, regardless
of whether those last non-cascading profiles remain in place or not.  The
rescue portage may well work, but even then, there will be other issues. 
If it's been a year, chances are a from-latest-stage-X upgrade will be
about even hassle compared to an upgrade in place.  If it's been a year
and a half, things favor the from-stage-X upgrade.  If it's been two years
or longer, things VASTLY favor the from-stage-X upgrade.  That's just the
way it is, with Gentoo as it exists today.  If it's not the profiles
causing the issue, it'll be some other incompatibility causing headaches,
and whether or not they can be overcome, from-stage-X is simply going to
be less of an issue, and be easier to support, because others will have
likely run into similar problems, so the answers will be easier to find.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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