From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1EabFo-0006xs-DT for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 11 Nov 2005 15:55:53 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with SMTP id jABFrfdF017049; Fri, 11 Nov 2005 15:53:41 GMT Received: from cermav20.cermav.cnrs.fr (cermav20.cermav.cnrs.fr [195.83.29.129]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id jABFknMh023320 for ; Fri, 11 Nov 2005 15:46:49 GMT Received: from nago.cermav.cnrs.fr (nago.cermav.cnrs.fr [195.83.30.107]) by cermav20.cermav.cnrs.fr (8.12.3/8.12.3/Debian-7.1) with ESMTP id jABFkg0a013103; Fri, 11 Nov 2005 16:46:43 +0100 From: Jimmy Rosen To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: [gentoo-user] What is recommended behavior for complete updating of an old system ? Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 16:46:41 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.8.1 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200511111646.41923.listjiro@gmail.com> X-Miltered: at cermav20 with ID 4374BCE2.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Archives-Salt: 6e86d3e2-c504-4017-b864-8071ef154306 X-Archives-Hash: e800441b53cab05dfc62e35ff0a89f82 Hi folks I recently went through the (minor hell) of updating my old workhorse gentoo box. I hadn't touched the system much (apart from open services like ssh) for about 1.5 years due to a series of facts: 1) It just worked so darned nice. 2) My phd endstretch didn't leave much time to computer fiddling, and the cluster just worked so darned nice (diskless SSI booting from the original gentoo machine (see above)). 3) It lived behind a nice firewall which I trust enough (yes I'm a bit naive) and the open services such as ssh had been updated more regularly. Now I had a bit of time and sice I had moved to France for my post doc I had to get skype in/out working, which didn't want to install nicely. So I thought a thorough general system update was overdue. First, my questions, then (if you really want) the arduous story on how I did it. Feel free to comment, give tips and point out my mistakes. Primary: What is a recommended way to update an old system to minimize the amount of broken ebuilds? Is emerge --emptytree world a good idea? Is it better than a clean install? Or is the documentation's way good enough even for a very old system: emerge --update --deep --newuse world emerge --depclean revdep-rebuild I have an unexplainable fobia against --depclean though. And updating everything at once seems a bit reckless, I mean with the age of the system it would update almost everything. The package list was a mile long, and you never know what will break. Secondary: How often should one update the system to minimize hassles with broken packages? Too often, and the hassle of constant upgrading can get tedious even if it works ok, and too late, and some odd dysfunctional version combinations start showing up that the packages were not really tested for, leading to broken ebuilds. I did like this: I didn't want to run a clean install or an --emptytree thingie. I wanted to take it a few steps at a time, so that if something broke I might have an idea about what new packages it was that broke it. 1) take a backup of the system. I have some modifications in /etc/init.d scripts and some extra non-gentoo stuff for clustering installed that I didn't want to risk, and I was pretty sure something would bork and leave me clueless. lol 2) emerge sync. Nice, worked. emerge *only the most important stuff* (oh, I'm really chicken btw): portage, baselayout, etc. That brought in some dependencies, but it worked out all right after a while and a lot of figuring out the /etc/init.d and config file changes that has happened for the last 1.5 years. And some other changes as to where certain configs go, and how, and so on. But most was easily searchable in docs or forums.gentoo or on this list. Reboot here to see if it even booted any more... YEEAAAH! 3) emerge basic user packages like gcc, glibc, xorg (yes I was still on xfree) kernel, etc. note: I have to stay on 2.4 because I use openmosix for the clustering, and I don't yet trust 2.6om. For this I started using --update --deep since I did want an updated system, but not all at once. This still worked out all right, with just some minor headaches of broken ebuilds. And some config files again. hrmmpf kernel change means reboot. darned. 4) emerge --update --deep desktop stuff like KDE, openoffice, browsers, etc... This started generating Looooooooots of broken packages. I have spent many hours looking through the _VERY_NICE_ bugs.gentoo.org. I still get bitten by bugs that are filed fixed in mid 2003. lol Some more config file updates, and restarting all significant services to use the new software. 5) Now, muahaha, emerge --update --deep world. Aiaiai. Another batch of broken packages, but not the critical ones, since most everything necessary has already been updated. Some more config files. I _really_ like dispatch-config and cfg-update by now. 6) Well, I'm here now. The system works just fine. And yes, I recently remembered that I had forgotten to update the USE flags to cover the current situation (stooopid teflon memory). But I hope I can wait until the current few remaining problems are out of the way, and then I can perhaps (hope and pray) use the eminent and functional(?) --newuse (and I do so very much hope works with/as --deep). I still have some problems, mainly with skype, which works but have some odd dependency thingie with dbus that emerge doesn't like. And revdep-rebuild tries to bring in some stuff that are no longer in portage. Interesting, though, is that equery depends '=pack-group/packagename-x.y.z' doesn't report anything depending on those old packages any more after all the updates. How can I figure out what wants them? revdep-rebuild? is it safe to use, and safe with --package-names (since just about every single package it's trying to bring in is no longer in the portage tree) What somethingsomething-update programs should I run during the process? python-updater perl-clenaner java-config opengl-update modules-update --- what am I missing -- ? Is udev supported on 2.4.26+? would it be useful instead of devfs? and is there a *really* good guide for switching (that might warn me of the common problems I'm bound to run into)? In retrospect it might have been faster to simply do a reinstall or --emptytree. Sorry for issuing such a blasphemous statement on this list. Thankful for input on the matter. Jimmy -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list