Re: [gentoo-user] Changing profiles

[Willie Wong <wwong@Princeton.EDU>]

On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 07:55:20AM -0800, Penguin Lover Grant squawked:
> I'm really surprised to hear that.  Can I switch my laptop from a
> hardened profile to a non-hardened one?  I know I've been told I can't
> do that.

I don't know much about amd64, so I don't know how the 'multilib'
thing would work. But in so far as switching from a hardened profile
to a non-hardened one and vice versa: the answer is yes and no. 

Going from hardened to non-hardened is generally easier, I think.
The available packages from hardened is generally a subset of the ones
from non-hardened. So once you switch profiles you'd be prompted to
upgraded GCC and many other packages, and you'll find a few more (and
possibly a few fewer) USE to work with. Most of these will fix itself
over time. 

Going from non-hardened to hardened may run into some downgrading
problems, however, in view of the above. For example, hardened devs
still have not put gcc4 in stable (at least on x86, I don't know about
amd64), so if you have gcc4 installed, you'll need to downgrade. Along
the same lines some packages that will not compile unless you use gcc4
cannot be installed (lilypond for example). 

I suggest that you compare and contrast the package.mask and
package.use.mask (and possibly make.defaults) files in the
/usr/portage/profiles/{hardened,default/linux} directories to see what
differences there are.

> You think an 'eselect profile set 2 && emerge -e world' will
> accomplish the entire thing?

Is emerge -e world even necessary? (Someone correct me if I am wrong.)
My understanding is that switching profiles between hardened and
non-hardened does not cause such drastic change to the toolchain that
you must rebuild everything now. I am pretty sure when I switched my
desktop to hardened I just let it gradually phase in. 

HTH, 

W

-- 
"What are you talking about? "
"Never mind, eat the fruit. "
"You know, this place almost looks like the Garden of Eden. 
"
"Eat the fruit. "
"Sounds quite like it too. "
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