[gentoo-user] Re: What is the correct version of ncurses on ~amd64 now?

[walt <w41ter@gmail.com>]

On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 20:33:42 -0400
Fernando Rodriguez <frodriguez.developer@outlook.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, September 01, 2015 12:13:25 AM Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On 31/08/2015 23:13, walt wrote:  
> > > I ask this strange question because this (badly broken) machine
> > > once again flipped between 6.0 and 6.0-r1 after rsyncing this
> > > morning.
> > > 
> > > First, it emerged 6.0, which turned out to be almost catastrophic
> > > because the qmerge phase of the emerge failed (although it claimed
> > > success afterwards) and deleted the entire /usr/share/terminfo
> > > subdirectory.  That was fun, but I won't bore you with the
> > > details. (The ncurses-6.0 files in /lib64 are dated August 28,
> > > BTW.)
> > > 
> > > Right now emerge tries to install ncurses-6.0-r1 but the 32-bit
> > > part of the build fails because emerge never ran make in the
> > > work/cross/progs directory, and so the 32-bit tools didn't get
> > > compiled.
> > > 
> > > I hacked around this by running make in that directory manually,
> > > which allowed the ebuild install and ebuild package phases to
> > > succeed.
> > > 
> > > Now I have an ncurses-6.0-r1 binary package available but I'm too
> > > scared to install it because I might need to kill myself
> > > afterwards :/
> > > 
> > > Any suggestions before I take the plunge?  Is ncurses-6.0-r1 the
> > > right version as of today, Aug 31?
> > > 
> > > Thanks.
> > > 
> > > 
> > >   
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > This machine was entirely unaffected by all the recent ncurses
> > issues:
> > 
> > [I] sys-libs/ncurses
> >      Available versions:
> >      (0)    5.9-r3 (~)5.9-r4 5.9-r5(0/5) (~)6.0-r1(0/6)
> >      (5)    5.9-r99(5/5) (~)5.9-r101(5/5) (~)6.0(5/6)
> >        {ada +cxx debug doc gpm minimal profile static-libs test
> > threads tinfo trace unicode ABI_MIPS="n32 n64 o32" ABI_PPC="32 64"
> > ABI_S390="32 64" ABI_X86="32 64 x32"}
> >      Installed versions:  6.0-r1(12:52:29 30/08/2015)(cxx gpm
> > threads unicode -ada -debug -doc -minimal -profile -static-libs
> > -test -tinfo -trace ABI_MIPS="-n32 -n64 -o32" ABI_PPC="-32 -64"
> > ABI_S390="-32 -64" ABI_X86="32 64 -x32")
> >      Homepage:            https://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/
> > http://dickey.his.com/ncurses/
> >      Description:         console display library
> > 
> > So 6.0-r1 works completely relaible on at least one Gentoo machine
> > in this world :-)  
> 
> Hmm, I keyworded ncurses and this is what portage wants to do:
> 
> [ebuild  r  U ~] sys-libs/ncurses-6.0-r1:0/6::gentoo
> [5.9-r5:0/5::fernan] USE="cxx doc gpm tinfo unicode -ada -debug
> -minimal -profile -static-libs {- test%} -threads% -trace"
> ABI_X86="32 (64) -x32" 3,059 KiB [ebuild     U ~]
> sys-libs/ncurses-5.9-r101:5::gentoo [5.9-r99:5::gentoo] USE="gpm
> tinfo unicode (-ada%) (-cxx%*) (-static-libs%)" ABI_X86="32 (64) -
> x32" 0 KiB [ebuild  rR   ~] sys-devel/gdb-7.10::gentoo  USE="client
> expat python server zlib -lzma -multitarget -nls {-test} -vanilla"
> PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python2_7 -python3_3 -python3_4"
> PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_4 -python3_3" 0 KiB [ebuild  rR
> ] app-misc/screen-4.3.1::gentoo  USE="pam -debug -multiuser - nethack
> -selinux" 0 KiB [ebuild  rR    ] app-emulation/wine-1.6.2::gentoo
> USE="X alsa cups custom- cflags fontconfig gecko jpeg lcms ldap mp3
> ncurses openal opengl perl png prelink pulseaudio run-exes samba ssl
> threads truetype udisks v4l xcomposite xinerama xml -capi -dos
> -gphoto2 -gsm -gstreamer -mono -nls -odbc -opencl - osmesa -oss
> -realtime -scanner -selinux {-test}" ABI_X86="32 64 -x32"
> LINGUAS="-ar -bg -ca -cs -da -de -el -en -en_US -eo -es -fa -fi -fr
> -he -hi -hr -hu -it -ja -ko -lt -ml -nb_NO -nl -or -pa -pl -pt_BR
> -pt_PT -rm -ro -ru -sk - sl -sr_RS@cyrillic -sr_RS@latin -sv -te -th
> -tr -uk -wa -zh_CN -zh_TW" 0 KiB
> 
> 
> That looks dangerous to me because the first build will upgrade my
> 5.9 installation to 6.0 and the second will reinstall 5.9. 

That's exactly what happened to me last week and it was a disaster.
Don't allow that to happen.  After hours of frustration I finally
got 6.0-r1 installed and everything Just Works again, but 6.0 was
another disaster.  Do whatever you need to do to avoid 6.0.

> So what happens in between when I have no 5.9 installed but
> everything is linked against it? Won't it need bash to build the
> second one? What if the 2nd build fails? Will stuff linked against
> 5.9 work with 6.0?

No, but packages linked against 5.9 will continue to work if portage
doesn't delete the files from 5.9 (@preserved-rebuild, etc)

I suggest you quickpkg whatever ncurses you have now before you do
anything else.

I also suggest you see what portage wants to do if you

emerge -p =sys-libs/ncurses-6.0-r1

If the output from that looks reasonable then build 6.0-r1 as a binary
package *before* you install it so you have the binary packages for
both versions ready to go.

I ran into other problems during the ncurses upgrade but I managed to
work through them, and you know more about this stuff than I do :)