Re: [gentoo-user] How to "freeze" my Gentoo system

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Thursday 12 March 2009 10:07:03 Dale wrote:
>
>   
>> Could he just not sync and call it a day?  I suspect this is going to
>> bite him one day tho.  We know Gentoo likes to be updated fairly
>> regular.  I been around Gentoo for years and I don't think I would want
>> to do this.  I'm not sure how much experience the OP has tho.
>>     
>
> Michael's been around a while, his name is familiar. He did say he wants -rN 
> updates so I take that to mean he wants bug fixes and security updates but 
> everything else to stay that same and especially no potential ABI/API changes
>
> Not an unreasonable thing actually - it's what you get with RedHat or any 
> decent enterprise distro
>
>   
>> I do understand that getting something stable and working then wanting
>> to keep it that way.  I'm just wondering what his mileage may be in the
>> long run.
>>     
>
> I can only imagine what will happen if he forgets that package.mask and then 
> removes it six months later:-)
>
>   

Since he has been around a while and knows what he wants, then I guess
he knows the possible pitfalls too.  I just wanted to mention it in case
he doesn't know that not updating can lead to issues later on.  Didn't I
post on a thread recently about a system not being updated in a long
while and a reinstall was better than updating?  It's one of those
things that worries me.

I must confess that I do the same with my kernel.  When I get one that
works, I just don't want to update.  I download them and build a new one
but just don't boot them.  Of course this is another reason why too:

root@smoker / # uptime
 03:23:09 up 60 days, 11:10,  3 users,  load average: 1.16, 1.33, 1.37
root@smoker / #

I go for a while without rebooting and forget the new kernel is there.

Yea, if something happens to the package.mask file, he's in for a
surprise for sure.

OP, you may also want to make package.mask a directory and then you can
sort out your files easier too.  Just something to think about.  I think
that is a new feature.

Dale

:-)  :-)