From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MbE1Y-0001yl-Ku for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:37:52 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 922ECE0492; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:37:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-gx0-f220.google.com (mail-gx0-f220.google.com [209.85.217.220]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6CDC7E0492 for ; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:37:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: by gxk20 with SMTP id 20so31978gxk.10 for ; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:37:51 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=T8SxXURT/iKJbsvpABO+PJ4YzaSFCJjEn3ENfzySivY=; b=FI2Sx3vEkm3UqfFfCToRrEdOt4uZE4X0dGDmftyuoluA9G7IY5Ph9MnpSn9gJ6I7eq I6eI4CN9wTsvYyCklE3AsWHtifVEp+v3kGxbV9FtRrFDvVwRMIRtWAO5B/wocKW9gyNj MbvwZu7Pph935qyloCyaI4c7EsU6oGYTqPU58= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=dwDXseUZDv9wFL4aNNLLauA2ouDULy0RRYmoQgu+l31Y0ir5Q2NLsplVyTxpKmNgwk Ojaxgrs1ppgZI+6LqAJn8G3Z+eqHmdGD4CvzOKIJ9mGbIWhqWmtjlJwD9j5XTXy4dwJk EumHt2KE2azVlX8n5MkPGJ2yhrXP7aaJYgjYw= Received: by 10.90.68.12 with SMTP id q12mr58006aga.38.1250084271011; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:37:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?64.89.164.110? (r164h110.dixie-net.com [64.89.164.110]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 8sm2532890agd.37.2009.08.12.06.37.47 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:37:50 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4A82C5A8.5060107@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:37:44 -0500 From: Dale User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.22) Gecko/20090628 SeaMonkey/1.1.17 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Knock on wood References: <7bef1f890908112213r5a7e08a4k7703ca14a9d9bcfb@mail.gmail.com> <20090812091028.GA4887@ca.inter.net> <4A82AADF.70600@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4A82AADF.70600@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 4ee2c717-d3f6-4e8a-a304-ab1b233cc29d X-Archives-Hash: 31f1c6fa5a861cf3b6f94a25d7261a1d bn wrote: > Philip Webb ha scritto: > >> 090812 Alan E. Davis wrote: >> >>> I'm a little reluctant to say this, but it's been a couple of months now >>> since I switched back to Gentoo, and I want to shout out my pleasure >>> that this system has been performing admirably well this time around, >>> in comparison with earlier installations. None of the earlier installations >>> were unacceptable, in fact, Gentoo remained my favorite. I moved to Ubuntu >>> because maintainance of the Gentoo boxes was much more time consuming. >>> >> Yes, that seems to be the usual reason users leave Gentoo: >> like owning a dog, you have to find time to maintain/exercise it. >> > > I am starting to be in trouble using Gentoo for this very reason. Once I > used it on my desktop system, which was OK to be "under repair" once in > a while, since I had my workstation at work. Now I moved abroad and I > only have my laptop to use for all -home and work. If it is hosed, I am > lost (I have the OS X partition but it is basically useless for my job). > > So I am becoming very reluctant in updating critical components -one > example is my kernel, which is basically untouched since I installed, in > late 2007. I know it's counterproductive, because the more I wait, the > worse it is, but it's always a matter of time, and I don't have that > time -not to update per se, which I have, but to face problems in case > critical updates don't go smooth. > > Any advice on this kind of situation? I would rather not buy a "backup > laptop". > > >> However, unlike a dog, you can catch up after a long absence: >> > > Heh, I hope so! > > m. > > > I do it this way. I keep at least two working kernels in /boot. If I need to, I can edit the grub boot line to boot the old kernel if the new one doesn't work. I do NOT use the make install thing. I do mine manually and name them in my own little way to know what kernel version it is and what version it is locally. It is usually something like bzImage--. For local version a simple -1 or -2 works fine. I also copy the .config over with the same name. When I upgrade and get a known good kernel where everything works well, I then do some house cleaning with regard to the older kernels. As mentioned earlier, I keep at least two working kernels, the one I am using and a backup. Looks something like this: root@smoker / # ls -al /boot/bzImage-2.6.2* -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2460088 Jan 2 2009 /boot/bzImage-2.6.23-r8-7 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2463768 Apr 16 17:10 /boot/bzImage-2.6.23-r8-8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2370876 May 27 11:01 /boot/bzImage-2.6.25-r9-4 root@smoker / # The config files look similar as well. As far as packages, just use the buildpkg in make.conf and then you have a binary backup that can be restored in just a few minutes for even a large package. Backups are also nice. Just in case. Dale :-) :-)