[gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?

[gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?

[Marcus Wanner]

When an old (circa 2001) desktop came out of retirement a few months 
ago, I shuffled across Linuxes trying to find something that worked 
well, and finally hit on gentoo. I eventually switched to ~x86 because I 
was tired of using versions of apps from 6 months ago... Too make a long 
story short, I have a new computer now and that one is going back into 
retirement. I may want to use it more in future and would like to know 
how I would go about "mothballing" it so that if it ever needs to be 
used again, bringing it up to date will be as smooth and painless as 
possible. If I need to resurrect it, it will probably be at least a year 
from now. What would you recommend?

Marcus

Re: [gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?

[Dale]

Marcus Wanner wrote:
> When an old (circa 2001) desktop came out of retirement a few months 
> ago, I shuffled across Linuxes trying to find something that worked 
> well, and finally hit on gentoo. I eventually switched to ~x86 because 
> I was tired of using versions of apps from 6 months ago... Too make a 
> long story short, I have a new computer now and that one is going back 
> into retirement. I may want to use it more in future and would like to 
> know how I would go about "mothballing" it so that if it ever needs to 
> be used again, bringing it up to date will be as smooth and painless 
> as possible. If I need to resurrect it, it will probably be at least a 
> year from now. What would you recommend?
>
> Marcus
>
>

Portage is better but that is a while to go without a update.  It mostly 
depends on what all is updated with some sort of hiccup between the time 
you shut it down and the time you try to update it again.  If there is 
no major problems then it wouldn't be a issue but of there is multiple 
packages with issues, then you have a problem.

Me, I would put it in a closet or something with a ethernet cable hooked 
up and just update it say once every 6 to 8 weeks.  Just hope for the 
best after that.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?

[William Kenworthy]

On Sun, 2009-12-27 at 20:45 -0600, Dale wrote:
> Marcus Wanner wrote:
> > When an old (circa 2001) desktop came out of retirement a few months 
> > ago, I shuffled across Linuxes trying to find something that worked 
> > well, and finally hit on gentoo. I eventually switched to ~x86 because 
> > I was tired of using versions of apps from 6 months ago... Too make a 
> > long story short, I have a new computer now and that one is going back 
> > into retirement. I may want to use it more in future and would like to 
> > know how I would go about "mothballing" it so that if it ever needs to 
> > be used again, bringing it up to date will be as smooth and painless 
> > as possible. If I need to resurrect it, it will probably be at least a 
> > year from now. What would you recommend?
> >
> > Marcus
> >
> >
> 
> Portage is better but that is a while to go without a update.  It mostly 
> depends on what all is updated with some sort of hiccup between the time 
> you shut it down and the time you try to update it again.  If there is 
> no major problems then it wouldn't be a issue but of there is multiple 
> packages with issues, then you have a problem.
> 
> Me, I would put it in a closet or something with a ethernet cable hooked 
> up and just update it say once every 6 to 8 weeks.  Just hope for the 
> best after that.
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-) 

I have an "emergency desktop" system at work that I recently pulled out
of storage to use (laptop HD died!).  Once used, I spent quite a while
updating it and was just going to put it aside using Dales suggestion
when this thread got me thinking.

I am going to clean out gnome and anything not of immediate use leaving
just a bare desktop and minimal tools needed for emergency use (OO,
evolution) - I'll replace gnome with fluxbox first.

Then if it needs to get serious use other packages can be added on the
fly.  If it looks like longer term use, its easy to add gnome etc back
overnight, and while continuing to use the fluxbox desktop.

The minimal system should be quicker and simpler to update than a crufty
system - and if you have to update much of gnome and the like,
updating/reinstalling might take longer than building from scratch
anyway (going by my last update to gnome :)

BillK

Re: [gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?

[Dale]

William Kenworthy wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-12-27 at 20:45 -0600, Dale wrote:
>   
>> Marcus Wanner wrote:
>>     
>>> When an old (circa 2001) desktop came out of retirement a few months 
>>> ago, I shuffled across Linuxes trying to find something that worked 
>>> well, and finally hit on gentoo. I eventually switched to ~x86 because 
>>> I was tired of using versions of apps from 6 months ago... Too make a 
>>> long story short, I have a new computer now and that one is going back 
>>> into retirement. I may want to use it more in future and would like to 
>>> know how I would go about "mothballing" it so that if it ever needs to 
>>> be used again, bringing it up to date will be as smooth and painless 
>>> as possible. If I need to resurrect it, it will probably be at least a 
>>> year from now. What would you recommend?
>>>
>>> Marcus
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> Portage is better but that is a while to go without a update.  It mostly 
>> depends on what all is updated with some sort of hiccup between the time 
>> you shut it down and the time you try to update it again.  If there is 
>> no major problems then it wouldn't be a issue but of there is multiple 
>> packages with issues, then you have a problem.
>>
>> Me, I would put it in a closet or something with a ethernet cable hooked 
>> up and just update it say once every 6 to 8 weeks.  Just hope for the 
>> best after that.
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-) 
>>     
>
> I have an "emergency desktop" system at work that I recently pulled out
> of storage to use (laptop HD died!).  Once used, I spent quite a while
> updating it and was just going to put it aside using Dales suggestion
> when this thread got me thinking.
>
> I am going to clean out gnome and anything not of immediate use leaving
> just a bare desktop and minimal tools needed for emergency use (OO,
> evolution) - I'll replace gnome with fluxbox first.
>
> Then if it needs to get serious use other packages can be added on the
> fly.  If it looks like longer term use, its easy to add gnome etc back
> overnight, and while continuing to use the fluxbox desktop.
>
> The minimal system should be quicker and simpler to update than a crufty
> system - and if you have to update much of gnome and the like,
> updating/reinstalling might take longer than building from scratch
> anyway (going by my last update to gnome :)
>
> BillK
>
>   

I should also add that I use KDE.  So, updating all that takes time plus 
if there are packages with "issues" then that adds to the grief.  It 
appears that it depends on just what you have installed.  If it is a 
bare system, then it may not be to bad.  If it is a full blown KDE like 
mine, then that could take a really long while.  Of course, portage has 
been a lot better at handling blocks here lately too.  There are 
exceptions and they always confuse the heck out of me but it is a lot 
better.  That should shorten the update time for a lot of packages.

Maybe a 'emerge -ep world | genlop -p' would be in order here. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?

[William Kenworthy]

On Mon, 2009-12-28 at 00:27 -0600, Dale wrote:
> William Kenworthy wrote:
> > On Sun, 2009-12-27 at 20:45 -0600, Dale wrote:
> >   
> >> Marcus Wanner wrote:

... trim ...

> >
> > The minimal system should be quicker and simpler to update than a crufty
> > system - and if you have to update much of gnome and the like,
> > updating/reinstalling might take longer than building from scratch
> > anyway (going by my last update to gnome :)
> >
> > BillK
> >
> >   
> 
> I should also add that I use KDE.  So, updating all that takes time plus 
> if there are packages with "issues" then that adds to the grief.  It 
> appears that it depends on just what you have installed.  If it is a 
> bare system, then it may not be to bad.  If it is a full blown KDE like 
> mine, then that could take a really long while.  Of course, portage has 
> been a lot better at handling blocks here lately too.  There are 
> exceptions and they always confuse the heck out of me but it is a lot 
> better.  That should shorten the update time for a lot of packages.
> 
> Maybe a 'emerge -ep world | genlop -p' would be in order here. 
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-) 

Thats why I think removing gnome (or kde) is a good idea - replace with
a lightweight desktop so you still have the required functionality.  it
is for emergency use after all.  I find that building from scratch is
usually less of a problem than large updates as blocks and problems seem
to occur less often.  So it is feasable to spend overnight installing
gnome/kde if need be as you still have a usable system in the meantime -
may not be as nice as kde, but it will still get the job done.

Re: [gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?

[Marcus Wanner]

On 12/28/2009 3:40 AM, William Kenworthy wrote:
> Thats why I think removing gnome (or kde) is a good idea - replace with
> a lightweight desktop so you still have the required functionality.  it
> is for emergency use after all.  I find that building from scratch is
> usually less of a problem than large updates as blocks and problems seem
> to occur less often.  So it is feasable to spend overnight installing
> gnome/kde if need be as you still have a usable system in the meantime -
> may not be as nice as kde, but it will still get the job done.
>    
Actually, the only things I have installed in the way of GUIs are lxde 
and ion3, the first takes about 10 minutes to compile and the latter 
about 5 seconds. The system is very lightweight because it has to be. I 
also might add that if I ever try to resurrect this thing, it will 
probably be in order to use it as either a web-browser-only type thing 
or an experimental-hardware box. In both cases, it would be better as a 
non-~arch system. Since I have heard that the only way to go back to 
arch involves waiting for the installed packages to be stabilized, I 
would like to try that method. Do you guys have any tips for what I am 
supposed to do?

Marcus