[gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[behrouz khosravi]

Hello everybody.
I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
very frequently.
Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
are outdated?
In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
updating, right ?

Thanks.

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Jc García]

2014-08-01 8:30 GMT-06:00 behrouz khosravi <bz.khosravi@gmail.com>:
> Hello everybody.
> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
> very frequently.
> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
> are outdated?
If you plan to update monthly you might want to use emerge-webrsync,
and download portage snapshots as a tarball, it isn't that large
~70MiB, and if you get the chance of acces a better connection, you
can download it from the web[1] and just unpack it to your
${PORTDIR}, this is one of the good things about portage, and source
based compared to binary distros, you download a snapshot, upgrade
your packages, and you can keep installing packages from the ebuilds
in that snapshot without trouble for some time(if sources are
available), I  know someone, a bit insane in my opinion, that was
still using a 2009 snapshot of portage as of the last year(not without
troubles), and he might still.
> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
> updating, right ?
>
> Thanks.
>

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Jc García]

2014-08-01 9:03 GMT-06:00 Jc García <jyo.garcia@gmail.com>:
> 2014-08-01 8:30 GMT-06:00 behrouz khosravi <bz.khosravi@gmail.com>:
>> Hello everybody.
>> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
>> very frequently.
>> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
>> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
>> are outdated?
> If you plan to update monthly you might want to use emerge-webrsync,
> and download portage snapshots as a tarball, it isn't that large
> ~70MiB, and if you get the chance of acces a better connection, you
> can download it from the web[1] and just unpack it to your
> ${PORTDIR}, this is one of the good things about portage, and source
> based compared to binary distros, you download a snapshot, upgrade
> your packages, and you can keep installing packages from the ebuilds
> in that snapshot without trouble for some time(if sources are
> available), I  know someone, a bit insane in my opinion, that was
> still using a 2009 snapshot of portage as of the last year(not without
> troubles), and he might still.
>> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
>> updating, right ?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
missing URL[1]

[1] http://distfiles.gentoo.org/snapshots/

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Philip Webb]

140801 behrouz khosravi wrote:
> I have a little bandwidth problem.
> I don't want to update my packages very frequently.
> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
> so when I install something I wont be warned
> that some of my packages are outdated?

Every month sb ok : I update my desktop machine once/week,
but my netbook only perhaps once/year.
However, the packages with big downloads -- eg LibreOffice --
tend to update less often, so it won't make a big difference.

> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages,
> to prevent them from updating, right ?

I've been using Gentoo since 2003 & have never done 'emerge world'
without the '-p' flag.  I do 'eix-sync' & make a list of updates,
then emerge them individually, & I've never got into a mess.
Sometimes, if someone does a big 'emerge world' after a long delay,
there cb difficult upgrades which require special treatment
& s/he can get into a tangle without any obvious way out.

For some items -- again eg LO -- you don't need to do every update :
I'm using 4.2.0.4 (Portage stable 4.2.5.2) & won't update till 4.3.x.x .
A lot of the changes are minor bug fixes or features I don't use.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Douglas J Hunley]

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On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 7:30 AM, behrouz khosravi <bz.khosravi@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
> are outdated?
> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
> updating, right ?
>

You seem to be slightly confusing two different things. There is 'emerge
--sync' (or emerge-webrsync) which maintains your copy of the portage tree
and then there's 'emerge --update' which actually downloads the source,
compiles, and then installs it. Running 'emerge --sync' or 'eix-sync' or
'emerge-webrsync' downloads *very* little (ebuild files, updates to package
masks, etc). There's nothing stopping you from running a sync every day but
only *updating* packages every month. The two are separate operations.

It's probably not a bad idea to sync relatively often so you can see what
changes are happening and can 'eselect news read' to keep up with
announcements even if you don't plan on actually upgrading for long periods
of time

-- 
Douglas J Hunley (doug.hunley@gmail.com)
Twitter: @hunleyd                                               Web:
about.me/douglas_hunley
G+: http://google.com/+DouglasHunley

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Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Alan McKinnon]

On 01/08/2014 16:30, behrouz khosravi wrote:
> Hello everybody.
> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
> very frequently.
> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
> are outdated?
> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
> updating, right ?


When to sync is completely in your control, so do it as often as you
want. When installing a package, portage will want to install the latest
deps according to your arch and mask/keywords, so if you haven't synced
in a while, there's fewer updates.

I used to do this often, as ZA used to have huge bandwidth problems.
Back then I would only sync when I had decent bandwidth and I would
fetch the distfiles in advance:

emerge -pvf... <whatever> and then use the regular grep\sed\sawk tools
to get a list of distfiles to download. I would fetch those and write
them to $PORTDIOR/distfiles

When I ran emerge world for real, it would not need to fetch tarballs as
they were already there.



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[behrouz khosravi]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 1:07 PM, Douglas J Hunley <doug.hunley@gmail.com> wrote:
> You seem to be slightly confusing two different things. There is 'emerge
> --sync' (or emerge-webrsync) which maintains your copy of the portage tree
> and then there's 'emerge --update' which actually downloads the source,
> compiles, and then installs it. ...

Well actually what I am I thinking is that doing a sync operation,
makes portage aware of new packages and when I
for any reason give the "emerge --update ..." command it tries to
fetch new packages.
Although I don't know if any situation forces me to issue update on a
outdated portage tree!!!

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am 01.08.2014 16:30, schrieb behrouz khosravi:
> Hello everybody.
> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
> very frequently.
> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
> are outdated?
> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
> updating, right ?
>
> Thanks.
>
> .
>
the longer you wait, the more problems you will have.


So sync often.

Installing the actual updates? On a weekly basis is a good rule of thumb.

And don't use --pretend, use --ask. Portage has become slow as f....
over time. You don't want to waste time to let it do the same twice.

Also: read the manual. You obviously haven't - or did not understand
everything you read, so read again. For your own safety.

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Dale]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> Am 01.08.2014 16:30, schrieb behrouz khosravi:
>> Hello everybody.
>> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
>> very frequently.
>> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
>> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
>> are outdated?
>> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
>> updating, right ?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> .
>>
> the longer you wait, the more problems you will have.
>
>
> So sync often.
>
> Installing the actual updates? On a weekly basis is a good rule of thumb.
>
> And don't use --pretend, use --ask. Portage has become slow as f....
> over time. You don't want to waste time to let it do the same twice.
>
> Also: read the manual. You obviously haven't - or did not understand
> everything you read, so read again. For your own safety.
>
>

Back when I was on dial-up, I did my updates on Monday I think it was. 
In the case of OOo, just downloading the tarball could take a couple
days.  Once a week is pretty good in my opinion as well.  I'd be nervous
about going months tho.  On occasion that can get to be a bit much.  If
two nasty updates hit at the same time, it could get touchy. 

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Alan McKinnon]

On 01/08/2014 22:02, behrouz khosravi wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 1:07 PM, Douglas J Hunley <doug.hunley@gmail.com> wrote:
>> You seem to be slightly confusing two different things. There is 'emerge
>> --sync' (or emerge-webrsync) which maintains your copy of the portage tree
>> and then there's 'emerge --update' which actually downloads the source,
>> compiles, and then installs it. ...
> 
> Well actually what I am I thinking is that doing a sync operation,
> makes portage aware of new packages and when I
> for any reason give the "emerge --update ..." command it tries to
> fetch new packages.

Yes, that is exactly what it is designed to do.

When portage is asked to emerge something it generates a list of
packages to be examined, and it will *always* want to upgrade the entire
list to the most recent version (subject to arch and mask/keyword rules).

There is no way round this as this is the expected behaviour when you
sync something - the result of any sync action is to bring your system
up to date with some master system.

If you don't want portage to do this, then don't sync so often

> Although I don't know if any situation forces me to issue update on a
> outdated portage tree!!!

Correct.

Portage uses your local copy of the tree. It really couldn't care if it
is very new or very old, it uses what you have.

You decide when to update the tree, not portage; and you update your
tree on whatever schedule you decide


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am 02.08.2014 09:17, schrieb Dale:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>> Am 01.08.2014 16:30, schrieb behrouz khosravi:
>>> Hello everybody.
>>> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
>>> very frequently.
>>> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
>>> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
>>> are outdated?
>>> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
>>> updating, right ?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> .
>>>
>> the longer you wait, the more problems you will have.
>>
>>
>> So sync often.
>>
>> Installing the actual updates? On a weekly basis is a good rule of thumb.
>>
>> And don't use --pretend, use --ask. Portage has become slow as f....
>> over time. You don't want to waste time to let it do the same twice.
>>
>> Also: read the manual. You obviously haven't - or did not understand
>> everything you read, so read again. For your own safety.
>>
>>
> Back when I was on dial-up, I did my updates on Monday I think it was. 
> In the case of OOo, just downloading the tarball could take a couple
> days.  Once a week is pretty good in my opinion as well.  I'd be nervous
> about going months tho.  On occasion that can get to be a bit much.  If
> two nasty updates hit at the same time, it could get touchy. 
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-)
>
> .
>
back when I was responsible to keep 250 net-junkies online, the longer I
waited the worse the problems. And you only have so much time between
different WoW raids...

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Dale]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> Am 02.08.2014 09:17, schrieb Dale:
>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>> Am 01.08.2014 16:30, schrieb behrouz khosravi:
>>>> Hello everybody.
>>>> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
>>>> very frequently.
>>>> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
>>>> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
>>>> are outdated?
>>>> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
>>>> updating, right ?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>>>>
>>>> .
>>>>
>>> the longer you wait, the more problems you will have.
>>>
>>>
>>> So sync often.
>>>
>>> Installing the actual updates? On a weekly basis is a good rule of thumb.
>>>
>>> And don't use --pretend, use --ask. Portage has become slow as f....
>>> over time. You don't want to waste time to let it do the same twice.
>>>
>>> Also: read the manual. You obviously haven't - or did not understand
>>> everything you read, so read again. For your own safety.
>>>
>>>
>> Back when I was on dial-up, I did my updates on Monday I think it was. 
>> In the case of OOo, just downloading the tarball could take a couple
>> days.  Once a week is pretty good in my opinion as well.  I'd be nervous
>> about going months tho.  On occasion that can get to be a bit much.  If
>> two nasty updates hit at the same time, it could get touchy. 
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
>>
>> .
>>
> back when I was responsible to keep 250 net-junkies online, the longer I
> waited the worse the problems. And you only have so much time between
> different WoW raids...
>
>


True.  I think the official claim is that once a year updates are
supported.  However, we have seen people that wait that long, and
sometimes not even that long, and encounter a update process that deals
with two or three deal breakers.  I can't recall the package names but I
know a couple packages can be a hair puller on their own.  When you add
in two of them at the same time, it gets bad really fast.   So you make
a good point. 

That is the reason I wanted to do updates about every week when I was on
dial-up.  I might would go two weeks at times.  Now that I have DSL, I
update usually twice a week.  If I am expecting say a upgrade of KDE in
between, I may add one that week or just shuffle my schedule to make it
include the KDE upgrades.  I have found that the twice a week updates
are usually easier than the weekly ones when I was on dial-up.  The
improvements in portage could account for some of that but still,
avoiding having two major changes at the same time is a good idea.   The
devs do seem to try and spread those apart a little anyway.  They can't
hold them forever tho. 

While every day may be a bit much, waiting months has its own issues. 
Then again, someone missing their WoW game may be a issue of its own.
They may get . . . angry.  LOL 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Alan McKinnon]

On 03/08/2014 13:04, Dale wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>> Am 02.08.2014 09:17, schrieb Dale:
>>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>>> Am 01.08.2014 16:30, schrieb behrouz khosravi:
>>>>> Hello everybody.
>>>>> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
>>>>> very frequently.
>>>>> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
>>>>> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
>>>>> are outdated?
>>>>> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
>>>>> updating, right ?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>
>>>>> .
>>>>>
>>>> the longer you wait, the more problems you will have.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So sync often.
>>>>
>>>> Installing the actual updates? On a weekly basis is a good rule of thumb.
>>>>
>>>> And don't use --pretend, use --ask. Portage has become slow as f....
>>>> over time. You don't want to waste time to let it do the same twice.
>>>>
>>>> Also: read the manual. You obviously haven't - or did not understand
>>>> everything you read, so read again. For your own safety.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Back when I was on dial-up, I did my updates on Monday I think it was. 
>>> In the case of OOo, just downloading the tarball could take a couple
>>> days.  Once a week is pretty good in my opinion as well.  I'd be nervous
>>> about going months tho.  On occasion that can get to be a bit much.  If
>>> two nasty updates hit at the same time, it could get touchy. 
>>>
>>> Dale
>>>
>>> :-)  :-)
>>>
>>> .
>>>
>> back when I was responsible to keep 250 net-junkies online, the longer I
>> waited the worse the problems. And you only have so much time between
>> different WoW raids...
>>
>>
> 
> 
> True.  I think the official claim is that once a year updates are
> supported.  However, we have seen people that wait that long, and
> sometimes not even that long, and encounter a update process that deals
> with two or three deal breakers.  I can't recall the package names but I
> know a couple packages can be a hair puller on their own.

icu, libxml, libpng and how can we forget

<shudder> hal </shudder>

and of course our recent friends python-exec as well as udev/upower-pm-utils

> When you add
> in two of them at the same time, it gets bad really fast.   So you make
> a good point. 
> 
> That is the reason I wanted to do updates about every week when I was on
> dial-up.  I might would go two weeks at times.  Now that I have DSL, I
> update usually twice a week.  If I am expecting say a upgrade of KDE in
> between, I may add one that week or just shuffle my schedule to make it
> include the KDE upgrades.  I have found that the twice a week updates
> are usually easier than the weekly ones when I was on dial-up.  The
> improvements in portage could account for some of that but still,
> avoiding having two major changes at the same time is a good idea.   The
> devs do seem to try and spread those apart a little anyway.  They can't
> hold them forever tho. 
> 
> While every day may be a bit much, waiting months has its own issues. 
> Then again, someone missing their WoW game may be a issue of its own.
> They may get . . . angry.  LOL

I think the main problem with long gaps between updates isn't that stuff
breaks in new weird, wonderful ways never seen before (although that can
happen)

The main problem is that you hit the same problems everyone else had and
solved months before and now can't remember what the solution was! Or
those who could help have forgotten about it, moved on and pay little
attention

If you update weekly or bi-weekly on ~arch or monthly on arch you
probably hit issues at the tail end when problems are fresh in people;'s
minds and you can get first-rate help right here



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 03/08/2014 13:04, Dale wrote:
>>
>>
>> True.  I think the official claim is that once a year updates are
>> supported.  However, we have seen people that wait that long, and
>> sometimes not even that long, and encounter a update process that deals
>> with two or three deal breakers.  I can't recall the package names but I
>> know a couple packages can be a hair puller on their own.
> icu, libxml, libpng and how can we forget
>
> <shudder> hal </shudder>
>
> and of course our recent friends python-exec as well as udev/upower-pm-utils

Oh goodness, you wouldn't mention *THAT* one.  :-@  lol   Those are the
ones I was thinking of tho.  Those can be a bit tricky at best.  At
least they were before.  It seems portage handles things better now but
why ask for trouble?

You know, hal is the only reason, other than smoke coming from a power
supply, that I have ever had to actually pull the plug on a puter. 
Ever.  Hitting the rest button, a couple times.  Pulling the plug, not
for anything outside that smoke issue.  I cleaned the power supply with
air and a rubber band was caught in the fan.  It ran for a bit but got a
little toasty at the end.  ;-)  It seems that fan runs for a good
reason.  :/ 


>> When you add
>> in two of them at the same time, it gets bad really fast.   So you make
>> a good point. 
>>
>> That is the reason I wanted to do updates about every week when I was on
>> dial-up.  I might would go two weeks at times.  Now that I have DSL, I
>> update usually twice a week.  If I am expecting say a upgrade of KDE in
>> between, I may add one that week or just shuffle my schedule to make it
>> include the KDE upgrades.  I have found that the twice a week updates
>> are usually easier than the weekly ones when I was on dial-up.  The
>> improvements in portage could account for some of that but still,
>> avoiding having two major changes at the same time is a good idea.   The
>> devs do seem to try and spread those apart a little anyway.  They can't
>> hold them forever tho. 
>>
>> While every day may be a bit much, waiting months has its own issues. 
>> Then again, someone missing their WoW game may be a issue of its own.
>> They may get . . . angry.  LOL
> I think the main problem with long gaps between updates isn't that stuff
> breaks in new weird, wonderful ways never seen before (although that can
> happen)
>
> The main problem is that you hit the same problems everyone else had and
> solved months before and now can't remember what the solution was! Or
> those who could help have forgotten about it, moved on and pay little
> attention
>
> If you update weekly or bi-weekly on ~arch or monthly on arch you
> probably hit issues at the tail end when problems are fresh in people;'s
> minds and you can get first-rate help right here
>

That is a good point.  At times when I see a upgrade issue mentioned
here on the list, I wait a bit about my updates.  Once things settle,
bugs get worked out etc etc, then I upgrade mine with notes on how to
fix a issue should it arise. 

Sometimes I wish folks could have a option for a third tier of the
tree.  One that is a month or so further behind for those that really
need stable at all costs and minimal upgrade issues.  Of course, that's
not the Gentoo way tho.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-)