Re: [gentoo-user] Re: emerge world looking grim

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On 24/08/2015 16:46, Harry Putnam wrote:
> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> Working thru all the guff with all you posters patient help would
> probably have been the best but between posting and seeing answers
> (suring the morning in the wee hours). I jumped stupid and starting
> uninstalling some of the blockers. 
> 
> So, I've made the mess considerably worse... maybe unsolvable since I
> have no gcc now and so no way to grind out the builds.... plus other
> truly boneheaded uninstalls that appear to have rendered my system
> unusable .... just like the little warning says when you
>    gentoo -vC pkg ....... wheeeeee.


Ah yes. That was a supremely thick move on your part :-)  [1]

> I'm pretty sure at this point... I best to get a re-install going.

It can be fixed. If you want the learning experience, here's how you
would do it:

It isn't the dead-end it first appears. Yes, you do need a compiler to
compile anything (including any version of the compiler itself), and now
you don't have one. Solution: figure out a way to get one!

Maybe your make.conf is set up to create binary packages, the variable
is PKGDIR. Look in that directory for gcc, and emerge it (yes, you can
emerge a tarball directly). Repeat for all important packages you
unmerged. Now you have a compiler, because you don't need a compiler to
untar a tarball.

Or you can get a binary package from anywhere else you trust.

Now, if you were to have unmerged python, or tar, bzip2 - then that is a
bigger problem. Boot off a rescue CD, mount your regular system
somewhere and untar into that location. Assuming of course that your
rescue CD has the tools you need like tar and bzip2 (most of what is in
@system)


> 
> Also it may help some of you posters to know that this install was not
> fully developed and an in common use OS anyway....A reinstall will loose
> nothing of any importance.
> 
> Whatever is there of importance would be in /home /etc/ and maybe /var
> so I've rsynced them to my current Solaris desktop and will have any
> needed files to use later after the reinstall has progressed to a
> higher level.
> 
> Thank you all for the suggestions they are most instructive and my
> notes from them should prove useful down the road.
> 
> PS - Its coming back to me how gentoo is installed with the stage3 and
> portage downloads.
> 
> Again, thanks for your patience

Either way, you should be back up and running come Thursday latest :-)
Hey, this is Gentoo, here we like watching gcc outpt scroll by for
hours/days at a time.


[1] Reminds me of an old joke:

Q: What's the second worst sound you can hear a sysadmin make?
A: Uh-oh
Q: And the worst sound?
A: Oops....

Looks like you had an oops moment there


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com