Re: [gentoo-user] emerge --update -> "the best version available"

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>]

On 8/19/05, Holly Bostick <motub@planet.nl> wrote:
> Mark Knecht schreef:
> > Hi,
> >    I wonder what the explanation in the emerge man page about the
> > --update option really means. What is meant by, and how does emerge
> > pick, "the best version available"?
> >
> > - Mark
> >
> 
> For those wondering, here's the quote:
> 
> --update (-u)
>               Updates packages to the best version available, which may
> not always be the highest version number due to masking for testing and
>  development.   This will also update direct dependencies which may not
> be what you want.  In general, use this option only in combination with
> the world or system target.
> 
> I accept that this is somewhat unclear, but to explain it fully would
> take more space than a man page really is for.
> 
<SNIP>
>  media-video/ati-drivers
>      Available versions:  8.8.25-r3 8.10.19 8.12.10 [M]8.13.3 [M]8.13.4
> 8.14.13 8.14.13-r1 8.14.13-r2 [M]8.14.13-r3 *8.16.20
>      Installed:           8.14.13-r2
>      Homepage:            http://www.ati.com
>      Description:         Ati precompiled drivers for r350, r300, r250
> and r200 chipsets
> 
> Now in this case, the 'best' version is the most recent stable. The
> second most recent version (8.14.13-r3) is hard masked, but if I
> unmasked it with /etc/portage/package.unmask (and possibly also
> /etc/portage/package.keywords), then Portage would consider it the
> 'best', insofar as it would attempt to install it if I upgraded the
> drivers. Of course, the very fact that you have to manually unmask the
> packages should give you pause as to whether you really want to consider
> this the 'best' for you.
> 
> The very most recent version (8.16.20) is 'not available' -- meaning
> that it will never be considered the 'best' version until it returns to
> Portage; masking or unmasking is of no use here. I know, because I had
> unmasked and installed the latest drivers, which did not work well, to
> put it mildly, and today I synced and Portage downgraded them. I would
> have downgraded them manually anyway, but it  was interesting to see
> Portage downgrade them by force despite the fact that they were still
> unmasked.  They have so many problems that they are no longer on the
> Portage radar until the issues are determined to at least an extent that
> someone knows what to fix, and who has to fix it (Gentoo, the kernel
> guys if it's a kernel conflict, ATI).
> 
Hi Holly,
   Yes, the explanation you give is pretty much what I already knew,
with the exception of the ati-drivers example. If this thread is worth
continuing then it's probably around that sort of situation.

   So far:

MASKED == not available unless we unmask a package by hand.

for stable - highest available stable version would be chosen
for ~arch - highest version available, whether stable or ~arch, would be chosen

However, in your ati-drivers example you use the term 'not available'
for the 8.16.20 version. That's an interesting choice of words since
any version 'not available' would (in my mind) never be chosen by
--update. It's not part of 'best' because it's not available, or so it
seems to me. Best is still the highest version using stable and only
changes (I think) if you do an umask in portage.unmask.

   I think that my question was mostly born out of sort of vague
language in the man page. I don't think there's any real mystery here
but I've wondered about if for awhile and just wanted to be sure I
wasn't missing some great undiscovered feature of portage!

   Thanks for taking the time to write.

Cheers,
Mark

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