Re: [gentoo-user] some problems moving to 23.0 profile

["J. Roeleveld" <joost@antarean.org>]

On Tuesday, 2 April 2024 10:14:11 CEST Michael wrote:
> On Tuesday, 2 April 2024 07:03:42 BST J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > On Monday, 1 April 2024 23:46:49 CEST John Covici wrote:
> > > Hi.  Well, I followed the steps in the news item,  to move
> > > todefault/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/gnome/systemd
> > > 
> > > and it all worked till it wants me to emerge  the whole world file.
> > > Here is what I get:
> > > 
> > > emerge --ask --emptytree @world
> > > 
> > > These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
> > > 
> > > Calculating dependencies  .... done!
> > > Dependency resolution took 4.58 s (backtrack: 0/200).
> > > 
> > > 
> > > !!! Problems have been detected with your world file
> > > !!! Please run emaint --check world
> > > 
> > > 
> > > !!! Ebuilds for the following packages are either all
> > > !!! masked or don't exist:
> > > www-apps/nextcloud:26.0.10
> > > 
> > > emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy
> > > "sys-kernel/gentoo-sources:6.1.69".
> > > (dependency required by "@kernels" [set])
> > > (dependency required by "@selected" [set])
> > > (dependency required by "@world" [argument])
> > > 
> > > I don't want to unmerge that kernel -- its my backup kernel, so I
> > > definitely want to keep it.  I am using the nextcloud they are
> > > complaining about , I will upgrade it soon, but I want to keep it for
> > > now.
> > 
> > Do you actually need to keep the kernel-sources?
> > Once the kernel is compiled and you moved the image to /boot/..., you
> > don't
> > need to keep the sources.
> > 
> > I also keep an older kernel just in case, but I don't tend to actually
> > keep
> > the sources around once I have confirmed the new kernel will boot.
> > 
> > --
> > Joost
> 
> When gentoo-sources are tree-cleaned, it is typically because they have been
> superseded by later kernel patches to improve security and resolve bugs.
> Therefore it is usually a 'good idea' to emerge a later kernel when this
> happens, even if we're talking about a backup kernel.
> 
> Last week I came upon a similar problem on an old system I was trying to
> migrate to profile 23.0, only this happened not with my backup but with the
> running kernel.  This PC had not been updated for 5-6 months.  It's resource
> constrained and I didn't want to spend many days updating most of its
> deprecated packages, only to have to re-emerge them as part of the profile
> migration.  I can't recall if it was the same kernel as John's.  During the
> migration I came across some package (llvm?) which required a more up to
> date kernel to be able to emerge.  This forced me to upgrade the kernel
> first, before I could continue with the migration.  I'm mentioning this
> since the utility of a backup kernel would be limited when you can't use it
> to run your software.

This is my experience as well.
A "backup kernel" is, in my opinion, only useful as a fall-back in case the 
system won't boot with a new kernel.
But, once it booted with the new kernel correctly, there is no reason to 
actually keep the old kernel.

--
Joost