Thanks for the responses everybody!
Boyd, if this is just not feasible in Gentoo for whatever reason, then I guess I might switch. I understand the portage system enough to mask the packages I don't want, but then there's the problem of other updates requiring that package.
Ultimately, messing with portage is decent for a single system, but it doesn't scale very well at all. Managing all these different versions of the same software on different machines running the same OS can get ridiculously time consuming, especially if they've gone a while without updates. I know there are ways to better manage that, but those ways don't work when the systems are at different locations and can't be centrally managed.
Anyways, all I'm essentially asking for is a way to separate minor updates from major updates. I don't understand why this sort of update management is 'unusable'. If I let a system go without updates for say, a month, then do a sync, then now I have like 200 things that need updated. Some are minor, like say,
firefox-2.0-r1 to firefox-2.0-r2. Then there are more major ones like baselayout which almost completely changes how networking and udev scripts work. The way it is now, all these updates are lumped together like one big update. These kinds of updates in a short span of time can be rough. Especially when these new updates require config changes, instead of just using the old config. Like when Apache's install was changed completely without any real warning. It was just tossed in there as an update, right there with gvim. How am I supposed to know what is and isn't going to get smashed? I mean, sure I can wait a while and look at the forums and see other people having problems and then wait.. but why should we allow these problems to be there in the first place?
As for switching, I might if better update management is truly considered 'unusable'. (???) I just want a usable system, and I'd prefer it to be Gentoo.
On 12/25/06,
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. <bss03@volumehost.net> wrote:
On Monday 25 December 2006 02:46, "Mike Myers" <fluffymikey@gmail.com>
wrote about 'Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?':
> I understand what you say, but I'm not sure I got my point across very
> well. Let's say I have a server that has various things installed like
> apache with the 2.0 branch, mysql with the 4.0 branch, and PHP with
> the 4.xbranch. If I do an emerge -u world on a machine with these, at
> some random
> point in time when the devs decide the newer branch is stable, then any
> one of these will be upgraded to the next branch. What I am asking, is
> why wouldn't it be better to have it where I will only stay on the
> current branch for that profile, and only move to the next branch when I
> change the profile?
I would say... Move to Debian. Gentoo dosen't have fixed branches (we have
a live tree) even profiles don't fix much, generally minimal (not maximal)
version numbers.
Debian, will make sure that upgrades to your (e.g.) sarge mysql package are
either ABI compatible, or tied to other upgrades that move the ABI all at
the same time. This generally make Debian (and to a lesser extent Ubuntu)
quite stable once installed. Gentoo is.... different.
By default, Gentoo marks packages as working ("stable"), testing ("~arch"),
or non-working ("masked by package.mask") and lets the user control the
version(s) they want to use on their specific system (rather than
being "attached" to a profile) with the local /etc/portage/package.mask
(and package.keywords and package.unmask etc.).
If you decide that mysql 4 is what you want to stick with as long as gentoo
will support it, there stick something like '>category/mysql-4*'
or '>=category/mysql-5*' into your package.mask. emerge will then stop
whenever it wants newer mysql.
--
"If there's one thing we've established over the years,
it's that the vast majority of our users don't have the slightest
clue what's best for them in terms of package stability."
-- Gentoo Developer Ciaran McCreesh