Re: [gentoo-user] update fails, but I don't see why

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

n952162 wrote:
> On 12/5/20 10:06 AM, n952162 wrote:
>>
>> I understand now that you've checked this list for me.  That is really
>> helpful.  Thank you.
>>
> (in that it shows me how to go about it).
>
>


Advice from a long term user who didn't do this in the beginning.  Read
that as, I learned the hard way.  Once you get Gentoo installed and all
the packages you want installed completed, it is wise to add the
--oneshot option to the defaults in make.conf.  That helps keep the
world file clean since you won't have packages in the world file that
shouldn't be there.  If later you want to add a package to the world
file, you have to specify that you want it added.  If it is already
installed, you can do a emerge -n --select y <package name> and it adds
it to the world file.  It will then be maintained automatically. 

When you don't do this, you end up with packages in the world file that
shouldn't be there and it causes problems later.  The way this happens
is really simple and common.  Let's say you doing a update after syncing
and a dependency package is giving you trouble.  You need to install a
package individually so that you can help move emerge along with the
updates, perhaps due to a hard block.  Thing is, unless you remember to
include the --oneshot option, it adds that package to your world file. 
From then on, emerge wants to treat it like a package you installed and
not a dependency that something else originally pulled in.  When you
have to specify a version, it gets even worse because it can cause
blockages. 

This is the line in my make.conf that you may want to consider:


EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--with-bdeps y --backtrack=100 --keep-going -v -j5
--quiet-build=n --oneshot --unordered-display"


Also, there is times where you want a specific version to remain
installed.  One example of this, a currently in use kernel version.  I'm
currently running gentoo-sources 5.6.7.  Since I may need to rebuild the
kernel to add a driver or something, I want that version to remain when
running --depclean.  The way to do that is this:

emerge -n --select y =sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-5.6.7


That will tell --depclean to not remove that package version.  That same
tactic can be used for any slotted package.  You could use that with gcc
if for example some program will only compile with a earlier version of
gcc.  You can have the new version of gcc but also have a older
version.  I'm pretty sure there is a way to tell emerge to use the older
gcc for that one package too.  I think that can be done in a env file.

Hope that info helps. 

Dale

:-)  :-)