[gentoo-user] Bisect a problem going back months?

[gentoo-user] Bisect a problem going back months?

[Mark Knecht]

I'm wondering if there is a Gentoo way to bisect a bug that's crept
into my 64-bit Intel-based system (Intel process, motherboard and
graphics) over the last few months. Fundamentally when this bug
appears it generates a complete X crash back to the gdm login. My
suspicion is that it's related to the Gentoo push to use firefox-bin
and 32-bit Flash until some security issues were addressed but I don't
know that for sure.

Are there specific overlays I'd want to add using layman that would
allow me to get back to earlier versions of the Intel graphics driver,
64-bit Firefox and the now masked versions of Flash I was using say
2-3 months ago? At this point I don't know for sure that what I need
isn't in portage and just masked. I'll start reviewing that this
evening. This post was primarily just to figure out what my options
might be.

I've never used sunrise or sunset, etc. Maybe it's as easy as adding
one of those to layman and then bisecting my way through some
experiments to figure out where the problem first appeared?

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Bisect a problem going back months?

[Paul Hartman]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 9:38 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm wondering if there is a Gentoo way to bisect a bug that's crept
> into my 64-bit Intel-based system (Intel process, motherboard and
> graphics) over the last few months. Fundamentally when this bug
> appears it generates a complete X crash back to the gdm login. My
> suspicion is that it's related to the Gentoo push to use firefox-bin
> and 32-bit Flash until some security issues were addressed but I don't
> know that for sure.
>
> Are there specific overlays I'd want to add using layman that would
> allow me to get back to earlier versions of the Intel graphics driver,
> 64-bit Firefox and the now masked versions of Flash I was using say
> 2-3 months ago? At this point I don't know for sure that what I need
> isn't in portage and just masked. I'll start reviewing that this
> evening. This post was primarily just to figure out what my options
> might be.
>
> I've never used sunrise or sunset, etc. Maybe it's as easy as adding
> one of those to layman and then bisecting my way through some
> experiments to figure out where the problem first appeared?

You can get old ebuilds from http://sources.gentoo.org, and maybe take
whole portage tree snapshot from a given point in time (never tried
it). Or maybe there are portage webrsync snapshots going back (again,
never used them).

If you have demerge installed it should have taken snapshots of which
packages you had installed at each time you ran emerge as well. I
think that'll still depend on those old versions still being in the
tree, which for security fixes etc they usually are not kept, but all
should be on http://sources.gentoo.org

Re: [gentoo-user] Bisect a problem going back months?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 9:38 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm wondering if there is a Gentoo way to bisect a bug that's crept
>> into my 64-bit Intel-based system (Intel process, motherboard and
>> graphics) over the last few months. Fundamentally when this bug
>> appears it generates a complete X crash back to the gdm login. My
>> suspicion is that it's related to the Gentoo push to use firefox-bin
>> and 32-bit Flash until some security issues were addressed but I don't
>> know that for sure.
>>
>> Are there specific overlays I'd want to add using layman that would
>> allow me to get back to earlier versions of the Intel graphics driver,
>> 64-bit Firefox and the now masked versions of Flash I was using say
>> 2-3 months ago? At this point I don't know for sure that what I need
>> isn't in portage and just masked. I'll start reviewing that this
>> evening. This post was primarily just to figure out what my options
>> might be.
>>
>> I've never used sunrise or sunset, etc. Maybe it's as easy as adding
>> one of those to layman and then bisecting my way through some
>> experiments to figure out where the problem first appeared?
>
> You can get old ebuilds from http://sources.gentoo.org, and maybe take
> whole portage tree snapshot from a given point in time (never tried
> it). Or maybe there are portage webrsync snapshots going back (again,
> never used them).
>
> If you have demerge installed it should have taken snapshots of which
> packages you had installed at each time you ran emerge as well. I
> think that'll still depend on those old versions still being in the
> tree, which for security fixes etc they usually are not kept, but all
> should be on http://sources.gentoo.org
>

Thanks Paul. This is something to look at.

It seems at first glance it's roughly equivalent to what's on my
system right now. For instance concerning adobe-flash I see only one
small difference - the oldest 9.0.159 version differs shows up in eix
on the machine but isn't at sources.gentoo.org. That's not bad.

I believe you are right that I could probably somehow figure out by
hand using /var/log/emerge.log what was installed after a certain
date, or possibly figure out what version was running at a certain
date. I wonder if there are any tools for figuring out the installed
versions back in time. I don't save anything other than emerge.log and
I don't know for sure than an old rev of that file was thrown away at
some point and the file started over again. I suspect many ebuilds
that I've used are no longer in sources.gentoo.org as almost certainly
I used Flash 4.0, Flash 5.0, etc. sometime along time ago.

Thanks for the pointer.

Cheers,
Mark
What about really old

Re: [gentoo-user] Bisect a problem going back months?

[Paul Hartman]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 9:38 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I'm wondering if there is a Gentoo way to bisect a bug that's crept
>>> into my 64-bit Intel-based system (Intel process, motherboard and
>>> graphics) over the last few months. Fundamentally when this bug
>>> appears it generates a complete X crash back to the gdm login. My
>>> suspicion is that it's related to the Gentoo push to use firefox-bin
>>> and 32-bit Flash until some security issues were addressed but I don't
>>> know that for sure.
>>>
>>> Are there specific overlays I'd want to add using layman that would
>>> allow me to get back to earlier versions of the Intel graphics driver,
>>> 64-bit Firefox and the now masked versions of Flash I was using say
>>> 2-3 months ago? At this point I don't know for sure that what I need
>>> isn't in portage and just masked. I'll start reviewing that this
>>> evening. This post was primarily just to figure out what my options
>>> might be.
>>>
>>> I've never used sunrise or sunset, etc. Maybe it's as easy as adding
>>> one of those to layman and then bisecting my way through some
>>> experiments to figure out where the problem first appeared?
>>
>> You can get old ebuilds from http://sources.gentoo.org, and maybe take
>> whole portage tree snapshot from a given point in time (never tried
>> it). Or maybe there are portage webrsync snapshots going back (again,
>> never used them).
>>
>> If you have demerge installed it should have taken snapshots of which
>> packages you had installed at each time you ran emerge as well. I
>> think that'll still depend on those old versions still being in the
>> tree, which for security fixes etc they usually are not kept, but all
>> should be on http://sources.gentoo.org
>>
>
> Thanks Paul. This is something to look at.
>
> It seems at first glance it's roughly equivalent to what's on my
> system right now. For instance concerning adobe-flash I see only one
> small difference - the oldest 9.0.159 version differs shows up in eix
> on the machine but isn't at sources.gentoo.org. That's not bad.
>
> I believe you are right that I could probably somehow figure out by
> hand using /var/log/emerge.log what was installed after a certain
> date, or possibly figure out what version was running at a certain
> date. I wonder if there are any tools for figuring out the installed
> versions back in time. I don't save anything other than emerge.log and
> I don't know for sure than an old rev of that file was thrown away at
> some point and the file started over again. I suspect many ebuilds
> that I've used are no longer in sources.gentoo.org as almost certainly
> I used Flash 4.0, Flash 5.0, etc. sometime along time ago.
>
> Thanks for the pointer.

Everything should be in sources.gentoo.org going back more than 10
years. The trick is that you need to click the "Show dead files" link
to see the versions that have been removed from the tree. For example
this link shoes many adobe-flash revisions including 9.0.159:

http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/www-plugins/adobe-flash/?hideattic=0

Sorry I didn't mention that in my first message. :)

Re: [gentoo-user] Bisect a problem going back months?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 12:42 PM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Paul Hartman
>> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 9:38 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I'm wondering if there is a Gentoo way to bisect a bug that's crept
>>>> into my 64-bit Intel-based system (Intel process, motherboard and
>>>> graphics) over the last few months. Fundamentally when this bug
>>>> appears it generates a complete X crash back to the gdm login. My
>>>> suspicion is that it's related to the Gentoo push to use firefox-bin
>>>> and 32-bit Flash until some security issues were addressed but I don't
>>>> know that for sure.
>>>>
>>>> Are there specific overlays I'd want to add using layman that would
>>>> allow me to get back to earlier versions of the Intel graphics driver,
>>>> 64-bit Firefox and the now masked versions of Flash I was using say
>>>> 2-3 months ago? At this point I don't know for sure that what I need
>>>> isn't in portage and just masked. I'll start reviewing that this
>>>> evening. This post was primarily just to figure out what my options
>>>> might be.
>>>>
>>>> I've never used sunrise or sunset, etc. Maybe it's as easy as adding
>>>> one of those to layman and then bisecting my way through some
>>>> experiments to figure out where the problem first appeared?
>>>
>>> You can get old ebuilds from http://sources.gentoo.org, and maybe take
>>> whole portage tree snapshot from a given point in time (never tried
>>> it). Or maybe there are portage webrsync snapshots going back (again,
>>> never used them).
>>>
>>> If you have demerge installed it should have taken snapshots of which
>>> packages you had installed at each time you ran emerge as well. I
>>> think that'll still depend on those old versions still being in the
>>> tree, which for security fixes etc they usually are not kept, but all
>>> should be on http://sources.gentoo.org
>>>
>>
>> Thanks Paul. This is something to look at.
>>
>> It seems at first glance it's roughly equivalent to what's on my
>> system right now. For instance concerning adobe-flash I see only one
>> small difference - the oldest 9.0.159 version differs shows up in eix
>> on the machine but isn't at sources.gentoo.org. That's not bad.
>>
>> I believe you are right that I could probably somehow figure out by
>> hand using /var/log/emerge.log what was installed after a certain
>> date, or possibly figure out what version was running at a certain
>> date. I wonder if there are any tools for figuring out the installed
>> versions back in time. I don't save anything other than emerge.log and
>> I don't know for sure than an old rev of that file was thrown away at
>> some point and the file started over again. I suspect many ebuilds
>> that I've used are no longer in sources.gentoo.org as almost certainly
>> I used Flash 4.0, Flash 5.0, etc. sometime along time ago.
>>
>> Thanks for the pointer.
>
> Everything should be in sources.gentoo.org going back more than 10
> years. The trick is that you need to click the "Show dead files" link
> to see the versions that have been removed from the tree. For example
> this link shoes many adobe-flash revisions including 9.0.159:
>
> http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/www-plugins/adobe-flash/?hideattic=0
>
> Sorry I didn't mention that in my first message. :)
>
>

Ah, very cool, and don't worry about not mentioning it. I should have
seen it myself.

So basically then anything that's there I could add to some sort of
personal overlay (docs are out there somewhere I'm sure) and then I
could continue to use this stuff into the future if necessary.

Thanks!

- Mark

[gentoo-user] Re: Bisect a problem going back months?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 09/13/2010 05:38 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> I'm wondering if there is a Gentoo way to bisect a bug

A bit off-topic, but it would be awesome if we could run git bisect with 
live ebuilds.  Right now, I'm using xf86-video-ati-9999 for example. 
When I update it and there's a bug, I can't really bisect it; I need to 
grab the sources from Git manually and install it outside of portage 
(and that's bad.)

I guess it might be a good idea for the next GSoC?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Bisect a problem going back months?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 1:44 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> On 09/13/2010 05:38 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> I'm wondering if there is a Gentoo way to bisect a bug
>
> A bit off-topic, but it would be awesome if we could run git bisect with
> live ebuilds.  Right now, I'm using xf86-video-ati-9999 for example. When I
> update it and there's a bug, I can't really bisect it; I need to grab the
> sources from Git manually and install it outside of portage (and that's
> bad.)
>
> I guess it might be a good idea for the next GSoC?

That would actually be quite cool actually - to be able to bisect but
stay within portage.

- Mark