Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:56:08 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: Do you know of a source for the unsupported hence deleted profiles? http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/profiles/default-linux/x86/2005.0/deprecated?hideattic=0rev=1.4view=log -- Neil Bothwick Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Those who cannot teach, HACK! signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:05 AM, Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:56:08 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: Do you know of a source for the unsupported hence deleted profiles? http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/profiles/default-linux/x86/2005.0/deprecated?hideattic=0rev=1.4view=log Thanks! -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:40:30 +0100, Neil Walker wrote: The portage tree is not required to even be present. Nothing will stop working without it (other than portage itself - and emerge --sync will fix that). The OP made it sound like running emerge --sync had trashed his system by removing key system files. That is not the case. ;) I suggest you read the subject header and the original post. It is quite clear what Mark was talking about, and these files are removed by emerge --sync. -- Neil Bothwick Sex is better than logic. You can't prove it, but it is. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
Neil Bothwick wrote: I suggest you read the subject header and the original post. It is quite clear what Mark was talking about, and these files are removed by emerge --sync. I have done that - in fact, I have been following the entire thread. However, it cannot be assumed that everyone does. That particular post could easily have misled someone just dipping in for the first time into believing that emerge --sync is dangerous. I felt it necessary to correct that. :) Be lucky, Neil -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
Neil Walker ha scritto: Neil Bothwick wrote: I suggest you read the subject header and the original post. It is quite clear what Mark was talking about, and these files are removed by emerge --sync. I have done that - in fact, I have been following the entire thread. However, it cannot be assumed that everyone does. That particular post could easily have misled someone just dipping in for the first time into believing that emerge --sync is dangerous. I felt it necessary to correct that. :) To him, it was. Nothing that couldn't be repaired, but it *damaged* his system. m. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Neil Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Neil Bothwick wrote: I suggest you read the subject header and the original post. It is quite clear what Mark was talking about, and these files are removed by emerge --sync. I have done that - in fact, I have been following the entire thread. However, it cannot be assumed that everyone does. That particular post could easily have misled someone just dipping in for the first time into believing that emerge --sync is dangerous. I felt it necessary to correct that. :) Neil, I went back and read my original post to better underdtand your point. In one way I completely agree with you. Personally I think the post was *very* clear about what the problem was and how it came to be. However if I read the last line in isolation, quoted here: Did this machine just get messed up over time and I didn't notice or did emerge --sync remove the profile from the system thus breaking everything? then I would agree that the use of the word pair 'break everything' was unfortunate. It would have been more accurate had I written 'break emerge'. Clearly 'everything' was NOT broken on that machine after running emerge --sync. To me the post was clear and coherrant but I could certainly agree that a complete newbie *might* have found that last line frightening if they hadn't correctly understood that I was only talking about my ability to run emerge. I was actually pretty careful about how I wrote the original post but that one got by me. Sorry! Thanks, Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Alan McKinnon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Saturday 26 April 2008, Mark Knecht wrote: I don't buy that it's my issue created by a long time between updates. I could turn on any machine that's sitting in a junk heap or back room somewhere. It hasn't been powered up in a long time. I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. Mark, This might be worth discussing. I know you said enough of this later on but enough users run into conceptually similar issues to make it worth while. Examples: someone needs a specific kernel version for some hardware and it goes away from portage or weird video cards where only ATIs magic from 2005 actually works. First, let's look at the real source of the problem: using rsync to download the tree. To know what will change or what's new portage needs a new tree, and there is no summary for that. It really needs two trees to run a diff against and it has to be done locally - the rsync server is clueless about what you currently have. So basically to tell you what will change, portage has to have a new tree which nukes the old stuff... One could write a dual-portage thingy that replicates what you have then does emerge --sync, and also has an --undo fetaure for just in case. Ughh. One must take account of the portage db, the metacache and other bits as well. So how about something that creates overlays for you? As a wrapper to emerge? It could have options to convert various bits of the current system to private overlays, and generate a decent cache to speed things up (the current state of affairs will not cache a local overlay by default so it's really slow). I'm thinking of these things: - Install every currently installed ebuild to an overlay, or install specific ebuilds or specific categories to an overlay. - Copy an installed ebuild and it's entire installed DEPEND tree to an overlay - this is for cases where arb_lib is not in world but is required as a deep dependency of something that is. The user will probably not be aware of this dependency and not having that ebuild will break stuff. - Copy an entire profile to an overlay - Copy everything in an installed ebuild's SRC_URI (or all installed ebuilds) to a different DISTDIR for safety (think ATI driver downloads or kernels here) - Remove old ebuilds and profiles from the overlay that you have since upgraded - Possibly more Such a script would do the backup you wished you had done for your folks, but only the bits you had installed (not everything), then run emerge. You get a good compromise between you needing old stuff to be around and the dev's perfectly reasonable desire to not have to support old stuff not in common use. It could be implemented one of these ways: - a new feature to portage - highly unlikely considering the fear and dread that comes with modifying portage in it's current state - a new feature to paludis - this might be possible as I believe paludis' code design is quite sane - a wrapper around emerge (easiest and most likely to benefit the largest numbers if interested users) Alan McKinnon Alan, I've been playing with eix-test-obsolete. I think possibly it could help in this area. The machine is completely clean with emerge world, emerge -DuN world, emerge --depclean and revdep-rebuild. After using eix-test-obsolete for awhile and cleaning things up it now correctly shows two packages currently on my machine for which there are no matching entries in the database: lightning ~ # eix-test-obsolete No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.keywords. No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.mask. No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.unmask. No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.use. No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.cflags. The following installed packages are not in the database: net-im/gaim net-print/hpijs -- No redundant entries in /etc/portage/package.keywords (or test switched off). No redundant entries in /etc/portage/package.mask (or test switched off). No redundant entries in /etc/portage/package.unmask (or test switched off). No redundant entries in /etc/portage/package.use (or test switched off). No redundant entries in /etc/portage/package.cflags (or test switched off). No uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.keywords (or test switched off). No uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.mask (or test switched off). No uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.unmask (or test switched off). No uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.use (or test switched off). No uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.cflags (or test switched off). All installed versions of packages are in the database (or test switched off). lightning ~ # eix -I gaim No
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Mark Knecht [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Alan McKinnon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Saturday 26 April 2008, Mark Knecht wrote: (...) default so it's really slow). I'm thinking of these things: - Install every currently installed ebuild to an overlay, or install specific ebuilds or specific categories to an overlay. - Copy an installed ebuild and it's entire installed DEPEND tree to an overlay - this is for cases where arb_lib is not in world but is required as a deep dependency of something that is. The user will probably not be aware of this dependency and not having that ebuild will break stuff. It hasn't been mentioned yet, but ebuilds of all installed packages can be found in /var/db/pkg/category/pkg-ver/pkg-ver.ebuild. emerge --sync can mess around with /usr/portage all it wants, your ebuilds will still be there until you unmerge the package. Right? - Copy an entire profile to an overlay Could one integrate that with eselect profile? How about copying the current profile to /var/db/profile? - Copy everything in an installed ebuild's SRC_URI (or all installed ebuilds) to a different DISTDIR for safety (think ATI driver downloads or kernels here) - Remove old ebuilds and profiles from the overlay that you have since upgraded - Possibly more (...) Here's my idea: How hard would it be to have eix-test-obsolete verify against the global database instead of the local database? If I ran it that way *before* I ran emerge --sync then it would tell me effectively which packages would be removed after syncing. I could then move what I need to move by hand, run emerge --sync, and I'd still be clean because I've saved my files into my private overlay before the sync operation can delete them. This is about losing ebuilds? See comment about /var/db/pkg/... If an enhancement like that is fairly simple - I have no idea - then that would be a great start. Still, it's not protection against the root cause of the problem, but it's a simple way to see ahead of time what might happen. Cheers, Mark ~Henry
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:30:07 +0200, Henry Gebhardt wrote: It hasn't been mentioned yet, but ebuilds of all installed packages can be found in /var/db/pkg/category/pkg-ver/pkg-ver.ebuild. emerge --sync can mess around with /usr/portage all it wants, your ebuilds will still be there until you unmerge the package. Right? Right, but only the ebuilds, not any other files needed to re-emerge the package, such as patches stored in the portage tree. For those, you'd have to go to the CVS attic if the package have been removed from the main portage tree. -- Neil Bothwick Forget the Joneses...I can't keep up with The Simpsons. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 3:28 PM, Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:30:07 +0200, Henry Gebhardt wrote: It hasn't been mentioned yet, but ebuilds of all installed packages can be found in /var/db/pkg/category/pkg-ver/pkg-ver.ebuild. emerge --sync can mess around with /usr/portage all it wants, your ebuilds will still be there until you unmerge the package. Right? Right, but only the ebuilds, not any other files needed to re-emerge the package, such as patches stored in the portage tree. For those, you'd have to go to the CVS attic if the package have been removed from the main portage tree. -- Neil Bothwick Neil, Do you know of a source for the unsupported hence deleted profiles? I'm wandering around in the CVS attic. I don't see them, presumably because they aren't something that was ever in portage, but the attic is pretty deep and they could possibly be there in some section I haven't noticed yet.. Thanks, Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:17:38 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: There is no way that I know of to know before running emerge --sync what has been removed from the servers and hence would be removed from my machine. Why do Gentoo devs think they should remove anything from my machine. It's my machine, not theirs. The problem was caused by such a long delay between syncs. A profile is deprecated a long time before it is removed, during that period you would have received warnings about this and advised to switch to a currently supported profile. I understand your frustration, but the standard Gentoo portage setup isn't really suited to an environment where updates are only applied every couple of years. That's not really a good way to manage an Internet connected computer anyway, how many security fixes have you missed? -- Neil Bothwick The gene pool could use a little chlorine. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 12:20 AM, Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:17:38 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: There is no way that I know of to know before running emerge --sync what has been removed from the servers and hence would be removed from my machine. Why do Gentoo devs think they should remove anything from my machine. It's my machine, not theirs. The problem was caused by such a long delay between syncs. A profile is deprecated a long time before it is removed, during that period you would have received warnings about this and advised to switch to a currently supported profile. I understand your frustration, but the standard Gentoo portage setup isn't really suited to an environment where updates are only applied every couple of years. That's not really a good way to manage an Internet connected computer anyway, how many security fixes have you missed? -- Neil Bothwick I completely understand that part, and actually I have absolutely NO problem with any of that. Actually I support it. I get that the maintainers of portage don't want to support everything, etc., so they remove things form portage. No big deal. And clearly your use of the word 'standard' in front of 'portage setup' is key here. It's just the way it works, and I completely understand that. Where I get frustrated/ticked off/mad is when some independent developer, or group of developers, simply decides to remove code on **MY** machine and force me to make updates without giving me *ANY** opportunity to make a choice. All I did was type emerge --sync and stuff gets deleted and the machine doesn't function until I fix links and rebuild stuff. I'm *forced* to make changes when my purpose in running emerge --sync was nothing more than to *discover* what had been updated. (Obviously a LOT in this case!) I get that the leading-edge developer/gamer mentality cannot get their heads around having machines run for long, long periods of time - years - but these machines do. My parents were running Myth-0.18 or something very old. it worked for them so why change it? These machines only work with an ATI drivers no longer in portage which forces me to use a kernel no longer in portage. I'm fine with the overlay concept and I've saved my kernel and ATI driver. What I argue would be an improvement is that instead of deleting this stuff that instead it automatically move whatever ebuilds it wants to delete to my 'obsolete' portage overlay. Nothing is lost. I go one working and deciding what to change and when to change it. Portage developers can then decide to obsolete anything they want at any time they want and I don't end up with a dead machine. (Dead is strong - used only to make a point - it's 'dead' to me.) Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. I know this isn't going to happen as I've been making this point for years now. I don't understand the resistance but such are the mysteries of the Open Source world! ;-) Cheers, Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:22:51 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: Where I get frustrated/ticked off/mad is when some independent developer, or group of developers, simply decides to remove code on **MY** machine and force me to make updates without giving me *ANY** opportunity to make a choice. But they do, as long as you don't leave an unreasonably long time between syncs. emerge --sync warns you when your profile has been deprecated. Your problem is that the delay between syncs was such that you skipped the whole warning period, which should be a LONG time. I get that the leading-edge developer/gamer mentality cannot get their heads around having machines run for long, long periods of time - years - but these machines do. Running a machine for a long time is fine, running it without checking for security updates is not. What's wrong with a weekly cron job that runs emerge --sync and glsa-check and emails you the results? cron? I thought after all this time you knew who you're talking to Neil? The security issue is valid, no matter what distribution. I don't buy that it's my issue created by a long time between updates. I could turn on any machine that's sitting in a junk heap or back room somewhere. It hasn't been powered up in a long time. I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. As I say, I can get around the problem by simply copying absolutely everything somewhere else to protect it. It just seems to me that's not as slick as Gentoo really is. (And I think you know I LOVE this distribution and have no desire to run anything else. My comments are made ONLY in the hope that one day some developer will see the value and look into some sort of change that would help with this. It's happened to me with profiles, kernels, device drivers, lots of stuff. It doesn't need to be an issue, or so I feel.) Anyway, enough of this. thanks! - Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
Mark Knecht wrote: I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. What the heck are you talking about? emerge --sync doesn't delete ANY files from your system. Be lucky, Neil -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 12:42 PM, Neil Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mark Knecht wrote: I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. What the heck are you talking about? emerge --sync doesn't delete ANY files from your system. This whole thread, from my original subject line on, has been saying that emerge --sync removes profiles. Does it or not? On this specific machine following emerge --sync the link /etc/make.profile was pointing at nothing. I originally asked if it was removed by emerge --sync or whether it had just gotten messed up. Everyone seemed to reply that emerge --sync removes profiles which seems to be in conflict with your last comment. As for my earlier losing kernels and ATI drivers, that could have easily been something like I cleaned out distfiles since these machines don't have much disk space and then since they were removed from the servers I couldn't get it any more. If it happened that way then that's a problem on my end, not portage. - Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Saturday 26 April 2008, Mark Knecht wrote: I don't buy that it's my issue created by a long time between updates. I could turn on any machine that's sitting in a junk heap or back room somewhere. It hasn't been powered up in a long time. I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. Mark, This might be worth discussing. I know you said enough of this later on but enough users run into conceptually similar issues to make it worth while. Examples: someone needs a specific kernel version for some hardware and it goes away from portage or weird video cards where only ATIs magic from 2005 actually works. First, let's look at the real source of the problem: using rsync to download the tree. To know what will change or what's new portage needs a new tree, and there is no summary for that. It really needs two trees to run a diff against and it has to be done locally - the rsync server is clueless about what you currently have. So basically to tell you what will change, portage has to have a new tree which nukes the old stuff... One could write a dual-portage thingy that replicates what you have then does emerge --sync, and also has an --undo fetaure for just in case. Ughh. One must take account of the portage db, the metacache and other bits as well. So how about something that creates overlays for you? As a wrapper to emerge? It could have options to convert various bits of the current system to private overlays, and generate a decent cache to speed things up (the current state of affairs will not cache a local overlay by default so it's really slow). I'm thinking of these things: - Install every currently installed ebuild to an overlay, or install specific ebuilds or specific categories to an overlay. - Copy an installed ebuild and it's entire installed DEPEND tree to an overlay - this is for cases where arb_lib is not in world but is required as a deep dependency of something that is. The user will probably not be aware of this dependency and not having that ebuild will break stuff. - Copy an entire profile to an overlay - Copy everything in an installed ebuild's SRC_URI (or all installed ebuilds) to a different DISTDIR for safety (think ATI driver downloads or kernels here) - Remove old ebuilds and profiles from the overlay that you have since upgraded - Possibly more Such a script would do the backup you wished you had done for your folks, but only the bits you had installed (not everything), then run emerge. You get a good compromise between you needing old stuff to be around and the dev's perfectly reasonable desire to not have to support old stuff not in common use. It could be implemented one of these ways: - a new feature to portage - highly unlikely considering the fear and dread that comes with modifying portage in it's current state - a new feature to paludis - this might be possible as I believe paludis' code design is quite sane - a wrapper around emerge (easiest and most likely to benefit the largest numbers if interested users) -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Saturday 26 April 2008, Neil Walker wrote: Mark Knecht wrote: I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. What the heck are you talking about? emerge --sync doesn't delete ANY files from your system. Oh yes it does. It uses rsync to replicate the portage tree on the server with the copy of the tree on the local box, and uses one of the --delete options to do it. It removes old ebuilds, old profiles, Changelogs and updates the portage metadata directory. So far from doesn;t delete ANY files, it actually deletes a shit load of files and the longer the gap between syncs the bigger that shit load is. What it won't so is modify *software* installed. You need 'emerge package' or 'emerge world' for that. Perhaps that's what you are referring to, but that is not what Mark is complaining about. He's complaining that an old system used profile X and a sync removed that from the tree leaving him with no working profile, and portage went off the deep end. -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On 26 Apr 2008, at 19:57, Mark Knecht wrote: ... I don't buy that it's my issue created by a long time between updates. I could turn on any machine that's sitting in a junk heap or back room somewhere. It hasn't been powered up in a long time. I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. As I say, I can get around the problem by simply copying absolutely everything somewhere else to protect it. It just seems to me that's not as slick as Gentoo really is. (And I think you know I LOVE this distribution and have no desire to run anything else ... To be completely fair, one has to compare this with the situation in which one digs out of the storeroom an old PC on which a binary distro has been installed. I have read Ubuntu users complaining that the easiest thing to do is backup /home and appropriate /etc files and then reinstall from scratch. I would say that you can probably get a better result with Gentoo, if you do backup /usr/portage as you suggest. The chances are that your old machine is not using the latest profile in its Portage tree - if you can update to that, and then this is shown as depreciated (but still existent) in the current tree then I think you maybe have a fighting chance. I guess what would be ideal for you is if a frozen snapshot of the Portage tree was archived every 6 months or so. You could probably then update sanely from snapshot to the next. But I think you're probably a corner case in wishing this, and I think it'd be rejected, were it requested of the Gentoo developers. The good news, of course, is that _anyone_ can make their own Portage snapshot tarballs as frequently as they like, automating it with cron. Stroller. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
quoth the Mark Knecht: I don't buy that it's my issue created by a long time between updates. I could turn on any machine that's sitting in a junk heap or back room somewhere. It hasn't been powered up in a long time. I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. Whether you have bought it or not, it is what you have taken home by using Gentoo. This would not be an issue for you without such time between syncs, plain and simple. I don't think expecting users to sync at least once a year is too much to ask for a dynamic distro such as this one. What is the alternative? Have the portage tree grow forever, keeping old ebuilds and profiles that 99 percent of users don't need? Portage would likely be 10GB+ by now if it was never pruned. Seperate it into 'emerge --sync' and 'emerge --profile'? Sounds like more work for that 99% of users Also, it is not as if all these ebuilds have disappeared. They are all in the CVS 'attic'. Perhaps the profiles are there too. As I say, I can get around the problem by simply copying absolutely everything somewhere else to protect it. It just seems to me that's not as slick as Gentoo really is. (And I think you know I LOVE this distribution and have no desire to run anything else. My comments are made ONLY in the hope that one day some developer will see the value and look into some sort of change that would help with this. It's happened to me with profiles, kernels, device drivers, lots of stuff. It doesn't need to be an issue, or so I feel.) Feel free to post your suggestion to -dev, but I don't think you will find a great reception. One thing I have learned in the OSS world is that if a user needs some sort of non-standard configuration they are generally left on their own to create and maintain it. Devs cannot be expected to make everybody happy. Now: I realize this issue is obviously quite important to you, but I say it is 'non-standard' because I have never before heard anyone complain of this issue in 4+ years of using Gentoo. Everything you need to solve the problem has already been mentioned in this thread. Use an overlay, and point 'make.profile' to a profile directory that is outside of PORTDIR. Grab old ebuilds you need from the attic. Again, ask some devs if you like, but I do feel you will be left on your own with this one... Anyway, enough of this. thanks! - Mark -d -- darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org ...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected... - Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972 -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:56:42 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: This whole thread, from my original subject line on, has been saying that emerge --sync removes profiles. Does it or not? It does, because emerge --sync synchronises your portage tree with the current one on the servers. But nothing really disappears altogether, because of the CVS attic. If you really want your 1991 profile back, you can download a copy and put it somewhere safe :) -- Neil Bothwick Criminal Lawyer is a redundancy. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:00:30 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: One could write a dual-portage thingy that replicates what you have then does emerge --sync, and also has an --undo fetaure for just in case. Wouldn't rsync's --backup and --backup-dir options be sufficient for the rare cases when tree changes cause problems? Add them to PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS in make.conf. -- Neil Bothwick i *DId* rEaD tHE DoCS; ThaT'S WHy I'm conFuSeD! signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
Hi Alan, Thanks for the reply. Also, up front, I'm thinking that my tone is somehow being misinterpreted. I'm not at all high energy about this. I'm worried now it's not coming across the way I'm feeling about this. Low key. Low stress. Just looking to make things better in the future. Nothing more. I hope folks understand that. If not I apologize as it's hard to convey energy. On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Alan McKinnon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Saturday 26 April 2008, Mark Knecht wrote: I don't buy that it's my issue created by a long time between updates. I could turn on any machine that's sitting in a junk heap or back room somewhere. It hasn't been powered up in a long time. I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. Mark, This might be worth discussing. I know you said enough of this later on Really only because I don't want to drive people nuts or wear out my welcome. I'm interested in talking about it. Maybe something good will come along one day because of the conversation. but enough users run into conceptually similar issues to make it worth while. Examples: someone needs a specific kernel version for some hardware and it goes away from portage or weird video cards where only ATIs magic from 2005 actually works. First, let's look at the real source of the problem: using rsync to download the tree. To know what will change or what's new portage needs a new tree, and there is no summary for that. It really needs two trees to run a diff against and it has to be done locally - the rsync server is clueless about what you currently have. So basically to tell you what will change, portage has to have a new tree which nukes the old stuff... OK, so rsync itself is where the real magic is that exposes what I consider a weakness? Good info. One could write a dual-portage thingy that replicates what you have then does emerge --sync, and also has an --undo fetaure for just in case. Ughh. One must take account of the portage db, the metacache and other bits as well. So how about something that creates overlays for you? As a wrapper to emerge? This is, I think, exactly what I've been suggesting, assuming portage or the wrapper can get in between rsync and my personal data. I consider my copy of portage data 'personal data' but then again I have to take responsibility for using a program that erases my data. Any alternatives to rsync? ;-) (Really, just kidding!) It could have options to convert various bits of the current system to private overlays, and generate a decent cache to speed things up (the current state of affairs will not cache a local overlay by default so it's really slow). I'm thinking of these things: - Install every currently installed ebuild to an overlay, or install specific ebuilds or specific categories to an overlay. - Copy an installed ebuild and it's entire installed DEPEND tree to an overlay - this is for cases where arb_lib is not in world but is required as a deep dependency of something that is. The user will probably not be aware of this dependency and not having that ebuild will break stuff. - Copy an entire profile to an overlay - Copy everything in an installed ebuild's SRC_URI (or all installed ebuilds) to a different DISTDIR for safety (think ATI driver downloads or kernels here) - Remove old ebuilds and profiles from the overlay that you have since upgraded - Possibly more Yeah, sounds like lots of work, and in my mind probably not worth the effort. I'm thinking of something as conceptually simple (if possible) as emerge --sync-test which instead of actually syncing would just tell me what is going to be added and/or removed from my copy of the portage tree. I could then look look for any overlaps between that data and the output of eix -Ic and move them to my overlay by hand. Maybe the script you are speaking of could look for the overlaps, etc. using eix -Ic itself? Just an idea. Again, the ONLY things I would be interested in saving are things I currently have installed. If it's not installed then it's of no immediate interest to me. Such a script would do the backup you wished you had done for your folks, but only the bits you had installed (not everything), then run emerge. You get a good compromise between you needing old stuff to be around and the dev's perfectly reasonable desire to not have to support old stuff not in common use. It could be implemented one of these ways: - a new feature to portage - highly unlikely considering the fear and dread that comes with modifying portage in it's current state - a new feature to paludis - this might be possible as I believe paludis' code design is quite sane - a wrapper around emerge (easiest and most likely to benefit the largest numbers if interested users) It sounds
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Stroller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26 Apr 2008, at 19:57, Mark Knecht wrote: ... I don't buy that it's my issue created by a long time between updates. I could turn on any machine that's sitting in a junk heap or back room somewhere. It hasn't been powered up in a long time. I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. As I say, I can get around the problem by simply copying absolutely everything somewhere else to protect it. It just seems to me that's not as slick as Gentoo really is. (And I think you know I LOVE this distribution and have no desire to run anything else ... To be completely fair, one has to compare this with the situation in which one digs out of the storeroom an old PC on which a binary distro has been installed. I have read Ubuntu users complaining that the easiest thing to do is backup /home and appropriate /etc files and then reinstall from scratch. Ans it's actually what I ended up doing. When I considered that emerge was going to rebuild everything anyway it seemed that for an hour's work going through the quick install guide I might get lucky and only have to rebuild a few packages from the 2008 beta CD so I went that way. Fdisk'ed the drive, did a new install, set off emerge -DuN system and walked away. However if I had Alan's wrapper maybe I would have saved the hour's work. Don't know. Thanks! - Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Alan McKinnon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Saturday 26 April 2008, Mark Knecht wrote: I don't buy that it's my issue created by a long time between updates. I could turn on any machine that's sitting in a junk heap or back room somewhere. It hasn't been powered up in a long time. I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. Mark, This might be worth discussing. Alan, This evening I found eix-test-obsolete. It looks to me like while it probably doesn't do all of what we've been discussing it might possibly be helpful. While it doesn't look like it fixes the problems I've been seeing it does identify some interesting inconsistencies on my desktop machine. SNIP Installed packages with a version not in the database (or masked): [D] media-tv/mythtv ([EMAIL PROTECTED]/05/2008 - 0.20.2_p15634): Homebrew PVR project [D] sys-kernel/gentoo-sources (2.6.23-r3(2.6.23-r3)@01/16/2008 2.6.23-r6(2.6.23-r6)@01/25/2008 2.6.23-r8(2.6.23-r8)@02/20/2008 2.6.24-r3(2.6.24-r3)@03/18/2008 2.6.24-r4(2.6.24-r4)@04/11/2008 - 2.6.16-r13 2.6.19-r5 2.6.23-r9 2.6.24-r3 2.6.24-r4): Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the 2.6 kernel tree [D] x11-themes/mythtv-themes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]/05/2008 - 0.20.2_p14301): A collection of themes for the MythTV project. [1] /usr/local/portage SNIP Still, if rsync is going to throw things away while making my machine identical to the server then I'm not going to be in great shape. Anyway, interesting tool if you haven't seen it. (I'm sure you have...) Cheers, Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
Alan McKinnon wrote: On Saturday 26 April 2008, Neil Walker wrote: Mark Knecht wrote: I log in and want to figure out what's in front of me with respect to updates. I type emerge sync and portage deletes files. to me that's just wrong. What the heck are you talking about? emerge --sync doesn't delete ANY files from your system. Oh yes it does. Oh no it doesn't. :P The portage tree is not required to even be present. Nothing will stop working without it (other than portage itself - and emerge --sync will fix that). The OP made it sound like running emerge --sync had trashed his system by removing key system files. That is not the case. ;) Be lucky, Neil -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Friday 25 April 2008, Mark Knecht wrote: Did this machine just get messed up over time and I didn't notice or did emerge --sync remove the profile from the system thus breaking everything? Profiles are stored in $PORTAGE_DIR/profiles, so they do get removed during a sync if they are no longer on the server, just like old ebuilds get removed. A missing profile shouldn't break anything beyond getting a huge big error message when you try to emerge something. Just replace the profile link to an existing current one and 'emerge -avuND world' as normal -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
# eselect profile list follow this guide to update profile: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-upgrading.xml#doc_chap3 and: # emerge -uDNav world that should work. -- #Joseph GPG KeyID: ED0E1FB7 On 04/25/08 10:39, Mark Knecht wrote: [snip I ran emerge --sync which ran correctly as far as I could tell at the time. I then tried emerge -pvDuN system and was greeted with a message about how the profile wasn't set and the system couldn't/wouldn't perform an emerge. /etc/make.profile was pointing at a 2005 profile. When I looked in at profiles that were available there were only 2006 2007 profiles. Did this machine just get messed up over time and I didn't notice or did emerge --sync remove the profile from the system thus breaking everything? Thanks, Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Would emerge --sync remove old profiles?
On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 11:13 AM, Alan McKinnon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday 25 April 2008, Mark Knecht wrote: Did this machine just get messed up over time and I didn't notice or did emerge --sync remove the profile from the system thus breaking everything? Profiles are stored in $PORTAGE_DIR/profiles, so they do get removed during a sync if they are no longer on the server, just like old ebuilds get removed. A missing profile shouldn't break anything beyond getting a huge big error message when you try to emerge something. Just replace the profile link to an existing current one and 'emerge -avuND world' as normal BTW - I have been on record for a long time as being very against this aspect of the implementation of portage and will remain forever so. (Not that the devs care about my POV. I'm just stating it again for the record.) I do not believe that running a simple emerge --sync just to find out what might have changed should ever FORCE me into profile changes and complete machine upgrades. Gentoo was supposed to be about choice and this operation has removed my ability to choose. In this case all I wondered was what *might* need to be updated. I had no intention of necessarily doing anything major to the machine. However by running a simple emerge --sync command to download some new data portage has now forced me into an update. There is no way that I know of to know before running emerge --sync what has been removed from the servers and hence would be removed from my machine. Why do Gentoo devs think they should remove anything from my machine. It's my machine, not theirs. The only way for me to really protect myself would appear to be that I have to back up everything which I find silly. Far better in my mind, and stated many times before, would be for me to create a personal unsupported overlay area and then let portage move anything that is obsolete to that location. This gets it out of the main tree but doesn't leave users stranded. Again, I've said this over the years and I'm just saying it again for the record. Thanks, Mark -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
