On 23/08/18 11:25, Adam Carter wrote:
The machine is actually a server, which just sat in a corner doing its
job perfectly. That's one of the reasons it wasn't updated: if it ain't
broken, don't fix it.
Any system that is not getting software updates is broken to some
degree, just in a subtle way.
Trimming your /var/lib/portage/world file and removing the trimmed
packages can make the update less painful. I sometimes remove non-system
packages I want, then reinstall again later to get through difficult
upgrades.
Bit late to the party, but yes this is normally my approach.
If emerge lists a bunch of packages it thinks it can build, I explicitly
just update them (on several occasions that has "miraculously" cleared
the conflicts and the next global emerge just roars away).
I wish there was a portage option that said "don't give up, just emerge
what you can".
If there are conflicts on something that doesn't appear crucial to the
system, I just "emerge -C" it, and make a note to put it back later.
My current home system is like this one, well out of date, but I'm
planning to replace not fix it, because it's a multi-user system and
*relies* on kdm which has, iirc, been deprecated and is not in kde5.
Upgrading that is a task I do NOT fancy ... :-)
Cheers,
Wol
