Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
Aniruddha wrote: I am curious how these businesses manage their gentoo servers: http://www.tek.net/ http://www.sevenl.net/ Hmm. I'm not entirely sure what you are asking. These companies offer Gentoo on a server on which the customer does the management. That's what it means to have a dedicated server - you manage it. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
here's another business based on gentoo: http://www.inversepath.com/service-gentoo-support.html -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
I am curious how these businesses manage their gentoo servers: http://www.tek.net/ http://www.sevenl.net/ -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
On Monday 25 December 2006 22:41, "Mike Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote about 'Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?': > On 12/25/06, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Monday 25 December 2006 14:09, "Mike Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > wrote about 'Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?': > > > Anyways, all I'm essentially asking for is a way to separate minor > > > updates from major updates. > > With some of the advanced atom operators (particularly '*' and '~'), > > you should be able to specify exactly what level of masking you want. > > You could also make your own profile that does "cap" packges at a > > certain version and have it's parent be an established profile, > > although I'm not sure that bit of portage hackery is supported. > I know these things could be done, but I don't really think it's worth > it. The problem is that these kinds of solutions don't scale very well.. > they don't really scale at all really. If I have to reinstall for > whatever reason, then I have to redo all this hackery, as you put it, > heh. You can easily replicate the contents of a profile or /etc/portage across multiple system with something like rsync; you should also have the entirety of /etc backed up in case you need to reinstall -- it holds all your services' configurations anyway. > In any case, this is still a bit of a reactive approach, since I > have to be aware that there may be a problem with a particular update > before I know to mask it. No, you can mask packages before they exist, so you can choose to be reactive or active. For example, to prevent emerge -u from updating a package add >category/package-version to package.mask, even if there's not an upgrade waiting. Again, proper use of the package atoms should enable you to only enable -rX upgrades (which are ebuild changes; not upstream) or -rX and last version number upgrades (which should be ABI compatible if upstream is sane) etc. etc. It's certainly possible to build a system of scripts around emerge to do all this masking for you, and the PYE (pick-your-emerge) script that is (used to be?) popular on the forums could be a good starting point. One thing that would make it a *lot* easier is if /var/lib/portage/world supported the full atom syntax instead of just atom bases and doing something like 'emerge " I really like the idea of the tree version > thing though. I'll see if there's anything I can do to support that. Yeah, I certainly would *mind* tree versioning. Although... I'm not quite sure how it would mesh with the accepted ~ARCH keywording. I see how they could work together, but they also seem to overlap uncomfortably. -- "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 pgpm6xdDY08a5.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
On 12/25/06, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Monday 25 December 2006 14:09, "Mike Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote about 'Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?': > 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. Well, either (a) the new version is required, so you'll have to upgrade to the other package as well or (b) a developer was sloppy with dependencies, and you need to file a bug to change them. > Anyways, all I'm essentially asking for is a way to separate minor > updates from major updates. With some of the advanced atom operators (particularly '*' and '~'), you should be able to specify exactly what level of masking you want. I believe this is documented in 'man ebuild' but I'm not sure; 'man portage' is a decent place to start your search for the atom syntax you need. You could also make your own profile that does "cap" packges at a certain version and have it's parent be an established profile, although I'm not sure that bit of portage hackery is supported. I know these things could be done, but I don't really think it's worth it. The problem is that these kinds of solutions don't scale very well.. they don't really scale at all really. If I have to reinstall for whatever reason, then I have to redo all this hackery, as you put it, heh. In any case, this is still a bit of a reactive approach, since I have to be aware that there may be a problem with a particular update before I know to mask it. I really like the idea of the tree version thing though. I'll see if there's anything I can do to support that. PS: A: Because it reverses the order of the "conversation". Q: Why is top-posting so annoying? A: Top-posting. Q: What's the most annoying thing on newsgroups and mailing lists. PS: Noted! Sorry :P
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
On Monday 25 December 2006 14:09, "Mike Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote about 'Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?': > 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. Well, either (a) the new version is required, so you'll have to upgrade to the other package as well or (b) a developer was sloppy with dependencies, and you need to file a bug to change them. > Anyways, all I'm essentially asking for is a way to separate minor > updates from major updates. With some of the advanced atom operators (particularly '*' and '~'), you should be able to specify exactly what level of masking you want. I believe this is documented in 'man ebuild' but I'm not sure; 'man portage' is a decent place to start your search for the atom syntax you need. You could also make your own profile that does "cap" packges at a certain version and have it's parent be an established profile, although I'm not sure that bit of portage hackery is supported. PS: A: Because it reverses the order of the "conversation". Q: Why is top-posting so annoying? A: Top-posting. Q: What's the most annoying thing on newsgroups and mailing lists. -- "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 pgpPPAe20baUL.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
Oh, nice! Thanks for that info! BTW, I was only referring to the profiles since it was the closest thing to 'releases' that Gentoo has. Whatever tool used to do it would be arbitrary as long as it worked. Although, wouldn't it be easier to just mask major updates in the profile? Like say >=application-4.1 when the profile is using 3.0? That way the smaller updates for 'application 3.0' could get through. This is assuming that a specific tree version is being used I guess, but why would that be so hard? On 12/25/06, Richard Fish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 12/24/06, Mike Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Please tell me there's some solution to this? I haven't seen one mentioned > anywhere yet. Even with Gentoo's occasional problems, I like it too much to > use any other distro but I'd definitely like to see better version > management than what its got, which is none. The ideal solution to this would be released tree versions...so you could use the 2006.1 tree instead of the live development tree. Note that profiles wouldn't help much here, as then the profile would have to contain a list of all the possible packages that can be installed with the relevant versions. And it creates a lot of complications for package removals, additions, etc. But to have a snapshot of the tree to which only security or other minor fixes would be applied would be ideal for the problem you describe. The usual argument against this is that most devs prefer working on the live tree. Having to maintain a released tree and backport fixes to it would take time away from things they would rather be doing (like working on new cool stuff). The fear is that the released trees could have serious security holes in them that might never get fixed. But in fact this has been discussed many times among devs. For the most recent discussion, search the gentoo-dev mail list archives for "Versioning the tree" (and ignore the flames). I haven't reviewed the discussion, but as I recall a couple of devs may be working on making this a reality, possibly for the 2007.X releases. -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
On 12/24/06, Mike Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Please tell me there's some solution to this? I haven't seen one mentioned anywhere yet. Even with Gentoo's occasional problems, I like it too much to use any other distro but I'd definitely like to see better version management than what its got, which is none. The ideal solution to this would be released tree versions...so you could use the 2006.1 tree instead of the live development tree. Note that profiles wouldn't help much here, as then the profile would have to contain a list of all the possible packages that can be installed with the relevant versions. And it creates a lot of complications for package removals, additions, etc. But to have a snapshot of the tree to which only security or other minor fixes would be applied would be ideal for the problem you describe. The usual argument against this is that most devs prefer working on the live tree. Having to maintain a released tree and backport fixes to it would take time away from things they would rather be doing (like working on new cool stuff). The fear is that the released trees could have serious security holes in them that might never get fixed. But in fact this has been discussed many times among devs. For the most recent discussion, search the gentoo-dev mail list archives for "Versioning the tree" (and ignore the flames). I haven't reviewed the discussion, but as I recall a couple of devs may be working on making this a reality, possibly for the 2007.X releases. -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
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. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Monday 25 December 2006 02:46, "Mike Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
On Monday 25 December 2006 04:48, "Andrey Gerasimenko" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote about 'Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?': > You want to update world and, at the same time, not to update anything. > I can understand that if your goal is not to "update world", as Portage > thinks when you say "-u world", but to install only bug and sequrity > fixes, as Portage does if you mask pakeges properly. Well, if you put some work into defining exactly what package versions would want installed. > As far as I > remember, according to this list some work to treat sequrity updates > differently is under way. As for bug fixes, I do not see how they can be > separated from features. glsa-check from gentoolkit(?) should tell you exactly what packages to mask/upgrade to get security fixes, while bug fixes are currently handled exactly the same way a feature additions (generally upstream doesn't differentiate between these two changes either -- sometimes the y in x.y.z is for feature additions (with the z for bug fixes) but this isn't really consistent). Gentoo-specific bug fixes are either an in-place change to the ebuild (no version bump) or a bump of the revision (-r1) number, which is independent of upstream (and should nearly universally be installed). -- "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 pgppxdwkbgEBK.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
On Monday 25 December 2006 02:46, "Mike Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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
pgpy4YVHIgnVR.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 11:46:23 +0300, Mike Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 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 do not see any linkage between a profile, which is actually just a set of use variables , and application versions since there is no version data in a profile. (Actually there is, like minimal package versions and required stage 1 packages, but adding maximum versions to profile will make it unusable for most users) That is, profile is not a branch. I also do not see how a branch can be created based on a profile or a snapshot of a portage tree. For example, if a server profile is being used, what PHP should be in the branch? Or, better, if I decide to install Qt on a server, which definitely does not have KDE, should it be 3 or 4? The only base for branch type versioning I see is the current set of installed packages. You want to update world and, at the same time, not to update anything. I can understand that if your goal is not to "update world", as Portage thinks when you say "-u world", but to install only bug and sequrity fixes, as Portage does if you mask pakeges properly. As far as I remember, according to this list some work to treat sequrity updates differently is under way. As for bug fixes, I do not see how they can be separated from features. I feel that what you call "branch" Portage often calls "slot". For example, PHP is slotted, so that if you have PHP 4 and PHP 5 is being installed, your 4 does not go away. As for ebuilds going modular, I beleive that each case is to be treated separately. For example, KDE is going modular now. For 3, both modular and monolithic ebuilds are maintained, for 4 - only modular ones. No problems at all, right? I still do not see that any changes to portage are necessary. My guess is that your request can be formulated as a set of requests like - this app is not slotted, it should be - I want a script that will examine my world and mask everything so that I can upgrade only the last 2 version numbers - I want another script to manage the masks set by the previous one I hope that will be easier for developers to understand. -- Andrei Gerasimenko -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
Mike Myers wrote: > 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.x branch. 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? Then you can mask them in package.mask and then it won't upgrade the ones you don't want to upgrade. When you get ready to upgrade, just comment the lines in the file and upgrade. > > Like, say I have the 2005 profile, then I wouldn't have to worry about > PHP upgrading to 5.0 or randomly requiring some virtual ebuild or > whatever else is decided to be thrown our way. I would just have to > worry about updating the 4.x branch at least until the devs decide to > stop supporting it. > > I think another advantage to using this method would be that it would > make it easier to transition from an application that has a monolithic > ebuild to suddenly having a modular ebuild, or a virtual ebuild. At > least this way, we wouldn't have to worry about fundamental things > changing on us during an update until we change the profile and can > expect these kinds of changes and can deal with them at a more > convenient time instead of when the devs decide it's time to for us. > > Does that make any sense? > > Well, I remember xorg going modular too. I read that some were having problems and I just masked it for a few weeks, then upgraded after it all got sorted out. It worked fine for me. I had no problems after that. All this said, it is rare that I have trouble doing a upgrade. Most of my problems come in when I am using something that is masked or keyworded. Then you can expect to have those though. There are ways to do what you want, it just seems to defeat the purpose of having Gentoo in my opinion. Dale :-) :-) -- www.myspace.com/dalek1967 -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
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? Like, say I have the 2005 profile, then I wouldn't have to worry about PHP upgrading to 5.0 or randomly requiring some virtual ebuild or whatever else is decided to be thrown our way. I would just have to worry about updating the 4.x branch at least until the devs decide to stop supporting it. I think another advantage to using this method would be that it would make it easier to transition from an application that has a monolithic ebuild to suddenly having a modular ebuild, or a virtual ebuild. At least this way, we wouldn't have to worry about fundamental things changing on us during an update until we change the profile and can expect these kinds of changes and can deal with them at a more convenient time instead of when the devs decide it's time to for us. Does that make any sense? On 12/25/06, Andrey Gerasimenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 04:52:55 +0300, Mike Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In Gentoo, the system is updated while you are > using it. > This causes us users to modify whatever we're running to suit all these > changes. As far as I know, Gentoo releases a Reference Platform twice a year. So, you can upgrade twice a year, once a year, once in two years - all as you please. It will be similar to other distros, but better. > I'd rather be able to specify that I'm using like > the 2005 > profile, and then when I try to do emerge -u world, I don't have to deal > with my applications going from one major version to another major > version > all by themselves and then breaking with no easy way to revert back. As discussed recently in another thread of this list, there are ways to get back easily, backup of the portage tree being one of them. However, I guess your problem can be solved easier - just do not do -u world. Since its goal is exactly to produce what you do not want, why should you? How many packages do you really want to be the latest? If there are a few, it is easy to update them individually; if there are many, you may create a virtual package in the overlay and update it. I do not here much about upgrade really breaking a Gentoo installation. If it did, then a fresh install also would be broken, an extremely rare case with stable arch. Thus, if something does not work after upgrade, then configuration files are out of order. Gentoo already has everything necessary to examine them one by one and fix as necessary. > Please tell me there's some solution to this? I haven't seen one > mentioned > anywhere yet. Even with Gentoo's occasional problems, I like it too > much to > use any other distro but I'd definitely like to see better version > management than what its got, which is none. As far as I understand, no, there is no solution. If you upgrade any software, you have to upgrade the dependencies and configuration. All that can be offered, and is offered by many distros, is the upgrade option that should work if you installed the distro and did not change anything. Even that does not work pretty often, please read the reviews. For a Gentoo user the reason is evident - they do not have dispatch-conf. Some vendors have already stopped bragging that an upgrade does not break anything, example - Vista. -- Andrei Gerasimenko -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 04:52:55 +0300, Mike Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: In Gentoo, the system is updated while you are using it. This causes us users to modify whatever we're running to suit all these changes. As far as I know, Gentoo releases a Reference Platform twice a year. So, you can upgrade twice a year, once a year, once in two years - all as you please. It will be similar to other distros, but better. I'd rather be able to specify that I'm using like the 2005 profile, and then when I try to do emerge -u world, I don't have to deal with my applications going from one major version to another major version all by themselves and then breaking with no easy way to revert back. As discussed recently in another thread of this list, there are ways to get back easily, backup of the portage tree being one of them. However, I guess your problem can be solved easier - just do not do -u world. Since its goal is exactly to produce what you do not want, why should you? How many packages do you really want to be the latest? If there are a few, it is easy to update them individually; if there are many, you may create a virtual package in the overlay and update it. I do not here much about upgrade really breaking a Gentoo installation. If it did, then a fresh install also would be broken, an extremely rare case with stable arch. Thus, if something does not work after upgrade, then configuration files are out of order. Gentoo already has everything necessary to examine them one by one and fix as necessary. Please tell me there's some solution to this? I haven't seen one mentioned anywhere yet. Even with Gentoo's occasional problems, I like it too much to use any other distro but I'd definitely like to see better version management than what its got, which is none. As far as I understand, no, there is no solution. If you upgrade any software, you have to upgrade the dependencies and configuration. All that can be offered, and is offered by many distros, is the upgrade option that should work if you installed the distro and did not change anything. Even that does not work pretty often, please read the reviews. For a Gentoo user the reason is evident - they do not have dispatch-conf. Some vendors have already stopped bragging that an upgrade does not break anything, example - Vista. -- Andrei Gerasimenko -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
Yeah, the documentation is one of the many great things about Gentoo. I just wish the software was a little more proactive in fixing update problems. On 12/24/06, david <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I have been using gentoo for over 5 years. For the first few years I would sync and update every few days or once a week. Now I may do it once every 6 months. I waited until the modular xorg kind of calmed down and there were some good howto's and I updated then. I have 4 boxes here two that are web servers and I have just gotten to lazy. -- Powered by Gentoo/Linux -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
I have been using gentoo for over 5 years. For the first few years I would sync and update every few days or once a week. Now I may do it once every 6 months. I waited until the modular xorg kind of calmed down and there were some good howto's and I updated then. I have 4 boxes here two that are web servers and I have just gotten to lazy. -- Powered by Gentoo/Linux -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] anti-portage wreckage?
Hi! I know I don't post here much but I read it a lot and have been using Gentoo for several years now. I keep seeing users mention about how they do an update and then everything goes to crap. I've experienced this myself quite a bit too. I believe the reason this happens is the drawback one of Gentoo's nicest features; constantly being up to date. In contrast to Gentoo, most distros have a new version released every year or so which includes major updates like new kernels, sound drivers, updated software, etc. In Gentoo, the system is updated while you are using it. This causes us users to modify whatever we're running to suit all these changes. Take for instance some recent packages that have had updates, like PHP, mysql, and apache. All three of these have had major updates at almost the exact same time. And then on the desktop side, we've had to deal with the whole xorg going modular thing and other similar updates, also at the same time. This can be quite a headache on a live system, especially when you have multiple systems. Like, it's easier to mask the new versions and just stick with the minor updates (like mysql 4.0.x, instead of going from 4.0 to 4.1 or 5), but this also leaves the users with having to manage all of these masks for multiple systems. Anyways, my question is that since we have profiles, like 2006.1 currently, why can't we do something like restrict versions of apps to specific profiles? I'd rather be able to specify that I'm using like the 2005 profile, and then when I try to do emerge -u world, I don't have to deal with my applications going from one major version to another major version all by themselves and then breaking with no easy way to revert back. This is pretty much similar to how Red Hat works with up2date. That way the community wouldn't have to worry about dealing with older installs since they could drop support for them after a while. Also, us users can miss a month or so of updates and not have to worry about updating 500 config files only to realize the new version of mysql just broke like 20 other applications and won't even start because it's using the old config. Please tell me there's some solution to this? I haven't seen one mentioned anywhere yet. Even with Gentoo's occasional problems, I like it too much to use any other distro but I'd definitely like to see better version management than what its got, which is none.
