Re: [gentoo-amd64] Too much ~amd64 ?

[Michael Ulm]

First of all: thanks to all the people who took the
time to answer. Very useful information there.
You Rock!

Simon Stelling wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Michael Ulm wrote:
>
>>Our family computer has many different tasks to perform
>>and consequently has many packages emerged. Several of
>>these packages were not available for amd64 stable, so I
>>got the ~amd64 versions. This of course led to the need
>>to also pull in ~amd64 dependencies. And those dependencies
>>grow.
>
>
> What packages exactly are you talking about? I'm running a pretty stable system
> here and don't have a big package.keywords list (well, beside GNOME 2.12,
> modular X and the e17 cvs builds ;)).
>
> Just as hint: Use version-specific atoms. This will ensure that you don't always
> get the unstable version but only the version you really want. By keeping the
> version low, it will also significantly reduce the dependencies you have to
> keyword, in most cases.

This is something I surely will do in the future.

>
>
>>1) spending several hours checking out the ~amd64 packages I
>>   emerged, to see if they are available in stable, and which
>>   dependencies can then be brought back to amd64. As spare
>>   time is a rather scarce resource for me, I don't want to do
>>   this unless absolutely necessary
>
>
> This would of course be the cleanest solution. Move your package.keywords file
> somewhere else and run emerge -uDp world, then check if it would downgrade to a
> version which didn't work for you. I guess that most of these 50 entries you
> have wouldn't actually cause a downgrade to happen so it should reduce the
> effort pretty much.
>
>
>>2) Go totally ~amd64. I am slightly worried about system
>>   stability in this scenario. Every time the system hiccups
>>   my wife tells me that this never happened in Windows...
>
>
> Although many people run ~amd64 without having any issues, I wouldn't suggest
> this if you don't like to fix problems and/or spend much time on administrating.

Actually, I usually enjoy to fix problems, it's just that
I can have some very busy months, where everey minute of
spent administrating gets directly deducted from my sleep.

>
>>3) Do nothing and hope for the best.
>
>
> Never change a winning horse. You could just stop doing emerge -uD world at all
> and only update packages if you know higher versions have new features you need
> or fixes a bug you hit. Instead of updating all packages, only run `glsa-check
> -f new` regularly to make sure your system doesn't get vulnerable. This is the
> way I do it on all my critical systems, and it works. The time I need to
> administrating is really minimal, about 10 min/mt. for a server and a
> workstation. I'd say this is even less than with windows ;)
--snip--

My wife can get pretty sarcastic, but still I wouldn't consider
our home computer a critical machine. However, your advice has
made clear to me, that I did the  emerge -uD  too often (I tried
to fit it in every week-end). In the future, when there is little
time, I will just do the glsa-check.

My workload now slowly decreases again, so I hope that I can
soon find the time for either a cleanup or the transition to a
pure ~amd64.

"I shall do such things, I know not what they are"
(King Lear)

Thanks again,

Michael



-- 
Michael Ulm
R&D Team
ISIS Information Systems Austria
tel: [phone], fax: [phone]
e-mail: michael.ulm@××××××××××××.com
Visit our Website: www.isis-papyrus.com

---------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail is only intended for the recipient and not legally
binding. Unauthorised use, publication, reproduction or
disclosure of the content of this e-mail is not permitted.
This email has been checked for known viruses, but ISIS accepts
no responsibility for malicious or inappropriate content.
---------------------------------------------------------------
-- 
gentoo-amd64@g.o mailing list