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Rich Freeman posted on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:46:10 -0400 as excerpted: |
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> For most changes, honestly, I think the cleanest option is to use binary |
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> packages. If you build a generic set of @system binary packages then |
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> you can emerge -K them and get a bootstrappable system no matter how |
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> out-of-date you are. Then you can do an emerge -uDN world, or maybe |
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> just an emerge -e world. |
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That sounds an awful lot like simply starting from a new stage-3, in a |
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chroot initially, either from the existing system or from install media. |
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Except the new stage-3 route bypasses the old portage/toolchain issue |
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below. |
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> The only real gotcha is if portage is so old that it can't handle the |
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> binary packages. However, to get around that we really just need a set |
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> of step-wise binary updates for portage itself so that you can sequence |
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> it up to something that can install the rest. That will work as long as |
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> portage doesn't strictly need a newer dependency. If it needs a newer |
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> python or something then we might need to keep a binary package of that |
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> lying around - maybe statically linked so that it doesn't go further |
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> than a few packages. |
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Talking about statically linked... but that's a different thread. =:^) |
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> Something like that really just needs a few tarballs and then an |
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> up-to-date set of binary stage3 packages. The binary packages could be |
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> built at the same time the stage3s are made. And, this is really just a |
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> contingency plan so we don't need to mirror all that stuff - we could |
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> even just make it torrent-only or something. |
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> |
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> Or we could do what was proposed in the past and say 1 year and you're |
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> done. That slows us down a little, but has zero overhead. |
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Really, that's the practical limit anyway. I've done 8-month updates on |
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the 32-bit build-image chroot I use for my netbook, and it can be pretty |
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hairy even at that, and even with doing regular updates on my main system |
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so I've been thru most of it before by the time I deal with the netbook |
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build-image. |
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I'd say trying to keep it at a year (but recognizing even that's going to |
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be somewhat buggy and have various issues in practice, a year by policy, |
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tho, and six to seven months should actually be practical) is a |
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reasonable goal. Beyond that, the new stage-3 thing should remain the |
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supported upgrade path. Gentoo isn't magic, and if a year's too short |
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for someone and they can't accept the stage-3 method beyond that, they |
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really should be considering whether Gentoo's the best distro for them in |
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any case. |
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That doesn't mean we can't work on ways to shorten the incompatible turn- |
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around time to < 1 year, but it does provide a reasonable worst-case time- |
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focus window, since by policy we don't need to worry about anything |
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beyond a year, anyway. Now we're simply talking about ways to shorten |
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the turn-around time to less than a year while keeping the year's |
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supported upgrades policy. |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |