Re: [gentoo-ppc-user] Downgrading to a stable version of a package...

[Ruben Vandeginste]

> > How can I tell if a particular package version is "stable" or
> > "unstable"?
>
just look inside the ebuild of that package.
first do 'emerge -s packagename' so you know where the package is located
in the tree...
then look in the file
/usr/portage/<place-in-tree>/packagename/packagename-version.ebuild
(for example /usr/portage/dev-util/eclipse-sdk/eclipse-sdk-2.1.ebuild, or
something like that, i'm not running Gentoo right now)

somewhere in the ebuild you will find a string like "x86 ~ppc -sparc"
this means that the package is stable for x86, (~) unstable for ppc, and
(-) will not run on sparc architecture..

and the way to revert to a stable package is if you just do an emerge of
that package again... start with 'emerge -p package'. Then you can see
whether it will revert to the latest stable package, but normally it
should. (unless you specified 'ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~ppc" in your environment
or in /etc/make.conf)

My explanation is probably not the best way to figure this out, but it
works for me :)

Another thing you should be carefull with, is that you should *never*
downgrade the C/C++ libraries (glibc); because that way none of your
executables will run anymore. You might get a couple of problems if you
downgrade certain other libraries, which can usually be solved by just
recompiling the programs using these libraries.

Hope this was a bit of help.

Ruben

> Am I correct in concluding that there is no mechanism for determining
if a
> package-version is stable/unstable and there is no mechanism for reverting
> from an unstable version to the stable version?
>
> Jeez - If portage can't report that kind of information and/or manage
> package status, what does it offer that RPM and APT don't?!


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