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"Mark Knecht" <markknecht@×××××.com> posted |
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5bdc1c8b0803241822v267dcacl64108b01cf53b3b4@××××××××××.com, excerpted |
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below, on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:22:20 -0700: |
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|
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>> Of course revdep-rebuild wants to rebuild lots and lots of stuff |
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I see you solved the original problem, but this bit worries me. |
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You used "of course", which makes it sound as if it's "natural" to you to |
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have revdep-rebuild want to rebuild "lots and lots of stuff". I can |
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assure you that's NOT the case here, and I don't believe it should EVER |
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be the NORMAL case on a well maintained Gentoo system. Once in a very |
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long time, there may be individual upgrade cases where it happens because |
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half the system depends on the upgraded library and the upgrade changed |
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the ABI, the upgrade to expat-2 I believe it was comes to mind, but once |
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that rebuild is done (and I'd say two weeks is plenty of time for that), |
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it should be months, likely years, before any more more than perhaps a |
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half dozen to a dozen packages (max) ever appear together at once on a |
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revdep-rebuild. I think it has been since that expat upgrade that I've |
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ever had a half dozen items listed at once in revdep-rebuild here, and I |
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even doubled that above, to a dozen, for those that run a bit sloppier |
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installation than I. |
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|
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I'd recommend that people do a world upgrade every couple of weeks |
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minimum (noting that if you do it every week or every few days, you'll |
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have less to upgrade all at once), always do an etc-update (or equivalent |
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if using a different tool) after merging anything, just to be sure, and |
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do a revdep-rebuild also at least every couple weeks, again noting that |
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doing it more often means less stuff at once to worry about. That, plus |
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a regular (say once a month or so minimum) emerge --newuse, revdep- |
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rebuild, emerge --depclean, and another revdep-rebuild just to be sure |
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after the depclean, will help keep the system clean and well maintained, |
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and that "Of course revdep-rebuild wants to rebuild lots and lots of |
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stuff" problem should become a thing of the past. =8^) |
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Of course, don't forget the --pretend first, especially on --depclean, |
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but really on all the above, so you have some idea of what it's going to |
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do and can add packages to your world file or whatever if necessary. And |
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again, those are what I'd recommend as minimums. Remember that if you do |
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it more frequently, you have far less to deal with at once, making the |
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job far easier. =8^) |
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It's just that "revdep rebuild wants to rebuild lots and lots of stuff" |
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should be a very unusual event, not EVER an "of course" event If that's |
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NOT the case, if it HAS become an "of course" event, it's simply because |
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someone has been slacking. While it'll only mean minor stuff broken on a |
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day to day basis, sooner or later it'll catch up to you, either with a |
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compound failure so large it's difficult to recover from (a broken gcc |
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making it impossible to recompile anything to fix it, for instance, or a |
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broken python making it impossible to emerge anything), or with an old |
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and stale package you've forgotten about getting a security vuln that |
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someone takes advantage of, and you get cracked. |
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|
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(Yeah, I know that some folks don't upgrade for six months or more at a |
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time... I never really understood why these folks bother to run Gentoo, |
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as at that point, it's likely going to be easier doing the binary |
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distribution update thing, with upgrades coming out about every six |
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months, than trying to do an upgrade a piece at a time on Gentoo, without |
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breaking anything vital in the process. Yes, it's possible to do six |
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month upgrades on Gentoo, just like it's possible to only install the |
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binary packages on the release and package media and never compile |
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anything, but it's really not /designed/ for that, and there are other |
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distributions that handle those usage cases rather better, so Gentoo's a |
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rather poor choice for them.) |
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|
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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 |
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-- |
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