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Stephen P. Becker posted <42765654.3010404@g.o>, excerpted below, |
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on Mon, 02 May 2005 12:33:24 -0400: |
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|
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> Removing old profiles will do nothing other than forcing them to set a new |
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> profile. Changing the profile won't stop people from doing security only |
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> updates. |
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Except that isn't quite correct, for that |
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deprecated-profile-security-update-only person we're talking about. |
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Such a person isn't likely to have a version of portage that can handle |
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cascading profiles, which /is/ after all what the thread is about, and |
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gcc and other parts of the toolchain are likely to be equally outdated |
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(gcc-2.95, python 2.2, maybe earlier, etc). Remove their flat profile, and |
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they may have an entirely broken portage, which they can't fix because |
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they can no longer parse the tree, and may not be able to compile certain |
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dependencies to get it working again even if they could. |
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I haven't taken a look at the emergency procedures for a broken portage, |
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recently, altho IIRC it now simply points to a place where a binary |
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package can be downloaded. Are those procedures and binary package |
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updated enough to cope with cascading profiles, while still being backward |
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compatible with python 2.2 and gcc 2.95? |
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|
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Consider a user off the net, at least as far as the bandwidth necessary to |
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do upgrades, for a year and a half. Maybe they were a missionary to some |
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remote location for the period, or "unavoidably detained" for political or |
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other reasons. They finally get back to "Internet civilisation", and find |
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their Gentoo so outdated they can't even update it! |
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Of course, if they're /that/ far out of date, perhaps a new install, |
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stage-three and packages CD, is the most efficient way to get up and |
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running again. That'd be my approach, if I found myself syncing after a |
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year and a half out of circulation, and further assuming my machine |
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(and personal know-how) was even more outdated, such that a stage-1 |
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install didn't sound palatable. |
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Is there a convenient profile archive somewhere? If not, perhaps one |
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should be created, and at deletion from the tree, the profile dir in |
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question is replaced with a file (or the empty dir with only that |
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file) pointing to the archive. This archive could then keep the last |
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workable profile snapshot around for another six months or so, or perhaps |
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even forever, given the cost of storage now days. The pointer to it in |
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the tree could then be removed 30 days or 6 months after the profile |
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itself was removed, /forcing/ action on any laggards. |
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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 in |
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http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html |
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-- |
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