Re: [gentoo-dev] minimalistic emerge

[Igor]

Hello Ian,

Friday, August 8, 2014, 7:45:56 PM, you wrote:


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> Igor - you need to read the emerge man page.

> "emerge -uDNav @world" is the recommended way to update your system,
> because then you will stay in sync with all appropriate updates in the
> portage tree.  However, if you don't want to do this, just "emerge -u
> @world" -- that will only update packages in your world file, and will
> only force dependency updates when the new version is required (based
> on minimum versions in package dependencies).  And if you only want to
> upgrade things piecemeal, then use "--exclude [pkg]" to skip updates,
> or "emerge -1 [pkg]" to only update an explicit list, or use
> /etc/portage/package.mask to avoid updating to newer versions.

It's unreliable, if you update system on daily basis - the system 
will get unstable and eventually will not even boot. It will be 
up-to-date but not functional. 
UDEV was the latest example :-( The updated system requires constant 
human assistance and the number of CRITICAL bugs is always 
constant (heart beat bug affected the latest systems but not old).
I know no server that is automatically updated with -uDNav @world 
and works for more than 6 months. 

I would do it but I know that each time @world updated - I'm in 
a possible trouble. I need to check all config files, all daemons 
for changes, boot managers, mdadmin, web servers, mysql, udev, 
and the surprise will happen when you boot next time. May be in 
in 300 days, then you try to remember what was changed in 
100 days, it's close to a hell.

Maintainers - don't have time to test packages against old 
versions, they just pull in the new versions in e-build with > 
each is doing that and the resulting update is an enormous 
surplus.

> If you're asking for something even lighter than what 'emerge -u
> @world' will provide, on an automagic system-wide level, then i think
> you'll need to author some detailed specifications as to exactly what
> it is you want this new updating feature to do.

> Please note, though, that we as Gentoo developers can't guarantee that
> your system is going to remain stable if you don't update --deep,
> because we can't test every possible combination of every
> stable-keyworded dependency version against every package -- not even
> a tinderbox makes that particularly feasible, there's just too many
> permutations.  I also am not sure at this time if 'emerge -u' would

You need to know what packages are installed and how they're installed 
world wide. That is the only way to stabilize Gentoo 
architecture. Firing updates not knowing what happened - is the lack 
of feedback that is hurting gentoo development. 

(of course all is IMHO) 

> upgrade dependencies when the version installed was removed from the
> portage tree, and this may have multiple adverse effects on your
> system long-term depending on why that older version was dropped from
> the tree.

> So, the recommendation remains that one should update the entire
> system via -uDN in order to receive all of the updates available for
> your entire dependency tree.

Is there any warranty that updated with -uDN system will remain 
full functional for 1 year? I have 100% warranty that not updated
system is going to remain functional for 5 or 6 years. I have some with 
7 years uptime. 

But if I'm going to update a SINGLE package on this system with --emerge 
it will pull EVERYTHING in, while nodep - may work fine. 

I'm in a trap - if I update daily - the systems are offline, I'm not able 
to maintain systems after updates - requires too much resources. If you have 
1 gentoo it might take a few days, imagine you have 100 or 1000 systems and 
they do not share the same hardware or the same boot locations, 
they all can be managed by 2 people if not updated and you need about 100 
people if you update. 

The number of bugs is the same. It's more difficult to hack into 1996 system 
than in 2012.

I'm very sorry may be I'm not getting it right, it hunts me how it's
advisable to update system daily and I'm having a very bad life experience 
out of advise. May be it's only me?

I can't keep a single system functional with auto-updates for just 6 months 
- something always breaks. For me Gentoo is not a toy, it's a tool I use 
daily. If a tool is broken - my product is broken.


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-- 
Best regards,
 Igor                            mailto:lanthruster@×××××.com