[gentoo-dev] Stupid question regarding 'fixpackages'

[Joachim Breuer]

Hello!

Just something I notice here: Whenever I run fixpackages, all global
updates are apparently re-applied to all binary packages (i.e. all
headings 3Q-2002 up through 4Q-2003 are shown - in order by now - all
followed by a number of dots which seems to correspond to the number
of operations listed in the update file, and followed by a number of
asterisks which seems to correspond to the number of binary packages.

Now, my question is: Shouldn't fixpackages 'stabilize', i.e. not
perform global updates it has already performed? The way it is now I'd
hate to think what an upgrade will be like a year or two from now...
If this 'stabilizing' cannot be done I'd like to know for what reason,
perhaps I'd want to take a look whether there really isn't an useful
optimization.

To clarify the scenario:

I 'emerge sync && emerge -ubkD system && emerge -ubkD world &&
fixpackages' on 2003/08/10, and see the update 3Q-2002 through 3Q-2003
applied. Today I run the same command line again to bring my system up
to date, and see the updates 3Q-2002 through 3Q-2003, which have
already been applied to all binary packages on 03/08/10 being applied
again. Shouldn't it be sufficient to only apply 4Q-2003, or at least
only those updates that have been modified since 03/08/10? (mtime
of /usr/portage/profiles/updates/*)

Is what I'm seeing the current correct behavior, or does for some
reason a time-stamp file on my system not get updated?

Trimming down the number of binary packages is not really an option,
as I (1) like to quickly 'fall back' on an early version of a package
if there turn out to be problems and (2) share virtually the same
gentoo installation over a number of machines with identical
architecture, so usually I let one of the little-used machines do the
ebuilds and let emerge simply install the binary packages on the other
machines.


Thanks a lot for any comments, and kudos for providing *the* useable
distribution!


So long,
   Joe

-- 
"I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear
 word processor."
-- Neal Stephenson, "In the beginning... was the command line"

--
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list