Re: [gentoo-user] a question about emerge --sync

[Alan McKinnon]

On 03/08/2014 13:04, Dale wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>> Am 02.08.2014 09:17, schrieb Dale:
>>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>>> Am 01.08.2014 16:30, schrieb behrouz khosravi:
>>>>> Hello everybody.
>>>>> I have a little bandwidth problem. I don't want to update my packages
>>>>> very frequently.
>>>>> Is it save to sync my portage not very often, say every month or two,
>>>>> so when I install something I wont be warned that some of my packages
>>>>> are outdated?
>>>>> In this manner I wont need to mask my packages, to prevent them from
>>>>> updating, right ?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>
>>>>> .
>>>>>
>>>> the longer you wait, the more problems you will have.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So sync often.
>>>>
>>>> Installing the actual updates? On a weekly basis is a good rule of thumb.
>>>>
>>>> And don't use --pretend, use --ask. Portage has become slow as f....
>>>> over time. You don't want to waste time to let it do the same twice.
>>>>
>>>> Also: read the manual. You obviously haven't - or did not understand
>>>> everything you read, so read again. For your own safety.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Back when I was on dial-up, I did my updates on Monday I think it was.
>>> In the case of OOo, just downloading the tarball could take a couple
>>> days.  Once a week is pretty good in my opinion as well.  I'd be nervous
>>> about going months tho.  On occasion that can get to be a bit much.  If
>>> two nasty updates hit at the same time, it could get touchy.
>>>
>>> Dale
>>>
>>> :-)  :-)
>>>
>>> .
>>>
>> back when I was responsible to keep 250 net-junkies online, the longer I
>> waited the worse the problems. And you only have so much time between
>> different WoW raids...
>>
>>
>
>
> True.  I think the official claim is that once a year updates are
> supported.  However, we have seen people that wait that long, and
> sometimes not even that long, and encounter a update process that deals
> with two or three deal breakers.  I can't recall the package names but I
> know a couple packages can be a hair puller on their own.

icu, libxml, libpng and how can we forget

<shudder> hal </shudder>

and of course our recent friends python-exec as well as udev/upower-pm-utils

> When you add
> in two of them at the same time, it gets bad really fast.   So you make
> a good point.
>
> That is the reason I wanted to do updates about every week when I was on
> dial-up.  I might would go two weeks at times.  Now that I have DSL, I
> update usually twice a week.  If I am expecting say a upgrade of KDE in
> between, I may add one that week or just shuffle my schedule to make it
> include the KDE upgrades.  I have found that the twice a week updates
> are usually easier than the weekly ones when I was on dial-up.  The
> improvements in portage could account for some of that but still,
> avoiding having two major changes at the same time is a good idea.   The
> devs do seem to try and spread those apart a little anyway.  They can't
> hold them forever tho.
>
> While every day may be a bit much, waiting months has its own issues.
> Then again, someone missing their WoW game may be a issue of its own.
> They may get . . . angry.  LOL

I think the main problem with long gaps between updates isn't that stuff
breaks in new weird, wonderful ways never seen before (although that can
happen)

The main problem is that you hit the same problems everyone else had and
solved months before and now can't remember what the solution was! Or
those who could help have forgotten about it, moved on and pay little
attention

If you update weekly or bi-weekly on ~arch or monthly on arch you
probably hit issues at the tail end when problems are fresh in people;'s
minds and you can get first-rate help right here



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com