Re: [gentoo-user] What is the best way forward?

[Grant Taylor]

On 2/25/21 2:51 AM, Michael wrote:
> It would probably be better even with a lot of customizations.  ;-)

Please elaborate on what "better" means in this case.  I'm thinking that 
you might be meaning "faster" and / or "easier" (as in less effort).

> At least it /should/ be better in terms of time and effort spent.

Maybe.

> A reinstall in this context is not a wholesale replace.

~blink~

> It implies obtaining the latest Stage 3 archive from a mirror,
> but retaining part of your current installation.  Your /home, /etc,
> /var/lib/portage/world, plus any databases e.g. in /var/lib/mysql/
> and your kernel config will be retained from your existing system and
> will not be replaced.  Back these up first along with any particular
> customizations you have made, before you untar Stage 3, so you can
> restore them.

Ah.  You seem to be talking about what I would call an "in place 
upgrade" for Windows.  As in stalling n over top of n-1 or n-2.  That's 
definitely less disruptive than I was thinking.  I was thinking that 
fdisk and / or mkfs would be involved.

> Then rsync portage, update all your @world packages and build a new
> kernel (make oldconfig).  Spend some time merging existing application
> config files with etc-update to make them compatible with the latest
> versions of these packages, reboot and hopefully that should be all
> there is to it.

I may end up /needing/ to go that route.  For the moment, I'm going to 
try the incremental updates.

> Yes, it would have been, but what is the benefit of updating multiple
> packages many times over, instead of doing it just once?

In some ways, this is a learning experience.  As in it's a proof of concept.

The computer in question spends 2/3 of it's life doing nothing but 
idling a few programs.  So, it spending time compiling and producing 
heat is not a bad thing in this case.  Especially when there's 10" of 
snow on the ground.  ;-)



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die