Re: [gentoo-user] how to recover a portage that wasn't in use for very long time

[Nick Fortino]

Alexey Luchko wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I have a gentoo installed, but I wasn't updating it since late 2007, I
> suppose.
> Today I've run emerge --sync. It worked! It's great ;)
>
> But then I've got the following collision. Obviously, a portage update
> is required. But it is confused by dependencies:
> colinux ~ # emerge portage --pretend --tree
>
> These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
>
> Calculating dependencies... done!
> [nomerge      ] sys-apps/portage-2.1.6.11 [2.1.2.2]
> [ebuild     U ]  app-shells/bash-3.2_p39 [3.1_p17] USE="-examples%
> -plugins%"
> [ebuild     U ] sys-apps/portage-2.1.6.11 [2.1.2.2]
> [ebuild     U ]  dev-python/pycrypto-2.0.1-r6 [2.0.1-r5]
> [ebuild     U ]  sys-apps/sandbox-1.6-r2 [1.2.17]
> [ebuild  N    ]   app-arch/lzma-utils-4.32.7  USE="-nocxx"
> [ebuild  N    ]  app-admin/eselect-news-20080320
> [ebuild     U ]   app-admin/eselect-1.0.11-r1 [1.0.7] USE="-vim-syntax%"
> [ebuild     U ]  app-misc/pax-utils-0.1.19 [0.1.15]
> [blocks B     ] <sys-apps/portage-2.1.5 (is blocking
> app-shells/bash-3.2_p39)
> colinux ~ #
>
>
> How to get it out?
>
>
> Regards,
> Alexey.
>
>
>
>
I worked on this a couple months back to make it possible. The key is to 
download binary packages of portage and a few dependencies to break the 
block. Once portage is upgraded, it's smart enough to figure things out 
now. An original script an discussion can be found at 
http://blog.jolexa.net/2009/03/25/gentoo-tips-to-upgrade-your-really-old-installation/

A slightly modified version is here inline. I would recommend against 
running it as a script, but rather do the steps individually (also, if 
you aren't running amd64, be sure to change the architecture of the 
binaries you are downloading).

Read this line as typical warnings of your mileage may very etc.

Nick