Re: [gentoo-user] Switching to unstable

[Mark Knecht]

On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 12:43 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk> wrote:
>> On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:36:37 +0200, Damian wrote:
>>
>>> The reason for doing so is that what is considered as unstable as been
>>> regarded as stable releases for the developers, and the truth is that
>>> the problems I got for using outdated software were more that the ones I
>>> had for using unstable versions.
>>
>> That's because what you describe as unstable has nothing to do with
>> stability of the software. ~arch is testing ebuilds, they are unstable in
>> that they change more often, but as you say, the upstream software is
>> considered fit for use.
>>
>>> Thus, I'm thinking about switching all of my system to the unstable
>>> branch. But first I want to be sure that this is reasonable given the
>>> problems I described before.
>>>
>>> Can you provide me some useful advice according to your experience?
>>
>> Switching to testing is as easy as changing ACCEPT_KEYWORDS in make.conf
>> and doing emerge -uaDN @world. Switching back is less easy, but if this
>> is what you want to do, then go for it. I have run testing for years,
>> with far less problems than some people running mixed arch systems.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Neil Bothwick
>
> I have a new machine that just came up yesterday. I was thinking of
> running ~arch on it and seeing how things work out. Seems like it's a
> good time to do it if I'm ever going to as I haven't started using it
> and it's going to get busy. If your answers are dependent on the work
> done then this machine is (hopefully) going to run a bunch of vmware
> instances at the same time. Any problem doing that under ~amd64? I've
> never run more than 1 in the past. This time hopefully 5 at a time.
>
> Question - after adding ~amd64 to make.conf do I then ever need
> anything in package.keywords again because the whole system is ~amd64?
>
> It seems that there would be some use flag changes required:
>
> cruncher ~ # emerge -pvDuN @world
>
> These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
>
> Calculating dependencies... done!
>
> emerge: there are no ebuilds built with USE flags to satisfy
> ">=sys-fs/udev-145[extras]".
> !!! One of the following packages is required to complete your request:
> - sys-fs/udev-151-r1 (Change USE: +extras)
> (dependency required by "gnome-base/gvfs-1.4.3" [ebuild])
> (dependency required by "gnome-base/libgnome-2.28.0" [ebuild])
> (dependency required by "gnome-base/libbonoboui-2.24.3" [ebuild])
> (dependency required by "gnome-base/libgnomeui-2.24.3" [ebuild])
> (dependency required by "net-libs/xulrunner-1.9.2.3-r1" [ebuild])
> (dependency required by "www-client/mozilla-firefox-3.6.3" [ebuild])
> (dependency required by "@world" [argument])
>
> cruncher ~ #
>
> Will there be a lot of this before I execute the emerge? I know udev
> is pretty special.
>
> - Mark
>

OK - I walked through the list until it told me things were OK. These
are the use flag additions I had to add:

sys-fs/udev extras
gnome-base/gvfs gdu
sys-apps/parted device-mapper
sys-auth/consolekit policykit
net-libs/opal sip
net-libs/ptlib wav
x11-base/xorg-server kdrive

A couple more questions:

1) I don't see any mention of hald & dbus in the upgrade guide. I
currently have them turned on. Are they still necessary? I know hald
is going away one of these days. Is it too early for me to dump it.
Possibly dump hald before the upgrade, make sure everything is
consistent, and then do the ~amd64 work?

2) Any problem if I do emerge -DuN @system and then make the changes
in the upgrade guide followed by @world? I've turned of xdm. I don't
have a UPS on this system yet so @system would shrink the window of a
power outage causing me problems. (It's pouring rain here today. It
will likely happen no matter what) ;-)

Thanks,
Mark