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I've been a Slackware user for years but I've recently made the switch
to Gentoo on a few boxes to see how it suits my needs. I've got my
system set up the way I like it with X11, gdm, fluxbox, and all the GUI
apps my wife needs (firefox, skype, etc). My question now is how to
keep it all up-to-date. Emerge and portage sound simple enough in
concept, but it seems like every time I dig into the docs, I discover
another command or option that I was unaware of. I'd like to script out
the update process as much as possible, but I'm not sure if I've got all
my bases covered. Here's what I do now:

emerge --sync
emerge -Du world
etc-update [follow the prompts]

I'm sure I'm missing some important steps.

Gene Poole wrote:
> I've been a Slackware user for years but I've recently made the switch
> to Gentoo on a few boxes to see how it suits my needs. I've got my
> system set up the way I like it with X11, gdm, fluxbox, and all the GUI
> apps my wife needs (firefox, skype, etc). My question now is how to
> keep it all up-to-date. Emerge and portage sound simple enough in
> concept, but it seems like every time I dig into the docs, I discover
> another command or option that I was unaware of. I'd like to script out
> the update process as much as possible, but I'm not sure if I've got all
> my bases covered. Here's what I do now:
>
> emerge --sync
> emerge -Du world

I wouldn't use the -D, as you will be upgrading more packages than you need
and you get a higher risk of breaking another program.

emerge -u world


> etc-update [follow the prompts]


> I'm sure I'm missing some important steps.

Once in a while run

revdep-rebuild -- -p

to see if there is a broken dependency, portage ain't as good on keeping track
of all dependencies as RPM does.


--

//Aho

Gene Poole wrote:

> I've been a Slackware user for years but I've recently made the switch
> to Gentoo on a few boxes to see how it suits my needs. I've got my
> system set up the way I like it with X11, gdm, fluxbox, and all the GUI
> apps my wife needs (firefox, skype, etc). My question now is how to
> keep it all up-to-date. Emerge and portage sound simple enough in
> concept, but it seems like every time I dig into the docs, I discover
> another command or option that I was unaware of. I'd like to script out
> the update process as much as possible, but I'm not sure if I've got all
> my bases covered. Here's what I do now:
>
> emerge --sync
> emerge -Du world
> etc-update [follow the prompts]
>
> I'm sure I'm missing some important steps.

I'd make a habit of running revdep-rebuild every once in a while, to make
sure the dependencies are up-to-date...

As for scripting it... well... you can run "emerge --sync" as a chron job,
but that would be the end of automating the update process. You don't want
to automate the "emerge -u world"... incase it wants to drag in anything
you don't want and automating "etc-update" is just totally WRONG. You would
very easily overwrite your hard earned config files in /etc if you weren't
careful...

Cheers.




--

Jerry McBride (jmcbride@mail-on.us)

Jerry McBride wrote:
> Gene Poole wrote:
>
>> I've been a Slackware user for years but I've recently made the switch
>> to Gentoo on a few boxes to see how it suits my needs. I've got my
>> system set up the way I like it with X11, gdm, fluxbox, and all the GUI
>> apps my wife needs (firefox, skype, etc). My question now is how to
>> keep it all up-to-date. Emerge and portage sound simple enough in
>> concept, but it seems like every time I dig into the docs, I discover
>> another command or option that I was unaware of. I'd like to script out
>> the update process as much as possible, but I'm not sure if I've got all
>> my bases covered. Here's what I do now:
>>
>> emerge --sync
>> emerge -Du world
>> etc-update [follow the prompts]
>>
>> I'm sure I'm missing some important steps.
>
> I'd make a habit of running revdep-rebuild every once in a while, to make
> sure the dependencies are up-to-date...
>
> As for scripting it... well... you can run "emerge --sync" as a chron job,
> but that would be the end of automating the update process. You don't want
> to automate the "emerge -u world"... incase it wants to drag in anything
> you don't want and automating "etc-update" is just totally WRONG. You would
> very easily overwrite your hard earned config files in /etc if you weren't
> careful...
>
> Cheers.

Yeah, I understand about the etc-update thing, but is there any reason
why the "world" option would drag stuff in once the system is to my
liking? As it is now, if I run "emerge -Du world" (or system) I get
nothing. It's all up to date and has all the features I currently
need/want.

Gene Poole wrote:

> Yeah, I understand about the etc-update thing, but is there any reason
> why the "world" option would drag stuff in once the system is to my
> liking? As it is now, if I run "emerge -Du world" (or system) I get
> nothing. It's all up to date and has all the features I currently
> need/want.

You never know when a new version of a package will have new dependencies or
changes on default USE flags.

At the same time you may miss important information that is displayed during
the build, like that you need to rebuild some packages, so that they won't
stop working.

--

//Aho

Gene Poole wrote:

> Jerry McBride wrote:
>> Gene Poole wrote:
>>
>>> I've been a Slackware user for years but I've recently made the switch
>>> to Gentoo on a few boxes to see how it suits my needs. I've got my
>>> system set up the way I like it with X11, gdm, fluxbox, and all the GUI
>>> apps my wife needs (firefox, skype, etc). My question now is how to
>>> keep it all up-to-date. Emerge and portage sound simple enough in
>>> concept, but it seems like every time I dig into the docs, I discover
>>> another command or option that I was unaware of. I'd like to script out
>>> the update process as much as possible, but I'm not sure if I've got all
>>> my bases covered. Here's what I do now:
>>>
>>> emerge --sync
>>> emerge -Du world
>>> etc-update [follow the prompts]
>>>
>>> I'm sure I'm missing some important steps.
>>
>> I'd make a habit of running revdep-rebuild every once in a while, to make
>> sure the dependencies are up-to-date...
>>
>> As for scripting it... well... you can run "emerge --sync" as a chron
>> job, but that would be the end of automating the update process. You
>> don't want to automate the "emerge -u world"... incase it wants to drag
>> in anything you don't want and automating "etc-update" is just totally
>> WRONG. You would very easily overwrite your hard earned config files in
>> /etc if you weren't careful...
>>
>> Cheers.
>
> Yeah, I understand about the etc-update thing, but is there any reason
> why the "world" option would drag stuff in once the system is to my
> liking? As it is now, if I run "emerge -Du world" (or system) I get
> nothing. It's all up to date and has all the features I currently
> need/want.

Applications and packages are updated daily... sometimes a package gets
update with new dependencies... perhaps ones you don't want. You'll at
least have the option to decide if you want to change the mix. Also,
depending if you are running an ~x86 configuration... you could easily
update to a package version that's still not quite bug free or other
problems.

As an example... KDE4.0 requires a no later than qt 4.3.x...some are having
to remove qt 4.4.x and fixing all the resultant dependencies that breaks or
adds...




--

Jerry McBride (jmcbride@mail-on.us)

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Gene Poole wrote:

> I've been a Slackware user for years but I've recently made the switch to
> Gentoo on a few boxes to see how it suits my needs. I've got my system set
> up the way I like it with X11, gdm, fluxbox, and all the GUI apps my wife
> needs (firefox, skype, etc). My question now is how to keep it all
> up-to-date. Emerge and portage sound simple enough in concept, but it seems
> like every time I dig into the docs, I discover another command or option
> that I was unaware of. I'd like to script out the update process as much as
> possible, but I'm not sure if I've got all my bases covered. Here's what I
> do now:
>
> emerge --sync
> emerge -Du world
> etc-update [follow the prompts]

Use dispatch-conf instead of etc-update. It keeps track of files where you
accepted the newer version with no changes and automatically selects the
newer version in the future. It optinally uses rcs to keep track of
changes. You will need to edit its configuration file to have it do more
automatically.


>
> I'm sure I'm missing some important steps.
>

So anyway, it was like, 18:44 CET Jan 22 2008, you know? Oh, and, yeah,
J.O. Aho was all like, "Dude,
> Gene Poole wrote:

[..]

>> emerge --sync
>> emerge -Du world
>
> I wouldn't use the -D, as you will be upgrading more packages than
> you need and you get a higher risk of breaking another program.

I would, and do. I don't quite see the "higher risk", rather the
opposite. If a dependancy of something in my world file is updated, I
want that update too, not just the thing I've explicitly merged.

An 'emerge --depclean' will indicate if you have orphaned packages
left around, and running revdep-rebuild as well will turn up broken
packages afterwards.

Putting "--ask" in EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS might be a handy thing too.

--
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Perth ---> *
09:23:04 up 11 days, 16:01, 2 users, load average: 0.13, 0.09, 0.09
Linux 2.6.23.12 x86_64 GNU/Linux Registered Linux user #261729

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:29:50 +0000, Gene Poole wrote:

> I've been a Slackware user for years but I've recently made the switch
> to Gentoo on a few boxes to see how it suits my needs. I've got my
> system set up the way I like it with X11, gdm, fluxbox, and all the GUI
> apps my wife needs (firefox, skype, etc). My question now is how to
> keep it all up-to-date. Emerge and portage sound simple enough in
> concept, but it seems like every time I dig into the docs, I discover
> another command or option that I was unaware of. I'd like to script out
> the update process as much as possible, but I'm not sure if I've got all
> my bases covered. Here's what I do now:
>
> emerge --sync
> emerge -Du world
> etc-update [follow the prompts]
>
> I'm sure I'm missing some important steps.

Seems like a golden opportunity to find out what I'm doing wrong - there
are certainly other folks out there who know a lot more about it than I
do, but here's what I do - has kept my system robust for a year or so now:

emerge --sync
emerge --ask --update world
is done every few days - with etc-update when indicated.

emerge --ask --update --deep --newuse world
emerge --depclean
revdep-rebuild
is done every couple of weeks or so.

Please critique and tell me what I'm doing wrong - a 'why' would also be
helpful.

I have attempted to build scripts to increase the automation, but I
have found that there are issues frequently enough that it is easiest
to run the update by hand.

The commands down the LHS are mostly in the order that I follow.

Here are the main commands I use.

I use eix to allow for rapid searching of packages
It will update portage and rebuild its cache if you run
eix-sync
(To search, use eix <regex>)

The main parts of emerge I use follow
emerge -uDNa world // update all software
emerge --depclean // remove old dependencies

(to fix dependencies, main tools include ufed, emerge -1 <package>,
and modifying the /etc/portage/package.* files)

revdep-rebuild is also important - if you get problems with programs
no longer pointing to the correct library, even though it is
installed, this should fix it.

I use cfg-update to manage my conf files. If it is unsure about the
version, it will use xxdiff to allow you to select what you want from
files.
cfg-update -u


to sum it up
eix-sync
emerge -uDNa world
emerge --depclean
revdep-rebuild
cfg-update -u


There are other commands I also use, but they are much less important;

// these clean out unused files, but it isn't wise to use them too
much
eclean-dist --destructive
eclean packages
rm -Rf /var/tmp/portage/*

// these only apply if you are using layman...
layman --sync ALL
update-eix-remote update


I hope that is useful