[gentoo-user] To install a testing version of a package on a stable OS installation.

[gentoo-user] To install a testing version of a package on a stable OS installation.

[Ста Деюс]

Hi.


Is it possible to compile/install a testing version of a package w/ its
dependencies on a stable OS installation? -- I mean, if a have stable
installation of whole the system, can i compile and install a testing
version of single package and the packages this single package depends
on?


Thank you for your time,
Sthu.

Re: [gentoo-user] To install a testing version of a package on a stable OS installation.

[Nils Freydank]

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Am Sonntag, 9. Juli 2017, 21:59:14 CEST schrieb Ста Деюс:
> Hi.
> 
> 
> Is it possible to compile/install a testing version of a package w/ its
> dependencies on a stable OS installation? [..]

Sure. It even works the other way around, e.g. I have ~amd64 and set stable for some
toolchain stuff (glibc as I can’t downgrade this if bug occur).

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:Parts/Portage/Branches#Mixing_stable_with_testing

Portage is awesome (awesomely slow, but also feature-rich).



> Thank you for your time,
> Sthu.

You’re welcome :-)

-- 
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Nils Freydank

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Re: [gentoo-user] To install a testing version of a package on a stable OS installation.

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 3:59 PM, Ста Деюс <sthu.deus@openmailbox.org> wrote:
>
> Is it possible to compile/install a testing version of a package w/ its
> dependencies on a stable OS installation? -- I mean, if a have stable
> installation of whole the system, can i compile and install a testing
> version of single package and the packages this single package depends
> on?
>

Yes, for the most part.  Obviously if whatever you want to install has
a rats nest of unstable dependencies it can get messy.  It isn't like
you're going to be able to install one component of kde-6 on an
otherwise kde-5 system, for example (when that comes along), and
expect it to work.

Typically you just stick whatever you're interested in
/etc/portage/package.keywords.  Then when you try to emerge it portage
will indicate if any dependencies aren't fulfilled and offer to
auto-unmask them for you.

I find it to be a best practice to make /etc/portage/package.keywords
a directory, and create files inside for various purposes.  I have a
file to put keywords in there for arch testing purposes.  I have a
file called zautounmask, which is where portage will dump auto-unmask
settings (since it is last alphabetically).  Over time when you have a
million entries in these files having them separated will tend to make
it a lot easier to clean them up.  I can delete my auto-unmasked
entries at any time and portage will just re-create the entries it
actually needs the next time I do an update.

Note that in general Gentoo doesn't do QA around mixed keywords.
Typically it works fine, but you will run into exceptions.  You'll be
less likely to run into issues if you avoid running mixed keywords on
things like core dependencies.  You won't have trouble in general
finding people to help, but ultimately nobody is going to officially
bend over backwards to make it work.  If you can identify what is
causing a problem there is a decent chance it will get fixed (assuming
upstream is cooperative - if some package doesn't work with a newer
dependency upstream might just say they can't be bothered to fix it
and it might not be easy to patch on our end).

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-user] To install a testing version of a package on a stable OS installation.

[R0b0t1]

On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 2:59 PM, Ста Деюс <sthu.deus@openmailbox.org> wrote:
> Hi.
>
>
> Is it possible to compile/install a testing version of a package w/ its
> dependencies on a stable OS installation? -- I mean, if a have stable
> installation of whole the system, can i compile and install a testing
> version of single package and the packages this single package depends
> on?
>

I run mixed stable and testing packages, and it seems to work very
well. The issues I have had had made me consider switching to entirely
testing (~amd64) because a lot of issues are actually
incompatibilities between stable and testing packages. There are some
people in the IRC channel on Freenode who will recommend the same
thing.

Building on what Rich said, most people will help you get unstable
packages working, but every now and then you will run into an issue
that requires bugfixes by the original package developers. Often in
this case the only solution available is waiting. Sometimes someone
will be able to help you patch the code if the problem has already
been solved but there hasn't been a release. (Sometimes Gentoo
contributors will create entirely new patches, but that is the
exception.)

R0b0t1.

Re: [gentoo-user] To install a testing version of a package on a stable OS installation.

[Ста Деюс]

Hi, R0b0t1.


On Sun, 9 Jul 2017 19:18:50 -0500, you wrote:

> > I run mixed stable and testing packages, and it seems to work very
> well. The issues I have had had made me consider switching to entirely
> testing (~amd64) because a lot of issues are actually
> incompatibilities between stable and testing packages. There are some
> people in the IRC channel on Freenode who will recommend the same
> thing.

I consider security that is more on stable part that on testing, and i
do not need whole system to be testing -- just one package that so
poorly designed/made that requires for its new version to abandon all
the data used for its previous version and make all that data anew! --
So, after that had been done for the new version (on another system), i
would use that data for the new version in Gentoo (rather than
recreate that data again for old version and then recreate again when
new version becomes stable) -- but in Gentoo the program is in testing
for now.


Thank you for your time,
Sthu.

Re: [gentoo-user] To install a testing version of a package on a stable OS installation.

[R0b0t1]

On Mon, Jul 10, 2017 at 3:52 AM, Ста Деюс <sthu.deus@openmailbox.org> wrote:
> Hi, R0b0t1.
>
>
> On Sun, 9 Jul 2017 19:18:50 -0500, you wrote:
>
>> > I run mixed stable and testing packages, and it seems to work very
>> well. The issues I have had had made me consider switching to entirely
>> testing (~amd64) because a lot of issues are actually
>> incompatibilities between stable and testing packages. There are some
>> people in the IRC channel on Freenode who will recommend the same
>> thing.
>
> I consider security that is more on stable part that on testing, and i
> do not need whole system to be testing -- just one package that so
> poorly designed/made that requires for its new version to abandon all
> the data used for its previous version and make all that data anew! --
> So, after that had been done for the new version (on another system), i
> would use that data for the new version in Gentoo (rather than
> recreate that data again for old version and then recreate again when
> new version becomes stable) -- but in Gentoo the program is in testing
> for now.
>

Compared to distributions like Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu, nearly all
of the packages in portage are "new," even the stable versions. As
such I'm not really sure you can call the testing packages less secure
by virtue of being newer. The distributions listed are the main
targets for security support and Gentoo misses out on most of that. On
Gentoo security support is often provided as a new version of the
software in question, so testing packages might be more secure than
stable ones! In a similar vein depending on what you want to do and
what you need to install, the testing versions have more useful
features or crucial bugfixes.

I don't intend this to be an argument to convince you to globally
keyword ~arch. If you don't see the need for it then that is the end
of it. However, as a software developer I often need a testing version
of a package, and that needs other packages which are in testing, and
eventually there is some widely used package which that needs to be
the version in testing or a set of packages that is mutually exclusive
that becomes selected. It eventually starts to look easier to just
install all testing packages by default. Gentoo is a distribution
mainly for developers. Even if you are not a developer, I suspect you
will start using software that is closer to the bleeding edge by
virtue of using Gentoo. At some point you may start having problems
like people have outlined in this thread, and if you do, do not be
afraid to start using unstable packages.

R0b0t1.

Re: [gentoo-user] To install a testing version of a package on a stable OS installation.

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 07/09/2017 12:59 PM, Ста Деюс wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> 
> Is it possible to compile/install a testing version of a package w/ its
> dependencies on a stable OS installation? -- I mean, if a have stable
> installation of whole the system, can i compile and install a testing
> version of single package and the packages this single package depends
> on?
> 
> 
> Thank you for your time,
> Sthu.
>

Yep, it can be done! Fairly easily, too:

A good way to do this (imo) is to create binary packages for any
packages you're going to be upgrading *BEFORE* attempting to install
from ~arch. This gives you a "get out of jail free" card to play around
with the ~arch package(s) and revert (by reinstalling the binary
package) in case it was a bad decision to upgrade. It's a good idea to
do this for any packages that could seriously break your system, like
toolchains.

Check out `man 5 make.conf`, `man quickpkg`, and `man
package.accept_keywords` for more information.

In short:

* Set '~arch' or equivalent in p.accept_keywords for the package(s)
  you're upgrading.
* Check `emerge -pv cat/foo` output, where cat/foo is the package being
  upgraded.
* Run `quickpkg` on the packages that you care about not breaking,
  especially anything close to the toolchain. Be sure to read the
  manual first, as usual. :P
* Double-check to make sure the binary packages are available. They'll
  be in $PKGDIR, defined in /etc/portage/make.conf.
* Run your emerge magic to upgrade.
* ???
* Profit!

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6


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