possible updates

modnaruved · Apprentice Joined: 21 Mar 2011 Posts: 160

hi

I want to see possible updates on my system, without having to emerge sync or full sync. Is there a simple or complex solution?

This behaviour like some git commands maybe.

jormartr · Apprentice Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 174

I don't think so, you need to emerge --sync | eix-sync first.

John R. Graham · Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 11:24 am Post subject:

Correct. The information necessary to determine what updates are available is retrieved by "emerge --sync".

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

modnaruved · Apprentice Joined: 21 Mar 2011 Posts: 160

John R. Graham · Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 1:04 pm Post subject:

No, "emerge --sync" does not itself make any changes to the installed software on your system. It just updates Portage's databases of what software versions are available for install.

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

chithanh · Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 1:17 pm Post subject:

You can use eix-remote for that. However its currentness of data has been suffering lately, so it may not give the expected results.

desultory · Bodhisattva Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 9410

If you need, or just really want, to be able to check for updates in that fashion you could make use of bind mounts and a chroot environment to keep your system in use pristine while allowing you to check for updates. Bear in mind that it not be pretty and it would almost certainly be more trouble that it would even arguably be worth. Another option, more in keeping with a veneer of sanity, would be to have a wholly separate system, physical or virtual, that was updated first which would allow for much the same sort of information to be extracted without doing anything especially fragile or arcane.