CGOG2: Have you ever re-installed due to failed upgrade?

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

For me, reinstall=completely wipe, and starting fresh from scratch.

steveL · Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:23 pm Post subject:

Naib · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 1:30 am Post subject:

keet · Guru Joined: 09 Sep 2008 Posts: 567

I could be in 'never 3' category as I have been using Gentoo long enough, but I like to install it anew when I install it on a new computer to stay familiar with the installation process and reread the guides in case there is anything new.

I have been using the same installation on my desktop for almost four years. I have installed and uninstalled (and sometimes reinstalled) Gnome, KDE, systemd, and many other things, along with switching from a hard drive to an S.S.D. and back, changing partition layouts many times, and using different kinds of hard drive encryption.

depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

None Of The Above - you forgot one case...

Reinstalling to change from 32-bit to 64-bit.

I also tend to cycle through my hardware, and sometimes it's hard to tell whether a machine is old or new, because all ages of parts are in it. But I had several 32-bit machines running, and initially migrated one of those hard drives onto my first Athlon 64. I stuck with 32-bit for a while, but after I had enough RAM for it to matter, and as the developers migrated to 64-bit, I did also.

But it takes a reinstall.

It may also be an unfair question in a way, because I may have a hard drive with a Gentoo installation on it "go idle" for a year or so, then want to put it back into a machine. At that point I don't try to update. The new machine doesn't particularly resemble the one it came out of, and by then it's so stale it's not worth trying to update.
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.sigs waste space and bandwidth

steveL · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 5:55 pm Post subject:

IDK the other options about retry and cyclic, are about not upgrading for a while and having to reinstall, because you couldn't keep up to date with the tree, apparently because dealing with dependency changes is too difficult, or something.

In that context I don't consider a fresh install on a new machine to fall into either category. It's just normal usage.

gerard27 · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 8:15 pm Post subject:

I clicked "situation never 3".
I almost did reinstall though.

On this box I have KDE (~amd64) which I continually upgraded from I think 4.3 to what it is now.
Couple of months ago I started noticing a severe deterioration of legibility of characters in Firefox
and Thunderbird.
My eyesight is poor due to old age and makular degeneration so I tried to find out what happened.
To make a long story short I deleted /home/username/.kde4 with kde switched off.
After restart I opened system settings to get everything back to where it was.
That cured the problem.

Apparently something in the kde rc files was the cause.

Gerard.
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To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

krinn · Watchman Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 7470

The only reinstall i've made was after disk failure, when i upgrade my hardware hosts, i reuse the hdd or copy their content to the new host and keep going.

steveL · Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:39 am Post subject:

Gatsby · Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 4:59 pm Post subject:

Three Gentoo systems here. One desktop from 2006, another from 2011 and a laptop from 2012.
Never a need for reinstall.
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Γνωθι σεαυτον.

mrbassie · l33t Joined: 31 May 2013 Posts: 772 Location: over here

Not yet. Don't plan to.

Irre · Guru Joined: 09 Nov 2013 Posts: 434 Location: Stockholm

If I remember right I never have reinstalled Gentoo.

I contrast to other systems a gentoo installation becomes more and more healthy with time!

jonathan183 · Guru Joined: 13 Dec 2011 Posts: 318

I have never had to re-install Gentoo due to leaving updates too long. I did a fresh install for most of my systems mid last year to start using tripwire on a fresh install (otherwise they would have been based on a 6+year old install).
I do still have one system with a January 2009 install date that I run mythtv on - so it's almost 6 years and counting ... I also have Arch Linux on the same machine also installed January 2009.
I think I decided around 2009 to fix things rather than reinstall

Cyker · Veteran Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 1746

Hopeless!

My problem is, I want my system to be a certain way; Every so often Gentoo would break that so I'd stop updating until I could sort out an overlay or something, but usually by the time I'd sorted that out (Maybe a month or two), attempting to sync portage would cause total system breakage \o/

Then I'd just not update from the tree but instead and do everything slackware-style (Manual compile, or, if I had time, hacking ebuilds into my own portage tree).

To be fair this has only happened a few times; My server lasted the longest - began as a P200MMX and ended up an Opteron 180 :lol:

But that stopped being updated around the time kernel 2.6.38 became stable due to a sudden huge dependency cascade that I never got to the bottom of.

I'm only current right now because I just built a shiny new 64-bit system

(Boy does it fly compared to the Opteron!

).
I haven't been as strict with dependencies because it's so time consuming, but this system already has nearly double the number of packages my old system has, including new things like alsa, pulseaudio and graphics drivers (And this server is headless!) that I haven't had time to track down the source of

Apheus · Guru Joined: 12 Jul 2008 Posts: 422

Situation Never 3 - First gentoo install was 6 and a half years ago. Grew to 3 barebone machines (2 KDE desktops, one openbox/xbmc as HTPC) and a virtualbox guest. Updated weekly or monthly.