Downgrade package with a ton of dependencies (Gnome)

hubertnnn · n00b Joined: 26 Oct 2013 Posts: 28

Today I decided to do a whole system update (portage --sync && portage -avuD @world). After that I found that new gnome 3.12 looks extremely ugly and some apps are hard to use with new look&feel, and I want 3.10 back.
My first idea was to mask ">=gnome-base/gnome-3.12" but that did nothing else than downgrading a single package, so I decided to grab it form the other side, and masked ">=x11-libs/gtk+-3.12" and did "emerge -av1uD =x11-libs/gtk+-3.10.8", this time I got error:

Chiitoo · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 12:39 am Post subject: ><)))°€

Teegrins, hubertnnn!

I haven't had Gnome installed for 4 years (I forget if I ever actually installed it fully, heh), but generally, I'd probably start by un-merging things (although this will of course render things unusable pretty quick-like!).

Masking the base gnome-package is probably a good idea, since that's probably(?) something that decides the dependencies... or so I might guess. It might be a chore to downgrade the other packages, still, which is why the first thing that I'd probably do is remove them all...

It is possible to do something like this:

krinn · Watchman Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 7470

The best way is mask everything.

But the "not best way", but "easiest way" is remove Gnome, than --depclean, now that anything gnome has been removed, all dependencies that can be pull to get your gnome must respect that gnome version.

hubertnnn · n00b Joined: 26 Oct 2013 Posts: 28

Tried masking with * and it ended up badly- some stuff got masked some not some too much, just big mess.
Unmerging gnome and depclean did nothing, portage still tried to get newest version of every package complaining that gtk+ is masked.
During that I found that gnome is build of 170 packeds and I dont feel like maualy masking every single one of them. Is there an automated way of doing that (a script that will mask everything that depends on >=gtk+-3.12)?

Cyker · Veteran Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 1746

This is going to be of small comfort now, but everyone:

emerge demerge NOW

Then, next time you are going to so something like this, first run

Chiitoo · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 1:24 am Post subject:

hubertnnn · n00b Joined: 26 Oct 2013 Posts: 28

I found issue with dependences, I forgot to remove gnome USE flag and libreoffice was pulling some gnomeish stuff, now I have gnome fully removed and successfully(kinda) downgraded gtk to 3.10.
The only package that was using it was gtkmm, so I started playing with it and here is what I found:
[img]http://s27.postimg.org/z2e7xxlrj/Zrzut_ekranu_z_2014_07_24_15_34_34.jpg[/img]
First world upgrade was without masking (third line in package.mask/gnome) gtkmm (it failed), second was with mask (success), there is nothing that depends on gtkmm-3.12.

So it seem like portage is ignoring every package other than newest, even if there is gtkmm-3.10 that fits perfect, it tried gtkmm-3.12, finds missing dependency and stops without trying other versions.
Same problem comes with gnome, if I try to merge gnome-3.10 and it says depends on >=gnome-apps-3.10, it will only try gnome-apps-3.12 and fail to update.
Is that how this should work or am I doing it wrong?

edit:
This is what happens when I am trying to emerge gnome
http://pastebin.com/yr694faM

edt2:
For a single package adding --autounmask-keep-masks solved the issue (portage used gtkmm 3.10 without masking 3.12).
For whole gnome it did not work, "emerge -pv --autounmask-keep-masks --backtrack=10000 gnome" still failed:

Chiitoo · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:18 am Post subject:

Right, I guess it should pull in the highest acceptable version (and if, like I mentioned before, the gnome meta-package requires >=gnome-base/gnome-core-libs-3.10.0, and 3.12.0 is stable (as it is), that would do, too... I didn't quite think that through before (perhaps I was thinking it was unstable still) my bad).

I'm not sure what to make of that gnome-shell build failure. I've seen it (or something very similar) before, but that's all I remember about it. Since you've built it before, it must be some sort of a dependency thing... or so I maybe guess? Perhaps a dedicated topic for this would be in place.

This is also too late at this point, of course, but it might help in the future: FEATURES="buildpkg" in make.conf, and you'll have binary packages created for all builds (if you don't mind using some space for them, this can be quite useful indeed, especially in situations where you want to go back to the previously built version of a package).
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Kindest of regardses.