Installing portage on other distros, easier than ever

dlong500 · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 9:52 pm Post subject:

devsk, I have tried to install the new python 2.3.4 rpm, but I'm having a problem.

I downloaded a source rpm for the new version of Python, and was able to build an rpm from it; however, when I try to install it I get the following:

devsk · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:21 pm Post subject:

cp /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/python2_2.2.2

and proceed with 'f' option to force the install. There should only be one conflict and that is the executable. I think rpm has found it correctly. Everything else is in separate directories. if you get into trouble, just rename the 2.3.4 with some prefix and restore /usr/bin/python2_2.2.2 to /usr/bin/python2 and you would be fine.

dlong500 · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 12:30 am Post subject:

Thanks so much for your help devsk!

I think I've got it working now.

A few more question though... How would you recommend migrating the majority of the programs being managed by rpm to being managed by portage?
In other words, if I want to start updating apache, perl, php, etc.. using portage, how do I begin that process? Should I force an uninstall using rpm -e --nodeps? And if so, will portage install things in different locations that could create problems? Is there a safe way to know what files/directories to delete for a particular application before emerging the version maintained by portage? And is there a safe order to uninstalling programs managed by rpm that one is going to migrate to portage?

Have there been any problems trying to switch from rpm to portage for heavy footprint applications like apache and perl?

I want to dive into this but thought I'd ask if anyone has a recommended method to this madness

devsk · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 7:27 am Post subject:

first, apache and perl are not in the same category. I have emerged perl without any proble and updated my system after that. second, thing to note about portage on fedora/redhat is that the server scripts(/etc/init.d) need to be hand modified to work on redhat/fedora because there is no /sbin/runscript, which part of baselayout/sysvinit packages (although you could try hacking up a /sbin/runscript and its associated croonies like start-stop-daemon, I would say it has potential to break your system boot). so, you change the scripts installed by portage to use /bin/bash.

so stay away from server programs in general...that kinda sucks because thos are the programs which you wanna update the most for security reasons.

if you ever dare and succeed in cleanly creating a safe /sbin/runscript and family, which won't kill my fedora system, don't forget to update us here on that.

dlong500 · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 8:30 am Post subject:

I'd really like to be able to manage apache through portage, so I'll look into what it will take to create a runscript family.
That would be cool.

Oh, I forgot to mention that (I think) there is a small typo in the current script in the first post of this thread.
In the line:

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2968

Update: Python no longer segfaults on my system after I un-installed the Cygwin version 2.4, and compiled 2.3.4 fresh from www.python.org instead. (But ./configure sure took a long time...

)

But I have 2 more problems now:

emerge --sync refuses to go to updating the cache for some reason. I have set

Code:

RSYNC_TIMEOUT=1800
RSYNC_RETRIES=30

but when I try to sync it ends up retrying and retrying with the following message (it has been doing this for 3 hours already):

Code:

Number of files: 111825
Number of files transferred: 61
Total file size: 87180631 bytes
Total transferred file size: 19764 bytes
Literal data: 19764 bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 2650351
Total bytes sent: 1370
Total bytes received: 2673590

sent 1370 bytes received 2673590 bytes 3312.64 bytes/sec
total size is 87180631 speedup is 32.59
rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at /home/lapo/packagi
ng/tmp/rsync-2.6.3/main.c(1146)
>>> retry ...

I will try to compile rsync from source to see if this fixes the problem.

EDIT: I gave up waiting for it to stop looping and now am trying emerge --metadata instead.

EDIT 2: emerge --metadata completed successfully, but not without several ominous looking errors like this (for several packages):

Code:

Failed cache update: net-www/apache-2.0.52-r1 "Corruption detected when reading
key 'apache-2.0.52-r1': Key count mismatch"

emerge is refusing to read /etc/make.conf! This is a bit annoying as I have to pass it parameters on the command line. For example, it keeps on insisting to sync from rsync.gentoo.org when I have set
Code:

RSYNC="rsync://mirror.averse.net/gentoo-portage"

Also, emerge --info shows that my CHOST, CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS are being ignored silently.

EDIT 3: I continued with the part of the script after emerge --sync and it starts dying again after injecting baselayout.

devsk · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 4:21 pm Post subject:

devsk · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 4:45 pm Post subject:

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2968

devsk · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 5:02 pm Post subject:

doesn't cygwin provide an abstraction for users/groups?

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2968

dlong500 · Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:10 am Post subject:

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2968

devsk · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 1:46 am Post subject:

devsk · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 1:48 am Post subject:

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2968

rush_ad · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 8:40 am Post subject:

has anyone tried this out on suse 9.2? i was thinking about installing portage on suse 9.2 but dont know how to use the script. can someone please explain me step by step.
total dummy here.

devsk · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 4:46 pm Post subject:

rush_ad · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:40 pm Post subject:

do i need to download anything and put that in the same folder? or just the script is fine?
do i need to install the portage tarball before using the script

devsk · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:26 pm Post subject:

rush_ad · Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:25 pm Post subject:

do you know if doing this would make suse not function in anyway? planning to try this out once i get home.

devsk · Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:31 pm Post subject:

dlong500 · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:03 am Post subject:

I think I'm well on my way to getting services like apache working on my Redhat 9 VPS when installed by portage.

I took your idea, devsk, of installing baselayout to the temp directory and then copying over certain files. I then modified the Redhat-style init script for apache to simply call the gentoo init script for the start, stop, and reload commands. Everything seems to be working both when calling the Gentoo-style script directly and through the Redhat-style script, so the next step I suppose is to try restarting the VPS (I'm a little scared). I'm hoping that everything the Gentoo-style script needs is available at the time the system runs the Redhat-style wrapper script.

If this works, then I guess it's on to Mysql!!

I'm sure I've done things that were unnecessary and/or have left uneeded junk lying around my system, but I'll post the steps I went through to get it all working. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be (assuming my system boots back up properly). Long live portage!