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tel
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 12:26 am    Post subject: ~x86 everywhere? Reply with quote

I'm getting an urge to add

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86"

to my make.conf and recompile everything, just for fun.

How unreliable is this? Can I expect failure to emerge any number of packages? Will my system need tweaking in any way once it's been updated like this? Am I doomed to fail?

How many people are running an entirely ~x86 system?

T
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widremann
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 12:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's what I use. And everything is surprisingly fine. Worst is occasionally dealing with blocker/dependency issues in portage. But remember that Gentoo doesn't release the software, upstream does, and presumably they think the releases are good enough to go public. Heck, I use X.org from Git master and it's more stable than regular stable X used to be a few years back. Of course, this all depends on what software you are using and how flaky your machine is. I might suggest making a backup before recompiling the system ~x86.
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MaximeG
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 7:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi,

I'm using ~arch (~amd64) as well. I agree with the previous message :)

If you want to use up-to-date packages and don't mind dealing with few blocking/masking issues, then you really should use it.
For bleeding edge packages however, you may want to use some cool overlays provided around.

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d2_racing
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 11:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MaximeG wrote:
I'm using ~arch (~amd64) as well. I agree with the previous message :)
If you want to use up-to-date packages and don't mind dealing with few blocking/masking issues, then you really should use it.
For bleeding edge packages however, you may want to use some cool overlays provided around.


Hi use a ~amd64 installation at work, so basically, if you know what you are doing, then I don't see any problem at all.

But, if you use some overlay, then you need to take extra care sometime.
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numerodix
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why do you need to ask? If you seek adventure then just do it :P
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M
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 5:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am on ~x86 for years, since begining, that is the place where the good stuff is ;) , sometimes you will find some blokers, sometimes it is package that is mistakenly in portage tree but nothing that can't be solved.
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i92guboj
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 5:50 pm    Post subject: Re: ~x86 everywhere? Reply with quote

tel wrote:
I'm getting an urge to add

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86"

to my make.conf and recompile everything, just for fun.


If it's just for fun, then go on. But since the rest of the people here are telling you all the good things I guess it's my time to speak about the warnings.

In first place, if you are really going to do this, first of everything update your toolchain, starting with gcc and glibc, there are guides around for that. Python will also be updated, be sure you run python-updater after that step.

Things that you can expect occasionally (or not, it depends on the things you use) are circular dependencies, blockers, some compile time error and (more than any other thing) a lot of X related problems (lately the funniest one is the hal/evdev annoyance that is hitting a lot of people). In other words, most likely you are going to have to fix many things every now and then. Some (most) of them will be easy enough to solve with a bit of forum search, some others can be really annoying. But, again, it depends on the subset of software that you use. Some people use ~arch without ever hitting a single problem.

I don't want to scare you. By all means try it if that's what you want. Just beware that potentially that will result in an OS which will need extra care.

Quote:

How many people are running an entirely ~x86 system?

T


Lots. I don't think anyone can give a fair estimation here.
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disi
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 6:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My desktop ~amd64 and I have had some problems, not only building packages but also the programs itself (some overlays as well).

The other x86 box runs and runs and runs, it gets updated about every 2 days, can't remember of any problem here.

How long is a package tested in unstable to become stable? I saw it somewhere but cannot find an official statement anymore :(
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tel
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for all the advice!

Time to take the plunge...
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 6:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

tel,

Get portage-2.2-rc... and read up on the --keep-going and --jobs options.

I use all ~ on AMD64, SPARC and X86. Its safe enough provided you do not update when you are in a hurry.
Every now and again you will get something like libexpat which takes a while to fix.

If you have the disk space, set FEATURES="buildpkg". This allows you to do emerge -K=<package>-<ver> when something nasty happens and quickly go back to an earlier version.

Its not all plain sailing but it can be safe if you are careful. When it breaks (it will), tell us about it on bugs.gentoo.org that way it gets fixed.
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desultory
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PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 12:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

disi wrote:
How long is a package tested in unstable to become stable? I saw it somewhere but cannot find an official statement anymore :(
The general rule is thirty days before filing a stable request. The official, if possibly somewhat dated, policy is "sufficient time".
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huckabuck
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PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 1:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i must say, i started to follow this thread when you started it 2 days ago. I've been curious about it for quite some time, and i knew once i put the ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" in my make.conf, i'd have to deal with the upgrad to openrc/baselayout2 ... this transition to ~arch has been so smooth. Frankly the only reason i did it was because i was curious about baselayout and openrc.

I wasn't counting on X 7.4 and thats an added bonus. I'm running gnome-light on a T43 and i must say frankly , i'm ecstatic with the initial result.

Thanks gentoo , you guys rock ... i love this community.
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mv
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PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 7:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

huckabuck wrote:
Frankly the only reason i did it was because i was curious about baselayout and openrc.

If this was really the only reason, why didn't you just put these two into you /etc/portage/package.keywords? I have very good experience with a huge package.keywords file.
I think the decision of whether you run globally ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86 or not is mainly a decision of how often you are willing to recompile: On a stable system there are considerable less version bumps than on ~x86. Moreover, if you do not like a particular upgrade for some reason, it is probably easier to postpone it on an essentially stable system, because chances are good that nothing depends on that ~x86 version.
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huckabuck
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PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 10:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The whole conversation started up my curiosity, and i hadn't attempted this in a long time. Now that i know it works for me, i can go back to the stable branch and set it up cleanly. I've never had very large package.keywords file, but a friend of mine sets up his gentoo that way. I am thinking i might try it this way soon myself. After 2 years of living with gentoo, i still sometimes get lost in some of the topics very quickly. the 2.6.29-r3 kernel wont boot for me yet with a grub15 error, but currently the 2.6.28-r5 stable is playing nicely. Overall, this has been a good experience for me .
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d2_racing
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PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 5:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And if you want to play hardcore, then just before doing something, you can create a Stage 4 or a Stage 5 backup.
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

huckabuck,

Grub Error 15 means you have a mismatch between the kernel file name in /boot and the kernel file name in grub.conf.
If you forgot to mount /boot (if you have it as its own partition) the kernel will nor be in the right place.
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huckabuck
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PostPosted: Fri May 08, 2009 12:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks Neddy .. thats exactly what that was,

Code:
tux ~ # uname -a
Linux tux 2.6.29-gentoo-r3 #4 SMP Thu May 7 20:14:39 EDT 2009 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
tux ~ #


Good to go :D
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d2_racing
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PostPosted: Fri May 08, 2009 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And for the record, my box is more stable then if I use the amd64 with a lot of packages inside /etc/portage/package.keywords
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seqizz
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PostPosted: Sat May 09, 2009 11:30 am    Post subject: :\ Reply with quote

i never tried x86 (stable)... is it safe? :mrgreen:
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d2_racing
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PostPosted: Sat May 09, 2009 1:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I hope so :P
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

i never tried x86 (stable)... is it safe? :mrgreen:


A good question actually!

Personally, I run x86 stable with about 20 some-odd packages keyworded. Half of those are packages that will never be stable (typically sci-libs type stuff like vtk) and the other half are for fixing broken 'stable-ness'. For example, the current stable postgresql is broken so virtual/postgresql-server is in there, the current stable ATI driver and VMWare modules fail utterly against the current stable 2.6.29-r5 kernel, so app-emulation/vmware-modules is in there (and the ATI issue required a patch not currently in the tree), etc. That 'other half' changes constantly as supposedly stable things go in and out of 'stable-ness' on my stable system.

So, IMO, I'd say stable is only marginally safer than unstable :P I only see two differences:

  • Do you want to fix new stuff that breaks, or old stuff that breaks
  • There are typically more unstable releases between stable releases, so you compile more often


In my experience portage seems to break/block equally in either stable or unstable. I sync once a day, so my system is up-to-date, but I can guarantee if I do an 'emerge --emptytree world' today I'd have to ride herd on the thing and fix a number of breakages along the way. Not much different than when I run a fully unstable keyworded system. IMO unstable isn't any more or less reliable, just a little more ongoing work.
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d2_racing
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

radio_flyer wrote:
Quote:

i never tried x86 (stable)... is it safe? :mrgreen:


A good question actually!

Personally, I run x86 stable with about 20 some-odd packages keyworded. Half of those are packages that will never be stable (typically sci-libs type stuff like vtk) and the other half are for fixing broken 'stable-ness'. For example, the current stable postgresql is broken so virtual/postgresql-server is in there, the current stable ATI driver and VMWare modules fail utterly against the current stable 2.6.29-r5 kernel, so app-emulation/vmware-modules is in there (and the ATI issue required a patch not currently in the tree), etc. That 'other half' changes constantly as supposedly stable things go in and out of 'stable-ness' on my stable system.

So, IMO, I'd say stable is only marginally safer than unstable :P I only see two differences:

  • Do you want to fix new stuff that breaks, or old stuff that breaks
  • There are typically more unstable releases between stable releases, so you compile more often




Also, when something is fix inside the unstable tree, sometimes it can break big time on the stable tree even if it's working on the unstable tree.

Example : https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=270950

This bug wasn't there on the unstable tree, since it had already the right depends.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok, so I have a question...

I just burnt up my Athlon XP box, which I've used for a few years now and I'm building a new system on a Turion 64 laptop.

I wanted to build basically the exact system (I used ACCEPT_KEYWORDS ~x86 before), now should I use ~amd64 in its place, or would I still want to use the ~x86 keyword?

thanks, I sometimes think I'm beginning the process all over again...
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i92guboj
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

papapenguin wrote:
ok, so I have a question...

I just burnt up my Athlon XP box, which I've used for a few years now and I'm building a new system on a Turion 64 laptop.

I wanted to build basically the exact system (I used ACCEPT_KEYWORDS ~x86 before), now should I use ~amd64 in its place, or would I still want to use the ~x86 keyword?

thanks, I sometimes think I'm beginning the process all over again...


Conceptually speaking, you should use whatever your arch is, no matter what cpu your machine has. If you are using a 32 bits gentoo, then that's "~x86", if you are using a 64 bits install, then it's "~amd64".

Technically speaking, you can continue to use "~x86" for the most part even in amd64, if you know what you are doing. That flag only tells portage which package should be considered "mergeable", it doesn't really affect anything having to do with the architecture used to compile the packages or something like that. I've done this in the past just for convenience, because in the past package tended to take months to stabilize on amd64 after they were stable on x86. Of course, there can be occasional problems because stable for x86 doesn't always mean stable in amd64 (but you can assume so safely 99% of the times).
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