How to make Gentoo bleeding edge

[fusion809]

Hi,

I was wondering, if it might be possible to make Portage install and upgrade to, only the very latest available software versions found in my local copy of the Portage Tree (which I sync regularly), hence making Gentoo bleeding edge. I know such a system would be unstable and it would be on my own head if doing this broke my system, but I was wondering if Portage has some option that will cause it to install/upgrade to only the very latest software versions and not the "best" versions it works with, by default. This question is identical to one I asked yesterday the Unix & Linux StackExchange, if you would rather answer this question there instead (doesn't bother me where this question gets answered, just that it gets answered) http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions ... test-avail.

Thanks for your time,
Brenton

[ct85711]

portage goes by the version number when deciding which version to use within the chosen keyword (i.e ~amd64 or stable amd64, etc...). So in short, yes you can have portage use any ebuilds you put in your overlay over the ones in the portage tree. For the most part, portage will always want to use the newest version available. The few times a certain package specifies a limit on version, is often because it won't work beyond that limit (you can always copy that ebuild to your overlay and remove that restriction too). You should be able to find information on how to setup a local overlay in the wiki.

[The Doctor]

put ~ in front of your arch in make.conf. The packages that are not pulled are going to be masked. You can unmask in package.accept_keywords with **. I believe you can use wild cards, so you could do

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dev-haskell/* **

to unmask all haskell packages, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

In any case, blindly accepting all masked packages isn't likely to achieve anything good. You would probably be best served by doing this only for packages that add some new feature or fix a bug that you must have.

In practice packages basically go directly to unstable for amd64 platforms unless there is a known problem or the package is especially critical like GCC or glibc. Packages like kde packages often be in the tree before the source is even available for download.

[khayyam]

You can unmask in package.accept_keywords with **. I believe you can use wild cards, so you could do 'dev-haskell/* **' to unmask all haskell packages, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

The Doctor ... that is correct, so the following is in effect what the OP was asking for:

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*/* **

Note that this removes all keywords, so if a package is keyworded for mips, or alpha, only, then whatever the arch the package is available. Also note that doing this will probably cause all kinds of issues, firstly you will be pulling in many *-9999 (live) ebuilds, and secondly, all tracking of compatibility between a package and *DEPENDS is gone, not to mention you would be unmasking package known to be broken (ie, =sys-apps/sandbox-2.11*).

best ... khay

[Perfect Gentleman]

Code: Select all

cat /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords
*/* **

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cat /etc/portage/package.unmask
*/*

also add some overlays such as x11, kde, qt, gnome and so on

[NeddySeagoon]

fusion809,

How much blood do you want?

The closer you get to the bleeding edge the more problems you will have.
-9999 packages pull fron the upstream repository as it is when you emerge. They may not even compile. Come back is 30 min, they may compile and not work.

The **/** keyword will be very 'entertaining' in use. You might use a different word. Keywords prevent packages that are known to be broken an your ARCH from being considered for install, so in effect, save you from yourself.

Its much more usual to limit the blood to a small area of interest and not your entire install.

Live builds of even one @system system package can stop your system booting. If you are prepared for that and will contribute patches to fix the issues, go ahead.

While you are dipping a toe in the water, use ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~arch", add buildpkg to your FEATURES= and read about emerge -K
That's a testing Gentoo for your arch with (eventually) a get out of jail free card. Once you have that working, choose an area that interests you and move closer to the bleeding edge there.

A lot of development takes place in overlays these days, so ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~arch" mostly works. Add in a few overlays and join in the development.

[steveL]

I was wondering, if it might be possible to make Portage install and upgrade to, only the very latest available software versions found in my local copy of the Portage Tree (which I sync regularly), hence making Gentoo bleeding edge.

This is a bit of a non-sequitur: randomly pulling the latest version evah means pulling from vcs in many cases, which isn't bleeding-edge: it's suicidal. ;)

I know such a system would be unstable and it would be on my own head if doing this broke my system, but I was wondering if Portage has some option that will cause it to install/upgrade to only the very latest software versions and not the "best" versions it works with, by default.

As others have pointed out, you're really asking about running unstable (and possibly using a few packages direct from git.)
I just want to address the "best" part of your query, as it sounds like you are talking about portage's "best-visible" algorithm, which simply selects the latest version that is not masked, per your configuration (by version, and then by overlay preference; not the other way round: so a later version in a lower-priority overlay still "wins".)
You don't ever want to get rid of that, and won't, even where you do unmask blindly: it's just how portage works.

Personally I do not run unstable across the board, as I don't want to deal with random packages I don't know nor care about, breaking. Especially not in base-system. But if you want bleeding-edge, that's it.
So long as you have a rescue-disk, and time, you should be fine.