Emerge gnome wants to remerge xfree

adaptr

Hi all,

Have just done a partway LiveCD install (CD 1 only) for Pentium 3...

I figured that I'd get the rest off the 'net, the full LiveCD was just to get started a bit quicker than doing a stage 1, which I have done in the past, but it has more of an achievement value ("hey, look at me - I did a full stage 1!") than anything else for me..

BUT - on the CD was xfree-4.3.0-r2, which I merged with --usepkgonly, all went well, so far so good, right?

Wrong. Next step was to emerge -pv gnome, and guess what - it wants to emerge xfree-4.3.0-r3.

A whopping 8 hour+ build, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid.

Now here's the question:
Why in the world does portage insist on upgrading xfree to a minor version when surely 4.3.0-r2 will do the job just as well - I thought emerge specifically DOESN'T upgrade dependent packages unless I tell it to!

I could be wrong, but it has me stumped.

Am now getting the 2nd LiveCD to force the binary gnome build down its throat, but does this sort of flummery mean I'll have to go through that every time from now on ?

I sure hope not - because if it does, that'll effectively render Gentoo useless from the easy upgrade path perspective.

Also I don't remember these problems with previous (pre-1.4) installs...

Ah well.

arkhan_jg · Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2003 7:45 pm Post subject:

As a temporary measure, you could add xfree-4.3.0-r3 to package.mask, or just

ecatmur · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 12:49 am Post subject:

The r2 and r3 4.3.0 Xfree ebuilds are different.

Xfree do not release new versions often, so there are significant changes between the two builds - a cursory diff | wc gives 348 1272 9051, which is more than just a few patches.

Incidentally, etcat -d 'xfree-4.3.0-r3' shows that the package asking for r3 is x11-libs/gtk+-2.2.4-r1, and inspecting the ebuild gives the line:
# Need this specific xfree version to get bugfree xinput support (#20407)
Follow the link to find why this is necessary.

This sort of problem arises when the Live CDs fall significantly behind the stable Portage tree - 1.4 is August, IIRC. But to be honest, building medium size packages like Xfree is part and parcel of using a source based distro. (IOW - get used to it

)

It is true that for future installs on other machines, getting them up to a current stable tree will require a new Xfree, at least until a new LiveCD comes out. However if they are the same arch then you need simply build the binary package once and transfer it over, or make your own LiveCD from the current Portage tree.

adaptr · Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 3:55 pm Post subject:

Thanks, both.

I understood most of that before I posted, it just seems a major oversight (to me, which may not mean much) that in order to install a newer version of something which has dependencies that I do not have or use, I should be forced to install those dependencies anyway...

Anyways, I totally redid the GRP install (took less time this round, as I had already grokked and installed LVM stuff ;-)

, and instead of sync'ing, I now installed gnome-2.2.2 completely from the 2nd LiveCD.

However, the same problem keeps occuring, with all sorts of packages.

I am not complaining about specific emerges not working as I expected, but more a sort of overall philosophical block I keep running into.

Maybe I should cut down on the USE flags...

Anyway, thanks again, but I guess I'll be struggling with this for some time - since any emerge world will take a day or 3 on my P3-733.