make.conf gets blown away! how to recover?

stiletto · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 3

Sorry if this is a FAQ, but I couldn't find it anyway, and I'm a gentoo newbie...

The whole point of building everything is so you can go through and tweak the CFLAGS and USE settings before building everything. Unfortunately, somwhere during installation, before stage 3, make.conf gets blown away and replaced with the default. This has happened to me twice, and the result is a box with everything compiled using the default settings!

Questions:

1. What causes make.conf to get blown away like this, and how can I avoid it?

2. What is the effect of changing the USE setting after you get to stage 3? Do I need to go back and redo "emerge system", or should I be okay? Is there a way to go back and rebuild my libc, binutils, gcc, etc. with the new CFLAGS?

It seems to me that the documentation should suggest you set make.conf to READ ONLY to keep it from being overwritten!

rtn · Guru Joined: 15 Nov 2002 Posts: 427

I believe that if your bootstrap doesn't complete successfully, your make.conf
will have been changed. Your old make.conf is in /etc, but renamed to something
that I can't remember offhand.

If you want, you could rebuild the whole system with 'emerge -e world', but
whenever you emerge a new application, it will use your new settings. Eventually,
you will likely rebuild your entire system, but it might take a loong time.

--rtn

masseya

stiletto · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 3

masseya · Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:07 pm Post subject:

That's an excellent question. I would imagine so, but the thing that is confusing is that a few steps later they say you should setup your /etc/make.conf. I don't remember exactly what happened since I haven't installed in a while. Regardless, your next emerge command should use the modified make.conf settings. You could simply back them up before you do that and then replace them when you are done with it, but that's a little clunky. I'll look into that.
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Skraut · Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 12:42 am Post subject:

I Just had the same problem with this.

after messing up my kernel I just decided it'd be easier to start over.

I made quite a few changes to my make.conf one of which was to use a different mirror to dramatically speed up the bootstrap process.

I noticed immediately when I started the bootstrap that I wasn't downloading from that mirror and that my make.conf had been overwritten.

I tried a couple different CONFIG_PROTECT strings, and each time bootstrap blew away my make.conf and all my settings.

I finally ended up editing my make.globals. I know I probably shouldn't have, but it seemed the only way to get many of my settings to stick. Copying my cflags isn't enough, as there is more to the make.conf than just the cflags

masseya · Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 5:45 am Post subject:

Skraut, I think it has to be happening in the bootstrap process. I just ran through a stage2 (pre-bootstrapped) install and found that at no point was my make.conf corrupted. I also remember thinking that my make.conf settings were reset during my last stage1 install, but I would very much like to confirm this prior to stating it as fact.

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Skraut · Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 4:43 pm Post subject:

Yes, it only happened durring bootstrap. I've passed stages 2 and 3 and am emerging xfree right now, and the only time my make.conf was overwritten was durring the bootstrap.

It was just frustrating thath I kept loosing my other settings from my make.conf such as my GENTOO_MIRRORS and USE statements.

At least I learned a valuable lesson. Always back up your make.conf :wink:

ScubaStreb · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 01 Jul 2002 Posts: 118

when you "emerge portage" in step 9. That was when I noticed a new make.conf. I think that Portage writes a default file there.
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hmiller68 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 21 Dec 2002 Posts: 77

Yes it happens during the bootstrap of a stage1 I kept getting kernel errors after a reboot on a new install. I finally just editted the /etc/make.globals file (I know you should never touch it but if you cant get the /etc/make.conf to actualy work ???? whats left but that..) I also did a copy of the /etc/make.conf to my tmp and then after bootstrap I just copied it back into /etc that way I didnt have to edit the file for the 100th time. I just left the /etc/make .globals edit I made in there . It works so Im not going to argue with it if it like the edited file Im hapy that its happy.
All I putin the file was CFLAGS="-mcpu=athlon -O3 -pipe" anyway no biggie.

masseya · Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 5:49 am Post subject:

Ok, here's the way that it should work as I understand it after chatting with people far smarter than I am. make.conf settings are pulled from the file before anything it placed there and it's backed up to /etc/make.conf.build before anything is clobbered. After the bootstrap, the settings should be replaced and make.conf should be as you left it. If you abort the bootstrap process or do anything that's abnormal this won't happn.

Thus, you should try to reproduce this problem, and submit a bug report. This is absolutely something that the developers will want to fix if it's broken, but be sure that your settings are being clobbered and that it's reproducable. I would like them to be just as productive as possible.

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DarkJedi9 · Apprentice Joined: 28 Oct 2002 Posts: 204

hielvc · Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2003 1:56 am Post subject:

I think there are 2 progams that can get your make.conf. 1 portage 2. baselayout. ANyway for those pass bootstarp emerge "gentoolkit" that will give you etc-update. Its nice to have when xfree about 23 config updates or gnome again 20+. Oh and you just might want to change or add the
" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/share/config ""
to your make.conf file now, but hell maybe Buffy is on and I'll do it later :wink:

hiel

Grandpa · n00b Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 53 Location: Kansas City

This sounds like this might just be part of my problem in sage1. I posted a question about this titled Emerge portage problem.
Code listing 9.1: Updating Using sync

# emerge sync
# export CONFIG_PROTECT="-*"
# export USE="-* bootstrap build"
# emerge portage <here is the problem>
# unset USE

I get the following errors.
Configure Error: C++ preprocessor "/lib/cpp" fails security check
!!! Error: sys-libs /ncurses-5.3-r1: failed
!!! Function Econf, line 353, Exite code 1
!!! Econf failed

Maybe some her can help? I was wondering is the make.conf file suppose to be edited before this step or after? If I remeber correctly in the install docs it was after. Just wondering if this is error is caused from my 1.2 Ghz AMD Duron Processor not being recognized correctly? Any help would be apprecited.
Thanks,
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Sykus · Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2003 9:51 pm Post subject:

this problem is getting rather annoying. i've set make.conf to be protected, but everytime i rebuild portage, it blows it away, the only reason i really give a damn, is that i'm trying to "emerge -e world", but everytime it rebuilds portage, the rest of the emerge gets zero tweaks. is there some way to eliminate portage from "emerge -e world" ?

BradN · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2003 12:04 am Post subject:

Whoa... when they tell you to 'export CONFIG_PROTECT=".*"', that doesn't involve changing your make.conf. You're just supposed to set it at the command line for the subsequent commands. Right?

hielvc · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2003 12:39 am Post subject:

Ok, last night I was checking out 1.4-rc3 cd. If you "export CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc/make.conf" that will protect your make.conf file. When you botstrap the first progaram it emerges is portage and will wipe your make.config makeing it hard to build with your CFLAGS :wink:

I tried and it works. The other new config files are best updated at this point.

BradN question about setting CONFIG_PROTECT="-*" means nothing is protected from being updated, ergo goodby make.conf with MY dadgun CFLAGS .

I filed this and several other mistakes/different way of doing it, that I came across in the install.txt doc on the cd.

You can add to the "bug" or review it by looking up bug# 16718. TO add just go the install doc online, html and or the install.txt on the cd and follow and read it line by line. It would be best if you were actual doing the install. It is easy enough to set up a test dir in your home dir Thinking about it if you use the html install doc might be best to start a new bug# as that would be less confiusing for the doc maintainers.

hiel

BradN · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2003 1:01 am Post subject:

I mean the instructions aren't telling you to modify a setting in make.conf - I thought maybe some people had gotten confused by that. Yeah, if you bootstrap without protecting make.conf, you're gonna lose it... lol

Sykus · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2003 5:29 am Post subject:

but see, on my system, it doesn't care that i protect make.conf. it over writes it and everything after portage in a 'emerge -e world' will be compiled with a vanilla make.conf. this makes baby jesus cry.