What's the Gentoo / Linux lifecycle like?

helba · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2002 Posts: 31

OK, we all know that winblows / windoze installations need to be reformated and reinstalled every 6 months or so to be usable. Now, what's the situation with Linux and or Gentoo in particular? Does it start to get bogged down like in windoze? I'm interested, because I'm reaching the stage where if I wasn't using linux, I would probably need to do a reformat soon....

ebrostig · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 7:22 pm Post subject:

No, and if it does and you can identify the program that causes the problem, you can remove it with 'emerge -C program-name'

There is also no need to re-install because of the LiveCD gets updated as it is only used during the initial install.

Use 'emerge rsync && emerge -u world' to keep your system updated on a regular basis.

Erik
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idl · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 7:43 pm Post subject:

I often used to reinstall Linux when i was using mandrake or slackware, the dependancy hell made my system a complete mess of half installed software and stale packages... with Gentoo however I can't see this ever happening.

qpkg -I -q is also usefull for keeping your system clean.
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masseya · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 7:47 pm Post subject:

Lovechild · Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2003 9:20 pm Post subject:

I reinstall my system about every two weeks... because I like it...

But if you are a bit careful, you should never have to reinstall - unless there's a major upgrade like the gcc2 -> gcc3 switch for which it might be beneficial to reinstall rather than to upgrade...

noff · Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2003 12:03 am Post subject:

The switch to 2.6 might not even demand a reinstall. It generally takes a major upgrade to either gcc or glibc to make a reinstall worth it.
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carpman · Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2003 12:09 am Post subject:

Hello, why do people re install so much?

In the days of 95 / 98 i can understand the need, i have had win2k on my main workstation for last 2 years without a re install. It is stable for an MS machine, very few crashes.

I think the problem is caused by constant installing of demo or use once never use again software, to avoid this use something like Ghost and take snapshots of system when it is as you want it, then when it starts to get bogged down just reload good ghost image.

Need to separate off data/home dir for this to work.

I hate to reinstall, takes ages to get my system and programs back how i like it.

PS i do use gentoo, have it on sub note book and will be installing it on my toshiba portege 7020 this week also plan to move over to gentoo on main workstation soon.

gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

Nt needs less reinstallation, but still gets bogged down by junk. One thing is that in linux applications tend not to try and start up at boot time unliss you want them to.

However, i've only had to reinstall gentoo 2x. To benifit form the upgrade from gcc2 to 3 you need to recompile everything and my crappier boxes don't have enough HDD space for emerge -e world. And then when i copied something to /dev/hda3 not /mnt/hda3 (damn knoppix and their mount locations) i had to reinstall, but i didn't lose data either time.
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TripKnot · Apprentice Joined: 29 May 2002 Posts: 213

To avoid reinstalling from the problems a crufted system presents, I keep two gentoo installs. One is my primary and the other is for testing out new software. Once I find something I like, it makes into my primary.

You can go emerge crazy installing all sorts of things and when you start to clear things out with either unmerge or depclean you can break your system requiring recompile of the broken apps. I find the primary/testing setup pretty good at keeping this to a minimum.

Lovechild · Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2003 6:08 am Post subject:

I dunno about you guys, but I reinstall for relaxation.

jufoa · Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2003 10:44 am Post subject:

once i had to reinstall gentoo because of harddrive crash... and once debian because apt got messed up with external apt-sources..

DuF · Advocate Joined: 09 Dec 2002 Posts: 2687 Location: Paris

since I used Linux (one year) I only have reinstalled MDK8.2 one time, just after the first install, because I made a / partition too short, but after I kept my MDK8.2 9 months without any reinstall (MDK8.2 vas really stable for me), and since I'm using gentoo (3months), I didn't have reinstall it !

Koon · Retired Dev Joined: 10 Dec 2002 Posts: 518