possibly a very silly question

lf21 · n00b Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 14

If I wanted to reinstall everything from scratch (GRP), would it help to copy my entire existing Portage directory (emerge sync'ed) temporarily and replace it when asked for the portage snapshot during install? Would it save me the trouble of downloading the packages all over again?
Would Portage know of newly downloaded distfiles and use them form a fresh install

thanks

Ionflux · n00b Joined: 28 Sep 2003 Posts: 29

I'm not sure whether I understood your question correctly, but i think portage will use any suitable packages in /usr/portage/distfiles. So if you want to save the trouble of downloading them again for a second install, just copying them back should work fine.
_________________
"The Multiverse doesn't make sense, and it ain't supposed to."

IvD · Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 10:44 am Post subject:

This would indeed save time. portage checks the contents of /usr/portage/distfiles, so when no newer package is available online it would use the one already downloaded.
I *think* That saving the entire /usr/portage directory would save even more time when the emerge sync command is given. (He only needs to update the tree and not to download everything anymore.) But like I said I'm not sure about that one.

moshiach · n00b Joined: 19 Sep 2003 Posts: 68

It definitely works and saved me about 5 hours the last time I installed. I keep my portage distfiles and bin packages on a seperate partition just for this purpose. If your packages are compiled correctly you can then do a emerge -K packagename and not have to go through the recompile time. Works wonders. If you just do a emerge packagename it will find the distfile and compile it.

Check your /etc/make.conf for the locations of DISTDIR and PKGDIR and modify them accordingly.
_________________
Linux: More fun than porn.