On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:24:14 +0000 Roy Bamford <neddyseag...@gentoo.org> wrote: > Some other interesting things along the way:- > You need to incrementally update gcc and glibc as there is some > mutual blockage there too. > libpng-1.2, xorg and libexpat too if the box is old enough. How far > do you want to go back? > > Its a very educational experience but a reinstall is faster. > The real killer is that some core system packages need EAPI>0 to > build. > > Personally, I don't regard tinderbox as any part of any officially > supported upgrade path.
Up until the present EAPI era, we've supported upgrading from very ancient systems. We've never required users to completely reinstall. Check our upgrade doc: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-upgrading.xml There's a constant stream of help requests on the forums and IRC from folks upgrading from years-old installations. Usually it's from fokls who've been given some never-updated, faithfully running Gentoo server, sometimes from the pre-2004.X days. Our upgrade instructions work to a point, and then Portage/python and other system packages stop working, thanks to the differing EAPI versions. And *then*, as Roy mentioned, there's the whole separate rebuild-expat-and-similar-libs sequence of failures. These are the kinds of things for which there's no canonical, official upgrade path. It's entirely trial-by-error, which sucks for end users who were expecting to follow our upgrade guide as-is, but then the EAPI shifts bit 'em in the butt. Users should not be told "just reinstall," since often that's not an option. Whatever you folks eventually settle on, please send patches and suggestions to the GDP for our upgrade guide. I'd prefer that users have a possible upgrade path from *any* profile/version of Gentoo up through the present. If you decide not to support anything older than version X and require reinstalling or some other set of procedures, please let the GDP know via our ML or bugzilla.
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