Will Sabayon become maintained in the same way as Ubuntu?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Maistre May 31, 2007 11:34 AM EDT |
3.3 is impressively stable, but it's difficult to see how updating packages between each Sabayon release won't lead to breakages unless (i) as the Wiki suggests, it's re-synched against Gentoo Stable, or (ii) Sabayon provides an Ubuntu-style system of Sabayon-only security & bug-fix backports. Or is that Entropy's intended purpose? |
| azerthoth May 31, 2007 11:41 AM EDT |
Sabayon syncs directly against the Gentoo repos IIRC. I seem to remember seeing that when I was playing with it a few weeks ago. |
| hkwint May 31, 2007 1:28 PM EDT |
Sabayon synchronization works in two steps: 1) The portage tree (recipes how to compile packages) is synced against the official Gentoo tree; 2) A portage overlay tree is synced against trees Sabayon added Differences in which packages from the Gentoo official tree Gentoo uses and which Sabayon uses, are configured in the files in /etc/portage. The main problems when updating are, Sabayon Linux added some bleeding-edge package-versions to the list of 'package versions Sabayon deems stable enough', and this might conflict with some older packages expecting older versions of some basic dependencies. I have had the same issue on my Gentoo box, now I run kde-base-3.5.6 (note: I do not run full KDE, only some parts of KDE I chose!): 3.5.5 is deemed stable by Gentoo, 3.5.6 is in the 'testing-branche'. I told Gentoo it's OK for me to use ~kde-base/kdebase-3.5.6 ~kde-base/kdelibs-3.5.6 ~kde-misc/krusader-3.5.6 and so on. However, now I wanted to emerge kde-base/kde-i18n a problem occured: kde-base/kde-i18n-3.5.5 wanted kde-base-3.5.5, while krusader etc. wanted kde-base-3.5.6. Portage chose kde-i18n-3.5.5 because I didn't add kde-i18n-3.5.6 to the list I deemed stable yet, like I did with konqueror etc. There are two ways to solve this issue: -Downgrade all kde-packages to 3.5.5; -Add ~kde-base/kde-i18n-3.5.6 to the list of packages you deem stable. I chose the second solution because I wanted to run 3.5.6. To get rid of the issue 'forever', I did #for i in $(ls /usr/portage/kde-base/); do echo "~kde-base/"${i}"-3.5.6" >> /etc/portage/packages.keywords; done This took all package-names listed in the kde-base subdirectory of portage, pasted ~kde-base/ in front of it, and pasted -3.5.6 behind it, and added to the list of packages I deemed stable. Effectively, this means I deem all kde-base/*-3.5.6 packages stable and portage stops complaining about differing version-dependencies. This KDE example goes for other software-branches too; and Sabayon Linux being very progressive is one of the problems of the possibility of failing updates. When updates fails, it normally is an issue of a package missing (like with the kernel-sources in the mini-install) or dependencies conflicts of 'unmasked/unkeyworded' bleeding edge and older packages. With a little knowledge these problems are (most of the time) easy to solve, but I agree this is not the case for people who are rather new to Linux. Therefore, the latter should not use portage (Kuroo, on Sabayon) to update packages themselves, but should follow Sabayon update guides between releases, in my opinion. |
| Maistre May 31, 2007 2:51 PM EDT |
Restricting updates *only* to applications when they're subject to a GLSA, would I then be reasonably free of the danger of breakages? |
| hkwint May 31, 2007 10:12 PM EDT |
Probably, yes. |
| chickpea Jun 01, 2007 8:22 AM EDT |
Great article. I must admit that I am biased as I am an avid Sabayon-Linux (SL) user. In your post above however, you mention that kuroo is the package manager for SL, not portage (at least that seems to be what you are saying). Kuroo is just a front-end to portage, and many SL users consider it a bad one. So rent assured that SL uses portage like all gentoo-based distros. Also of note, a brand new GUI package manager for portage has emerged (pun intended) in the past few months called Portato. It is light years ahead of kuroo and is available through the sunrise and portato overlays to gentoo. Anyone that likes a gui package manager is admonished in SL to use portato now instead of kuroo (to save headaches for forum hounds like me). Check it out, it certainly adds usability to SL over kuroo. Note: I am not a long-time linux user (6 months and counting). SL was the second distro I tried (Ubuntu was the first for < one week). As a COMPLETE n00b I can attest that SL (3.2 at the time I started) was easy for me to figure out and use even on outdated equipment. It was an out of the box experience for me. While not the largest community on the web, SL forum is excellent. Of course we also have the benefit of the very best documented distro on the web: gentoo. |
| hkwint Jun 02, 2007 3:14 AM EDT |
I'm very pleased to hear Sabayon Linux also works for a 'n00b', it confirms what I already thought myself. Not being that 'n00b' myself anymore, it's sometimes hard to imagine what the problems are. Great to see an alternative to Kuroo, I heard it wasn't that good from a friend. I knew that Sabayon Linux just uses portage, since I ordered my friend to use the command line to install some Logitech software for his keyboard with display, not aware there was a graphical frontend for portage. It worked fine, the small display of the keyboard was recognized, and there also seemed to be a tool to make all those zillion Logitech-keys to work. Let's hope portato will be better. |
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