4 ms·

My biggest takeaway (and perhaps besides-the-point) is this: > Musl has already switched to that, glibc supports it as an option. A number of other distributio

by kccqzy 2y ago

My biggest takeaway (and perhaps besides-the-point) is this: > Musl has already switched to that, glibc supports it as an option. A number of other distributions such as Debian have taken the leap and switched. Unfortunately, source-based distributions such as Gentoo don’t have it that easy. While I applaud their efforts I just think as a user I want to be over and done with this problem by switching to a non source-based distribution such as Debian.

wtallis 2y ago
It sounds like the difficulty for source-based distributions comes from trying to do an in-place upgrade that makes incompatible changes to the ABI. So changing to an entirely different distribution would be at least as disruptive (though possibly less time consuming) as doing a clean install of Gentoo using a new ABI.
- akira2501 2y ago
  Starting a few years ago I partition all my drives with two root partitions. Once is used and the other is blank. For precisely this reason. Sometimes it's easier to just roll out a brand new stage3 onto the unused partition, build an entirely new root, and then just move over to that once it's finished. The bonus is you can build your new system from your old system using just chroot. Very convenient.
  - jasomill 2y ago
    Several OSes I use on a daily basis (FreeBSD, Fedora CoreOS, and Fedora Kinoite) adopt related strategies as part of their regular (binary) update processes: https://wiki.freebsd.org/BootEnvironments https://wiki.freebsd.org/BootEnvironments https://coreos.github.io/rpm-ostree/ https://coreos.github.io/rpm-ostree/
  - naitgacem 2y ago
    Android adopted an approach in a similar spirit. https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab
ordu 2y ago
There is an easy way to deal with this in Gentoo. Boot from usb or something, run mkfs.ext4 (or .whatever fs you use) on your / and /usr partitions, mount them, unpack stage3 on them, chroot into them and run `emerge $all-my-packages-that-where-installed-before-mkfs`. You can install new copy of Gentoo instead of upgrading it incrementally.
- robin_reala 2y ago
  “easy”
  - ordu 2y ago
    It is easy. It is just a tl;dr version of "how to install gentoo". :)
    - lnxg33k1 2y ago
      I hope I will get a day where I have the will to recompile everything in the next 14 years, I think I had the same install for the past 10 or so on the gentoo desktop. The only think I reinstalled recently has been the laptop to switch from arch to sid
      - account42 2y ago
        Wow you bother with a separate install (and different distro for you laptop). When I got a new laptop last year I just copied over my desktop install and adjusted things as needed. Setting everything up from scratch is too much work.
- seanhunter 2y ago
  This doesn't take into account any binaries that are in users home directories or locally installed. So for example anything compiled as part of a python virtualenv for a developer or anything they built in rust using cargo etc. Yes there are ways to deal with those things, but it doesn't change the fact that this transition is a big deal.
- 2y ago
viraptor 2y ago
> by switching to a non source-based distribution such as Debian. The distinction has more nuance. Source based distros like nixos don't have the same issue. The problem is more in how Gentoo builds/installs the packages than in building from source. Also with third party closed source software, you're still going to have issues, even on binary systems. Actually you could even have issues with the first party packages if they're installed in separate independent steps.

by kccqzy 2y ago

wtallis 2y ago

It sounds like the difficulty for source-based distributions comes from trying to do an in-place upgrade that makes incompatible changes to the ABI. So changing to an entirely different distribution would be at least as disruptive (though possibly less time consuming) as doing a clean install of Gentoo using a new ABI.

akira2501 2y ago
Starting a few years ago I partition all my drives with two root partitions. Once is used and the other is blank. For precisely this reason. Sometimes it's easier to just roll out a brand new stage3 onto the unused partition, build an entirely new root, and then just move over to that once it's finished. The bonus is you can build your new system from your old system using just chroot. Very convenient.
- jasomill 2y ago
  Several OSes I use on a daily basis (FreeBSD, Fedora CoreOS, and Fedora Kinoite) adopt related strategies as part of their regular (binary) update processes: https://wiki.freebsd.org/BootEnvironments https://wiki.freebsd.org/BootEnvironments https://coreos.github.io/rpm-ostree/ https://coreos.github.io/rpm-ostree/
- naitgacem 2y ago
  Android adopted an approach in a similar spirit. https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab

ordu 2y ago

There is an easy way to deal with this in Gentoo. Boot from usb or something, run mkfs.ext4 (or .whatever fs you use) on your / and /usr partitions, mount them, unpack stage3 on them, chroot into them and run `emerge $all-my-packages-that-where-installed-before-mkfs`. You can install new copy of Gentoo instead of upgrading it incrementally.

robin_reala 2y ago
“easy”
- ordu 2y ago
  It is easy. It is just a tl;dr version of "how to install gentoo". :)
  - lnxg33k1 2y ago
    I hope I will get a day where I have the will to recompile everything in the next 14 years, I think I had the same install for the past 10 or so on the gentoo desktop. The only think I reinstalled recently has been the laptop to switch from arch to sid
    - account42 2y ago
      Wow you bother with a separate install (and different distro for you laptop). When I got a new laptop last year I just copied over my desktop install and adjusted things as needed. Setting everything up from scratch is too much work.
seanhunter 2y ago
This doesn't take into account any binaries that are in users home directories or locally installed. So for example anything compiled as part of a python virtualenv for a developer or anything they built in rust using cargo etc. Yes there are ways to deal with those things, but it doesn't change the fact that this transition is a big deal.
2y ago

viraptor 2y ago

> by switching to a non source-based distribution such as Debian. The distinction has more nuance. Source based distros like nixos don't have the same issue. The problem is more in how Gentoo builds/installs the packages than in building from source. Also with third party closed source software, you're still going to have issues, even on binary systems. Actually you could even have issues with the first party packages if they're installed in separate independent steps.