Compare against `genup` and consider implementing any features

[jonesmz]

Sakaki authored the genup program which is intended to handle a subset of this gentoo_update program's functionality.

Consider taking a look and implementing any features covered by genup but not gentoo_update.

The GenPi64 project would love to ditch genup entirely, if gentoo_update will be maintained going forward.

See genup's source code here: https://github.com/GenPi64/genup

[Lab-Brat]

I think it will take a while to implement all features from genup, Sakaki put an impressive amount of effort into their work.

For instance, genup uses at least 2 other tools developed by the same author - emtee and buildkernel.

I'll need some time to study their work to be able answer you in more detail. Meanwhile, what features on genup are you most interested in?

[jonesmz]

I'm not sure that buildkernel is a feature worth considering. It is likely superseded by Gentoo's existing sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel package

My interest in the gentoo_update script is to replace the automated update aspect of the genup program for the genpi64 image that I work on.

I'm not particularly for or against any of the genup features beyond recognizing that genup is effectively unmaintained, and i'd like something that has a real maintainer behind it.

[southern-tools]

Hi, maybe cheking at the beggining portage itself is up to date could be a good idea. Also having "perl-cleaner --all" somewhere in the process I think could be good. This is how I run the script right now (with a wrapper):

eix-sync ;
gentoo-update update -m full -e -l -n -a "--color=y --deep --with-bdeps=y --changed-use --update --backtrack=50" ;
haskell-updater ;
perl-cleaner --all ;
eclean --deep packages ;
eclean --deep distfiles ;
smart-live-rebuild ;
recover-broken-vdb ;
rm -vfr /var/tmp/portage/*

But probably is a lazy workaround (e.g. eix-sync could be redundant, I did not check your script in deep). I was thinking about getting some from genup myself, relied on it for years (without buildkernel nor emtee). Anyways, thank you very much for your work.

[Lab-Brat]

Hey @southern-tools! Thank you for your support ❤️

cheking at the beggining portage itself is up to date could be a good idea.

gentoo_update does sync the Portage tree before update via emerge --sync (code is here).

It's not redundant to use eix-sync if you are also using some other functionalities of eix, since this command is a summation of multiple commands, namely emerge --sync + eix-update + eix-diff (doc). However if you use eix only to sync packages then just running gentoo_update should be enough.

perl-cleaner --all

Do you need to clean old perl installations regularly?

I see no harm in adding perl-cleaner to the updater, tho whole thing is a 500+ line Bash script, and I can add it as an optional dependency, like needrestart is used now (code is here).

[southern-tools]

Hi, @Lab-Brat,

I agree, probably perl-cleaner is an overkill. It is the result of a not very careful migration from Sakaki's Genup to your script (which I am now running on a daily basis through a systemd timer). Looking into the logs, perl-cleaner does not trigger any update for more than 2 yrs... so probably I could remove it.

Thank you again for your work.