Arch Linux

bt

Member

Registered: 2007-04-11

Posts: 198

Advice needed for stable upgrades

I have just come over from Gentoo because of concern over the massive upgrades needed (xorg-7.1  needed 105 packages upgraded), and the instability of some of the upgrades. I thought Arch might be a better choice because of the rolling releases. But now I feel some of the uneasiness I had with Gentoo. I have had Arch up and running for about a month. There have been at least three kernel upgrades with more coming. Fortunately for me they went flawlessly, but that may not happen next time according to some of the posts I've read

I have an AMD FX2800 with an nvidia 6800GT graphics card. No hardware is being changed. The computer runs much faster than it did on Gentoo. Why should I risk the instability of upgrading the core programs: kernel26, nvidia, mkinitcpio, mkinitrd, klib*, grub, udev? My solution has been to enter these programs in IgnorePkg in /etc/pacman.conf.

Am I going to create problems down the road?

I would appreciate any comments on my solution.

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

I have been in archlinux for years. 

The latest upgrades within my computer in arch have performed excellently with no problems introduced.

Some of the problems presented to users with the latest kernels and udev are due to ID changes in the pata/sata area but are not major disruptions.

I must report that I do not have sata devices within my two computers, one has IDE hdd's and the other has no hdd's...runs on Larch boot into ram which is the system I post this from.

If a user modifies his system there is a risk when upgrading via pacman which cannot sync to the changes made.

The rolling relase system reduces the impact of upgrades which cause anomalies by more easily identifying the root cause to the few packages upgraded...rather than hundreds as you experienced in gentoo.

In short, it seems that the rolling release system has merits......no system is perfect....

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Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

vacant

Member

From: downstairs

Registered: 2004-11-05

Posts: 816

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

You could keep a 4GB test partition where you install all upgrades first, then just "cp -u /var/pacman/pkg/*" to your real system if the upgrades are working to your satisfaction.

Bison

Member

From: Jacksonville, FL

Registered: 2006-04-12

Posts: 158

Website

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

You could keep a 4GB test partition where you install all upgrades first, then just "cp -u /var/pacman/pkg/*" to your real system if the upgrades are working to your satisfaction.

This would be difficult to maintain (unless you do some black magic that I don't know about).  I update about once a month and I haven't had problems in a really long time.

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http://normalform.merseine.nu

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

You might find a way to use Larch to test the upgrades as well....

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Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

rayjgu3

Member

From: Chicago IL usa

Registered: 2004-07-04

Posts: 695

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

i agree with vacant
most of the issues on the kernel/modules are PEBCAK problems
they have multiple interfaced hard drives (ide ,sata, scsi, usb) & dont understand how to use
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf & the /dev naming scheme , and to tell the truth a few years ago is when i learned it
when arch 1st introduced udev then /etc/mkinitrd.conf
ocasionally i still fall into the PEBCAK catagory but not as often as i used to

before upgrading check the news on homepage & scan the forums

bt

Member

Registered: 2007-04-11

Posts: 198

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

Thanks all for your quick responses.  The longer I use linux (I started with RedHat 5.2), the simpler I want it. I think rayjgu3 has the best idea: just check the news on the homepage and read the forums before a major move. So far, so good. My guess is that I'm over-reacting.

bt

Member

Registered: 2007-04-11

Posts: 198

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

I just upgraded everything (except sane which still has a bug). It took 10 minutes, and it was accomplished without incident.
Very clever. I was over-reacting!

rayjgu3

Member

From: Chicago IL usa

Registered: 2004-07-04

Posts: 695

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

I just upgraded everything (except sane which still has a bug). It took 10 minutes, and it was accomplished without incident.
Very clever. I was over-reacting!

the worst things i ever lived through never happened....... my fears

john_schaf

Member

From: France

Registered: 2007-02-24

Posts: 104

Re: Advice needed for stable upgrades

Hello all !

The last kernel upgrade was not good for me : 2.6.21 brings in a bug (which has already been reported) with my sound module. It doesn't seem to be fixed yet. I downgraded to 2.6.20 to fix things, but in the future I'm wondering about using "IgnorePkg" in my pacman.conf for kernel, drivers and other critical stuff.

I've read on this forum that this is not really recommended (Arch is better "up to date"), but it also seems that other people are using this feature.
- Why should I avoid it ? What are the risks if I do it anyway ? (pro's and con's of using IgnorePkg ?)
- If a newer package for software X needs an updated kernel, will it be mentioned in the dependences, and will pacman warn me or not ?

Thank you for reading me !