Arch Linux

getagrip

Member

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 45

moving from gentoo [solved]

Hi, my hdd just died in my thinkpad t60 the other day, so I thought this might be a chance to give arch a try since
I wanted to try something else besides gentoo (wonderful distro but compiling and proper configuation takes days)

I have a couple of questions on my mind though so thus they run:
1. Is there a way to install OLD packages via pacman? I've seen the IgnorePkg statement but that only
keeps the ones you already got from being updated. Unfortunately i'm having an ati-card so I would like to install an older version of fglrx and stick with it for a while until ati comes up with something usefull.
2. Upon a new install I think I do not have the option of having a custom kernel compiled with certain modules so I
probably have to compile it (packaging by hand and then installing it via pacman) AFTER the regular install?
3. I read about using ABS => creating your own packages which can be installed afterwards via pacman.
If I accidentally name this package like one existing already in the official tree what will happen?

Last edited by getagrip (2007-12-26 22:42:40)

skymt

Member

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 443

Re: moving from gentoo [solved]

1. Unfortunately, the repositories only keep the latest version of each package. However, there's nothing to stop you from pulling an old version of the PKGBUILD (the Arch equivalent of an ebuild) from Arch CVS and building it yourself.
2. That's right.
3. If there's a newer version of the package in the repository, it will try to upgrade it whenever you perform a system upgrade unless you add the package to IgnorePkg. When I need to compile a package with different options, I set pkgrel to "local" in the PKGBUILD and add it to IgnorePkg. Then when a new version is released and I do a regular upgrade, it warns me about the version mismatch and I modify my local PKGBUILD and rebuild.

getagrip

Member

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 45

Re: moving from gentoo [solved]

thanks for the info - i'll try it out.

dhave

Arch Linux f@h Team Member

From: Outside the matrix.

Registered: 2005-05-15

Posts: 1,112

Re: moving from gentoo [solved]

1. Is there a way to install OLD packages via pacman? I've seen the IgnorePkg statement but that only
keeps the ones you already got from being updated. Unfortunately i'm having an ati-card so I would like to install an older version of fglrx and stick with it for a while until ati comes up with something usefull.

You might find some helpful info in this thread.

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