Talk:Upgrading Gentoo

Full rewrite of this wiki page
This page is a collection of completely outdated (more than a decade ago) stubs. I suggest we rewrite this page from scratch. Structure like an FAQ: Typical problems with upgrades and the solution, perhaps how it could be improved some day with a new concept. Any comments, or good links for a start? (see also --Jonas Stein (talk) 14:57, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The page has been rewritten, closing Help:Talk_pages. If you see anything in particular that should be covered, heads up appreciated ;). -- Ris (talk) 09:13, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Upgrading old gentoo
I'm not actually using this to upgrade an old gentoo, but rather i've borked perl quite badly and am looking to correct it. (I've searched for days and asked in the gentoo irc channels for help and even they are stumped so this is very much an idea of my own.) My idea is that with a working stage3 install in the build directory i can use that as the base and emerge -e world to hopefully recomplile everything properly, right now @inc points to perl in every place it isn't (adding the new places didn't help as it is looking for 5.18 first (which is hardmasked) and not 5.16 (moral of my story here is don't use cpan to try and install 5.18 when it asks without checking why its not been updated via portage yet), i went for a symlink style approach but the version mismatch in the MakeFile.pl caused it to bail.

Anyway root # tar -xf -C /mnt/build /path/to/stage3-somearch-somedate.tar.bz2

That moans about there being no such file or directory, i've obviously changed the "somearch-somedate" part, i even went and used the handbook approach of "stage3-*.tar.bz2" and /mnt/build does exist. Even redoing via: rmdir /mnt/build and then mkdir /mnt/build and still had the same issue.

Eventually i just went with the handbook style of doing an initial install.

mkdir /mnt/build cd /mnt/build wget http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/amd64/autobuilds/current-stage3/stage3-amd64-20131226.tar.bz2 (Change that for whatever host you want to use and the current stage3 etc.) tar xvjpf stage3-*.tar.bz2 and you're done. Not sure why the -C wouldn't function but i am just popping this here incase someone finds the same thing and wonders how to get around it. - Killerc (talk) 00:48, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Upgrading Old Gentoo section
I don't think whoever wrote this section tested it at all. It does not work from whats written, i've already added the network settings, but its also make.conf settings, useflags and a few other bits. Upgrading an old gentoo is not for the faint of heart i know, even as someone familiar with it i have preferred to migrate rather than even try if its over a year or two out of date. But the idea behind this is sound, or in my head it is... It's just its missing so many commands and lines that its like someone came up with the idea and added it with no testing at all.

I am doing it myself now, not the update but just getting emerge to run for the other host. I'll add what i learn and do if it works but while hopeful it should not be followed by anyone that is expecting it to be 5 commands and go time. - Killerc (talk) 02:16, 13 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi Killerc, I'm updating a system that is over a year old right now. I'm using this article as a reference just like you did. I'll add anything that seems generically necessary for other users. --Maffblaster (talk) 23:28, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Make sure your Portage is updated, how ?
Would someone please expand on this: Make sure your Portage is updated before performing any profile changes. What does it mean your Portage is updated ? Is it via emerge-webrsync or maybe emerge --update portage or both ? --EmanueLczirai (talk) 22:21, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * EmanueLczirai, Ideally both should be fully up-to-date, but I believe the authors were referring to the Portage tree. I have re-worded the instruction to make it very clear. :) --Maffblaster (talk) 23:19, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

2006.0 alpha release notes
The following link doesn't work anymore: https://www.gentoo.org//proj/en/releng/release/2006.0/alpha-release-notes.xml

Should I replace it with Project:RelEng/LiveCD/2006.0?

Fturco (talk) 13:16, 26 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, please! When you are done please close the discussion. :) --Maffblaster (talk) 23:18, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Done. Fturco (talk) 08:37, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Neddys HOWTO Update Old Gentoo
See also HOWTO Update Old Gentoo that's a mess with CVS going away but the process is a lot simpler as a result. There is a link there (http) to all my distfiles since mid 2006 too, so out of date certs and cyphers are not a problem.

I was wondering about recreating portage snapshots, now that SwifTs archive has gone but its probably safer to use a series of git checkouts that the user makes themselves.

We probably don't need both pages as they do the same thing in different ways. Heh, maybe that is the Gentoo way.

--NeddySeagoon (talk) 18:44, 11 April 2021 (UTC)