Hi,

I just updated my system (gentoo 2006.0), afterwards I ran into alot of problems. I got no clue about what happend, but one thing is for sure I wont do it again, so:

Which way is the correct way to update you system?

I used:
emerge --update --ask world to update my system. I looked in the manual and that should be it.

Afterwards I got some errors when trying to su into root. I also got the solutions to the problem (by doing a etc-update), but did i miss something in manual or?

Should I run the update as root or as a regular user? What are the steps for performing a regular update?

Hope you guys can help me out, I dont want another reinstall

Sincerely, Jorgen

Maybe putting the --deep flag into that command?

From the gentoo handbook:

Updating your System

To keep your system in perfect shape (and not to mention install the latest security updates) you need to update your system regularly. Since Portage only checks the ebuilds in your Portage tree you first have to update your Portage tree. When your Portage tree is updated, you can update your system with emerge --update world. In the next example, we'll also use the --ask switch which will tell Portage to display the list of packages it wants to upgrade and ask you if you want to continue:

Code Listing 13: Updating your system

# emerge --update --ask world


Portage will then search for newer version of the applications you have installed. However, it will only verify the versions for the applications you have explicitly installed - not the dependencies. If you want to update every single package on your system, add the --deep argument:

Code Listing 14: Updating your entire system

# emerge --update --deep world


Since security updates also happen in packages you have not explicitly installed on your system (but that are pulled in as dependencies of other programs), it is recommended to run this command once in a while.

If you have altered any of your USE flags lately you might want to add --newuse as well. Portage will then verify if the change requires the installation of new packages or recompilation of existing ones:

Code Listing 15: Performing a full update

# emerge --update --deep --newuse world

I run following weekly:

emerge --sync
emerge -auvD world ## add N if use flags are changed
dispatch-conf ## when needed to update conf files
revdep-rebuild ## when I want to be sure all dependencies are met

Tip: Send away kids, wives and other pets when working with dispatch-conf or etc-update!

etc-update can be hard because there may be alot of files to update.
I will keep the ones I know I edited, and look at any in /etc/conf.d
that needs to be updated. And like Emerson said revdep-rebuild can be
a lifesaver.

Thanks alot for your replys.

I will definately use dispatch-conf. Last time I did an update, afterwards I used etc-update with the '-5' options. That is NOT a good idea. It messed up alot of stuff.

I will try your suggestions, and offcourse write back what happens

Regards,