Gentoo package management

Paintball_Star7 · 12-30-2006, 12:29 AM

Because of an old video card that needs propriety drivers I cannot run anything higher than xorg 7.0.

I would like to at the same time be able to run bleeding edge applications - KDE 3.5.5 FireFox 2.0, etc.

I've tried debian and fedora but if I want those bleeding edge programs it forces me to upgrade xorg to the current version.

Is there a way in gentoo to upgrade the entire system (similar to apt-get upgrade in debian) but not upgrade xorg?

Any help or suggestions is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

syg00 · 12-30-2006, 02:28 AM

Spend some time looking at the portage doco on gentoo.org - particularly package masking. What you are trying to accomplish is quite common on Gentoo.

nafan · 12-30-2006, 09:35 AM

You can install a package under gentoo and mark it so that it doesn't get updated with the rest of the system. Take a look at ignoring an update for more info.

Some of the GUI portage programs are able to help with things like this. Although the kuroo pakage is marked as unstable, I've found it quite usable and it allows you to install specific versions of packages as well as changing the USE flags for it. What is a USE flag?

Paintball_Star7 · 12-30-2006, 11:12 AM

Thanks for the help guys. It sounds like I'm about to dive into gentoo.

Is there anything I should look out for?

Thanks,
Chris

syg00 · 12-30-2006, 01:32 PM

Don't be in a hurry, and read the doco. The best there is.
Good, make that great, learning opportunity.

kernel_geek · 01-04-2007, 10:50 AM

Just type this at a terminal

echo "x11-base/xorg-x11-7.0 >> /etc/portage/package.mask"

Hope This Helps.

kernel_geek · 01-05-2007, 04:11 PM

Why dont you just chose the distrobution you actually want and upgrade your video hardware ??

Paintball_Star7 · 01-05-2007, 10:07 PM

After looking at xgl and compiz I think I may upgrade to a better video card so I can use that. I haven't quite decided yet.

Gentoo's documentation was excellent. The install went by without a hitch and I learned more about linux and computers in those couple of hours than I have in months. For now I'm really liking gentoo.

Thanks for the replies.

Chris

kernel_geek · 01-07-2007, 04:35 AM

Good i am glad you said that. Another person that uses linux not X if you catch my drift ...