Large port updates

[Kevin Oberman]

> From: mark at markdnet.demon.co.uk
> Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 17:52:15 +0000
> Sender: owner-freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
> 
> cmt at burggraben.net wrote:
> 
> > Not in this case. Check /usr/ports/UPDATING 20041107:
> > : Do NOT use portupgrade(1) to update your GNOME 2.6 desktop to 2.8
> 
> Last time this happened, this is what caused my to deinstall
> gnome. THe upgrade script could take weeks to run on a reasonable spec
> machine because it insisted on rebuilding all sorts of stuff. You
> couldn't stop it, or it would start over.
> 
> It seems to me that its a product of gnome being so many ports. Why
> not just have a few, like KDE (although it appears KDE is going the
> way of gnome - if this results in portupgrade not working there
> either, its insanity).

The vast number of interdependencies in Gnome do make upgrading a pain,
but the 2.8 upgrade has a -restart option, so you don't have to start
over.

The upgrade is an overnight thing for at least the first pass. On my old
450 MHz K6 it took over a day. But, once I fixed a few problems and
restarted the upgrade, it finished up quite cleanly in about 20 minutes.

I have upgraded all of my systems ranging from the 450 MHz K6 to a 1.8
GHz P4M and only one took over a day and that one was done while I was
on travel and couldn't really keep on top of the upgrade. 

I would STRONGLY urge that you do a portupgrade -aF to pre-fetch all
source tarballs before you start.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634