AFFECTS: 10-CURRENT users with any port depending on converters/libiconv

[O. Hartmann]

On Fri, 06 Sep 2013 17:35:27 +0200
Guido Falsi <madpilot at FreeBSD.org> wrote:

> On 09/06/13 17:04, O. Hartmann wrote:
> 
> > Using portmaster, I'm higly adviced to use option -f, otherwise
> > every second port I try to update gets interrupted due to missing
> > libiconv.so.3. It is impossible to update a system unattended and
> > this is a mess with 200 or even 680 ports to be updated. A waste of
> > time.
> >
> > Some ports still rely on methusalem gcc 4.6. But gcc 4.6.3 relies on
> > some gnuish tools in the port and the compilation fails if those
> > prerequisits aren't updated first. The description I found
> > in /usr/ports/UPDATING is quick and dirty - too dirty for being
> > useful, in my opinion. Did the maintainer ever tried this command
> > sequence on a "used" machine and not in a clean vbox environment?
> 
> 
> I have tested it on my two machines at home. Both "lived" ones. On
> one I had problems, but I did not follow that procedure exactly.
> 
> On the laptop everything went definitely smoother.
> 
> > There must be a description of a fallback in UPDATING! I took the
> > whole day to update on one machine less than the half of the
> > installed ports and huge ports like libreoffice are still dropping
> > out of the build and I restart after fixed the missing port that
> > relies on being recompiled. I hope that reinstalling
> > converters/libiconv will give me X11 back on my boxes! I can not
> > stay with them 48 hours non stop until they have completed the
> > messy update.
> 
> The first backup things that comes to mind is, one can always
> reinstall libiconv (removing IGNORE), that should allow old binaries
> to run. I don't suggest updating the other ports while libiconv is
> installed though, since the include files will conflict and ports
> could link to the por5ts libiconv instead of the base one.
> 
> As I told AN, preserving libiconv.so in /usr/local/lib/compat/pkg and 
> then removing the package could help, by allowing the machine to work
> in a "mixed world". Can you try that?

How should I when I already within the procedure of updating? I
followed the minimalistic instruction in UPDATING.

> 
> The biggest problem is usually libtool, pulling in old .la files
> still referencing the non existing libiconv.la file. I don't know of
> any solution to that. I had to resort to manually listing offending
> la files and recompiling the owning package. Not optimal :(
> 
> I am willing to add further information to the UPDATING entry, but I 
> need people with different scenarios to test and report the success
> of the strategies.
> 
> Obviously the last resort strategy is deinstalling all ports and 
> reinstalling them, which I agree is terrible.

This is the worst suggestion ever. People do work with their FreeBSD
boxes, even when they run cutting edge OS versions. Deleting and
installing around 1000 ports on an average desktop workstation isn't
funny! That is, why I do updates.

Every thing else would degrade this system into the state of an
annoying toy operating system and that is definitely not what I believe
others intend it to be.

The time of M$ DOS and Windows 95 and their strategy "if something goes
wrong, install the whole OS new" is gone and has never been for people
having choosen UNIX over the M$ crap and the silly dirty strategy 
> 

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