How often to update?

[Auke Kok]

Duncan Gibson wrote:

>Auke Kok wrote:
>  
>
>>What's your [update] strategy?
>>    
>>
>
>I installed a basic Lunar in August/September and have spent the time
>since then in slowly expanding what's on there. As a Lunar newbie, it
>took me a long time to get a 2.6 kernel built and configured to support
>my wifi card, so I was a bit wary about running the upgrade in case I
>broke something.
>
>For my newbie's installation experience so far see:
>http://wiki.lunar-linux.org/index.php/User_talk:Engelsman
>
>Last night I decided that my system was pretty bare anyway, so I had
>nothing to lose, and go for it anyway. But where to start? Which are
>the critical apps that you need to take care of first, and which can
>you just set running? I should have asked on #lunar, but I wanted to
>at least try first. So following the examples in 'man lfirsttime':
>
>	lin moonbase
>	lin lunar
>	lin -cr gcc glibc gcc bash coreutils tar wget
>  
>

I usually stick binutils and bin86 in the middle of these list, they are 
invaluable to the toolchain and used in almost all compiles. It pays off 
to include them here.

>These all appeared to run without probs, although there was a message
>about installing 2.4 kernel includes while running a 2.6 kernel, but
>man/groff started to complain about incorrect shared libraries :-(
>
>I should have stopped here and investigated, but it was midnight, and
>so I decided to bite the bullet, hoping that a complete 'lunar update'
>would get everything back on track again.
>  
>

I personally prefer not using 'lunar update' to try to fix stuff but 
rather 'lunar nofix' - this spews out a list of -definately-broken- 
modules, which helps you pinpoint the real issue. It won't spot 
everything but it does help a lot. Recompile the ones that show up 
selectively.

>The updated downloaded moonbase again, then lunar (which tells you to
>restart your shell to pick up the changes in the environment, but this
>was in mid-update. I hoped that it already had the changes after logging
>in again after the previous 'lin lunar'). It went on to 'db' and then
>other things, and I left it compiling 'pango' to go to bed.
>
>Went in this morning to find that four modules had failed:
>
>	ncurses, Python, oprofile and Python[yes, again!]
>  
>

the latest ncurses has a strange problem: you need to compile it twice 
before it compiles OK. This has hit me on several boxes - strangely 
enough there is no reason for this - the "fix" that is needed is already 
included, and it should work the first time.

Python - heh - leaves me clueless why it fails, it could be related to 
another package such as ncurses or libxml stuff.

>Rebooted the machine out of curiosity. [Danger! Will Robinson]
>
>Big mistake! It's lost my wifi settings somewhere, so no network!
>
>Now it will have to wait until Saturday when I have time to work out
>what is wrong, and/or move the system downstairs so I can connect a
>cable between the original NIC and the router.
>
>I'm hoping it's just a kernel rebuild to specify the correct options
>and modules for the wifi...
>  
>

BTW I had some recent luck with ndiswrapper - it seems that it's getting 
to become a rather mature technique, I should hope it becomes included 
in the 2.6 ISO by default, which will help plenty of people during the 
install phase.

Good luck and I hope you get to enjoy the weekend ;^)

Auke