On Tue, 2010-04-13 at 09:09 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: > On Monday 12 April 2010 18:33:21 KH wrote: > > Am 12.04.2010 14:57, schrieb Alan McKinnon: > > > > So, in the rare case of a user who can discipline himself to say within the > limits you describe, your advice is fine. But that's a theoretical situation > :-) and the real one is quite different in my experience. > >
This is exactly how I manage a number of gentoo systems - only unmasking versions I need. Ive actually never done a ~ system :) However, on the other side of the coin is the fact I have also never run a completely stable system either because I have never been able to get the task done a system was built for without at least a few unstable packages. For an extreme example, remember when X was masked for some security problem leaving stable with no X windows system (think it was back in the xfree86 days). You will quite often find that when trying to build even a basic system, you have to keyword a few packages or you get nowhere. And if its a complex 1000 pkg plus system, you are definitely going to have problems. One hint I can give for long term stability is to try and specify versions (either with = or ~) rather than just an open keywording. Otherwise it gets out of hand with many unmasked packages needed and needing maintaining on upgrades. BillK
