Tag: package blocks

Gentoo – updating perl and problems like perl-core/ is blocking virtual/perl-

When upgrading Perl under Gentoo it’s almost typical to have blocks of the kind:

[blocks B      ] <perl-core/File-Path-2.160.0 ("<perl-core/File-Path-2.160.0" is blocking virtual/perl-File-Path-2.160.0)
[blocks B      ] <perl-core/Module-CoreList-5.201.905.220 ("<perl-core/Module-CoreList-5.201.905.220" is blocking virtual/perl-Module-CoreList-5.201.905.220)
[blocks B      ] <perl-core/Archive-Tar-2.320.0 ("<perl-core/Archive-Tar-2.320.0" is blocking virtual/perl-Archive-Tar-2.320.0)

These blocks appeared when we tried updaring the Perl 5.26 to 5.30 (dev-lang/perl-5.30.0:0/5.30::gentoo from dev-lang/perl-5.26.2:0). This update is a major update.
So what does it mean?
The virtual package and the perl-core package should be the same version, but it appears there are no corresponding same versions to the virtual package versions (). The problem is that the update depends on a newer version of File-Path, Module-CoreList, and Archive-Tar but there are only virtual packages with the required versions. Virtual packages are just meta-packages and they do not install any module. First, what are the virtual/[perl-module] and perl-core/[perl-module]:

  • perl-core/[perl-module] – perl independent modules. In fact, the same module may be independent and it may be part of the build-in packages from the Perl main package – dev-lang/perl. Sometimes you may choose the independent package, because of a newer version than the version included in the dev-lang/perl package.
  • virtual/[perl-module] – perl meta-package, which ensures the installation of the module. The module could be an independent package from above or module, which is included in the main Perl package (in dev-lang/perl)

To solve the blocks of this kind “perl-core/ is blocking virtual/perl-” you must check for a newer version of perl-core/* if there is no newer version, just to remove the package and let the setup (emerge) use the module included in dev-lang/perl.

In our case, there are no newer versions of the three packages and we remove them with:

emerge -Cv perl-core/File-Path perl-core/Module-CoreList perl-core/Archive-Tar

And then emerge with no problems the new version of Perl with:

emerge --verbose --verbose-conflicts --backtrack=200000 $(qlist -IC|grep perl|sort|uniq) media-gfx/inkscape media-gfx/imagemagick dev-php/pecl-imagick

For detail explaination of why we use verbose-conflicts, backtrack, qlist and three excplicitly added packages you may read our article on similar subject – Gentoo updating perl with many masked and blocked packages
You may read the offcial documentation for more information – https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Perl#Introduction

Updating our Perl from dev-lang/perl-5.26.2:0 to dev-lang/perl-5.30.0:0/5.30

Keep on reading!

Gentoo updating KDE – package blocks

In continuing our tips for updating big or multiple packages in Gentoo this time we show how to update KDE Platform, Plasma and Apps packages. In Gentoo KDE Desktop GUI is split into three major categories:

  1. kde-frameworks
  2. kde-plasma
  3. kde-apps

How we managed to update in our current situation:

  1. Sometimes when updating a group or a package with big dependency graph it is much easier to drop the -“u” update argument and to rebuild some packages with the updates.
  2. use qlist to update/re(build) to pull currently installed packages with some name or category (categories)
  3. Remove obsolete packages – you do not need them, they can just make problems when updating, because emerge will take into consideration their requirements and dependencies and your update could be impossible!

More on the subject of update tips here: Gentoo update tips when updating packages with blocks and masked files
Keep on reading!

Gentoo updating perl with many masked and blocked packages

After our previous howto Gentoo – update dev-libs/icu on a desktop box with KDE GUI and many masked packages we want to show you another example of how to update perl, which could have hundreds dependencies installed as perl modules. You can check for more details above howto, details about what to do when there are masked and blocked packages, because here we use only some of the options we have the proper ones for this case.
Just to note when updating perl you must reinstall (recompile, rebuild) all the external modules (additional packages) and all perl modules installed with CPAN module (if you do not know what is this, you probably have not used it so no worries).

How we managed to update in our current situation:

  • use qlist to update/re(build) to pull currently installed packages with some name or category (categories)
  • Add or remove USE flags if needed – emerge will show you information about it. Use package.use, package.mask, package.unmask and so on.
  • Use verbose,verbose-conflicts and backtrack with emerge
  • Include explicitly packages, which block our updates in the emerge line! You could specify packages with the versions.

More on the subject of Perl update tips here: Gentoo update tips when updating packages with blocks and masked files
And a new article on the subject – Gentoo – updating perl and problems like perl-core/ is blocking virtual/perl-
Keep on reading!

Gentoo – update dev-libs/icu on a desktop box with KDE GUI and many masked packages

No, we are not going to answer why someone will use Gentoo for Desktop, but well such human beings still exist and we have one piece of snippet the updating old dev-libs/icu package, because KDE Platform and new version of Chromium depend on a new version >=dev-libs/icu-59.
The main reason to include this update here is show how to deal with the dependency hell in Gentoo – multiple blocked packages and some old and deprecated packages, but still installed.

To summarize it up at the beginning how we did it

and then you’ll see what are the steps we took to resolve the conflicts and masked packages:

  • Use verbose,verbose-conflicts and backtrack with emerge
  • Remove only big GUI packages, which have really big dependency graph like office suites or development IDEs
  • Remove obsolete packages – you do not need them, they can just make problems when updating, because emerge will take into consideration their requirements and dependencies and your update could be impossible!
  • Include explicitly packages, which block our updates in the emerge line!
  • use tools like “equery” (part of app-portage/gentoolkit) for checking dependencies and/or which packages depend on the queried package. You can use it with specific version for the package. “qlist” (part of app-portage/portage-utils) also is a handful tool.
  • Sometimes when updating a group or a package with big dependency graph it is much easier to drop the -“u” update argument and to rebuild some packages with the updates.

More on the subject of update tips here: Gentoo update tips when updating packages with blocks and masked files
Keep on reading!