abt stage 3 installation method

from the minimal install guide, after i install stage 3 and install latest portage,

i want to update my base system i.e. stage3.... i.e. upadate the compilers & other things in stage3...

how do i go about this?

also will doing this cause my system to be UNSTABLE ?

some suggestions i ve got from my friends are :

1
Code:
emerge system


2
Code:
emerge -vp app
emerge app


3
Code:
emerge --deep --update world

If you're updating, emerge --update --deep world is the best solution. If you're simply recompiling your base system, emerge system is what you need.

i intend to do the gcc update to latest 3.4.x first using manual @ gentoo.org

then set cflags as

Code:

---

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

---

i ve intel 915GAV motherboard with P4 3.0GHz HT processor

then do

Code:

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emerge --deep --update --newuse world

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now will this make my system LESS STABLE than continuing ahead with the default regular profile?

the fomit-frame-pointer will give you problems if you need to debug apps (according to the manual, i've never used it). O2 is a good optimisation setting so there's no problem there, as are the march and pipe. if you change your CHOST you MUST follow the relevant documentation (it's on gentoo.org somewhere) or your system WILL break. i updated this laptop to gcc 3.4 and i've had no problems so far. you should be ok.

Make sure and sync you portage tree first before you do any of this.

Code:

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emerge --sync

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Basically, to update your toolchain and then your system after a major gcc upgrade (ie.. 3.3.* to 3.4.* or 3.4.* to 4.*.*) then first, you need to unmask GCC to whatever version you want. Then, you would issue a

Code:

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emerge -avu gcc

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That will update gcc for you. After that finishes, you want to compile your new toolchain and compiler with your updated compiler, and then you want to recompile with your optimized toolchain. You would do a

Code:

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emerge -e system && emerge -e system

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Then go get a pizza, it will take a while. Depending on how fast your machine is, it will probably take 6 - 20 hours. Mine only took about 6 - 8 hours on a P4 3.0E with 1 GB of ram running ccache.

When that finishes, you will want to recompile your kernel and any drivers (such as nvidia or ati drivers, madwifi or other wireless drivers, etc...) with the new compiler. Go ahead and do that.

Then, when that is all done, you will want to reboot into your new system, and you have a choice to make. Do you want to recompile your world with your new, optimized compiler? Or do you want the world programs to get compiled when they update? To compile them all right now, do this:

Code:

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emerge -e world

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That will get your system completely up do date with the new compiler that you have chosen.

Oh, if you are just doing a small revision upgrade (ie.. from gcc-3.4.3 to gcc-3.4.4 or something similar) then you won't need to recompile everything.

You can search around on the gentoo forums, someone has made a script to do all of that for you. The script won't recompile things you don't need, like emerge -e system will, but I haven't tried it. I hear good things about it though.

If you need anything else, just post!