Jacob Meuser wrote:
On Sat, Jun 05, 2010 at 01:49:46AM -0400, Tony Abernethy wrote:
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> Jacob Meuser wrote:
> ...
> > > On 5/06/2010, at 7:31 AM, Nick Holland wrote:
> a patch to the upgrade guide would be wrong.
> The problem is the patching process (a special case of the userland build
> process) assumes a clean obj dir.  This has nothing to do with upgrades.
If
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> you try to rebuild the same userland utility more than once for /any/
> reason without clearing the obj dir, you can run into problems.  Clearing
> the obj directory as part of the upgrade is like flushing your toilet based
> on the date -- may help, but after a while, things start to stink.  It
isn't
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> the general (or proper) solution.
>
> > I'm still curious how anything left in /usr/obj can be anything
> > but a possible problem after updating system binaries and sources
> > to a new release.  especially for people who are just "following
> > the directions as they are written."
> >
> > --
> > jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org
> > SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
>
> ANYTHING left in /usr/obj will be a possible problem.
> ANYTHING left ANYWHERE will be a possible problem anytime anything assumes
> (or has/likes to assume) that it is working with a clean slate.
> "Fixing" minor problems (and bending everything else out of shape)
> does NOT make for better systems.
> For me, I prefer things (upgrade/update/whatever) that do as little
> collateral damage as possible. (And anytime you want/need to find out
> what went wrong you do NOT clean up everything first.)

so Tony, tell me, how does 'rm -rf /usr/obj/*', after installing new
binaries and new sources code (from a tarball - not an insignificant
part of the issue, and exactly what the directions say to do) create
collateral damage?

you're already past the point of no return anyway, right?

maybe I worded it wrongly but that's what I'm asking.

is telling people to 'rm -rf /usr/obj/*' after they have completed
the update really a necessary part of the upgrade process.  no.
but I bet if it would say that in the upgrade guide, this stupid
thread would never have happened.

--
jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org


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>------
Ok, my take on this mess.
If not this stupid thread, then some other stupid thread.
You do not 'rm -rf /usr/obj/*' AFTER the update.
You do the 'rm -rf /usr/obj/*' BEFORE you stick strange stuff into /usr/obj.
Collateral damage is anything that gets in the way of finding out exactly what
is or exactly what happened.
This whole mess seems to be because some unstated something AFTER the update
was claimed to be as a result of the update.
How often should /tmp be obliterated?

When you say "after installing new sources", what exactly is left on the
system?
The new sources presumably are there, but what else is there and does it
matter?
The answer requires a directory listing of everything on the system that did
not come from the new sources.
Anything short of that and you cannot state what it is that you did.

All I need to break any automated system you devise is to have some programs
that I compile myself and use the system directories to hold the sources etc.