On Tuesday 29 April 2008, reader@(protected):
> I'd like to jump an 2006 install up to 2008. I've never made that
> big an update without a fresh install.

There's no such thing as a "2006 install". What does exist, is the
collection of packages that were on the LiveCDs released in 2006. It's
a vital difference as Gentoo doesn't care about versions, just the
current collection of packages you might happen to have. You
don't "upgrade" as such, thinking in those terms will get you in deep
trouble real quick. What you do do is emerge whatever later version of
packages you feel like having (within some technical constraints)

> What is the smoothest way to do it?

change profile
emerge --sync
emerge -avuND world

> How might I manage to change the current profile from x86/2006 to
> x86/2008

ln -s /var/portage/profiles/default-linux/2008.0/desktop /etc/make.profile

adjust the profile path to suit what you have on your machine, mine is
in a non-standard place

If you --sync regularly and keep the box up to date you are likely to be
severely underwhelmed by what a change in profile will do: usually not
very much.

The profile defines some default USE flags and the collection of
packages that make up the system set (about 60 packages or so). It will
define things like coreutils, nano etc must be present, sometimes with
a minimum version. These are just defaults, if you configured them
explicitly, your changes will override the profile. Chances are you
already meet most of the minimum requirements for even the latest
profile so emerge -avuND world will likely do not much. If it does give
output, study it carefully and adjust your USE to suit your
requirements better than the profile, then re-run the emerge.

Of course, if you haven't updated the box since 2006, then you are in
for a fun ride. I recently updated a box 6 months out of date and also
removed everything resembling gnome at the same time. It took 4 days
and many failed builds. It would have been quicker to reinstall from
stage 1...   I didn't reinstall because I'm a pain loving masochist
with a point to prove. You should take note of this error of mine and
learn from it ;-)


--
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

--
gentoo-user@(protected)