Let me start out this post by making it clear. You should really upgrade your Gentoo installation on a regular basis. If not, you might run into some problems.
This post attempts to help out someone that is trying to bring an unmaintained installation up to date. Under most circumstances it is probably easier to reinstall after a certain point. These instructions have been created by an active contributor to Gentoo, Nick Fortino, to take a 2006.1 installation and update it to a current stable system. (Which I hope is much more extreme than anyone needs).
Version 0, written by Nick Fortino
#March 23, 2009
#This has been tested only in chroot, bringing 2006.1-amd64-stage3 upto
#a stable amd64 system
#This is an experimental guide on how to upgrade an old system to get to
#portage 2.1.6.7. Once this state is achieved, portage can do the rest, with
#decent dependency resolution.
###########################################################################
#Between the first tar command and the success of 'emerge -uDN system', the
#true state of the system, and the state according to portage are different.
#This is rather unsafe, so be sure you understand what you are doing.
#Consider this your big red warning to backup important files before attempting
#an update, and consider a re-install if possible.
###########################################################################
#It may be wise to use the default make.conf, as we would like to rebuild
#as few packages as possible before the toolchain has been updated, and use
#flags will bring in a bunch of dependencies
#Update the symlink to an existing profile
unlink /etc/make.profile
ln -s ../usr/portage/profiles/default/linux/amd64/2008.0 /etc/make.profile
#Fetch and forcefully upgrade python, bash, and portage with prebuilt sources
wget http://tinderbox.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/amd64/dev-lang/python-2.5.2-r7.tbz2
wget http://tinderbox.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/amd64/app-shells/bash-3.2_p39.tbz2
wget http://tinderbox.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/amd64/sys-apps/portage-2.1.6.7.tbz2
cd /
tar xfpj root/python-2.5.2-r7.tbz2
tar xfpj root/bash-3.2_p39.tbz2
tar xfpj root/portage-2.1.6.7.tbz2
#remove the obsolete block from bash for portage; we got around it with a binary
#update (adding to /etc/portage/profile/package.provided would seem more
#elegant, but doesn't work?)
cd /usr/portage/app-shells/bash
nano /usr/portage/app-shells/bash/bash-3.2_p39.ebuild
repoman manifest
cd /
#See what will be upgraded, there should be no unresolved blockers
emerge -puDNv system
#Perform the update, this command will likely make good progress, and then fail
emerge -uDN system
############
#Known failures and solutions
############
#Cracklib wants -unmerge-orphans
FEATURES='-unmerge-orphans' emerge -1 cracklib
#continue the upgrade
emerge -uDN system
#Python updater and python split, creating a confilct, resolve by removing
#the old file
rm /usr/sbin/python-updater
emerge -1 python-updater
#continue the upgrade
emerge -uDN system
############
#Cleanup
############
#Update the current terminal
env-update
source /etc/profile
#Deal with the many /etc files which need updating
emerge gentoolkit
dispatch-conf
#At this point, the toolchain has been rebuilt, which likely involved an upgrade
#of gcc. Follow http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gcc-upgrading.xml to finish the
#upgrade. A lot of what is requested there has likely been done automatically,
#so in summary:
#Check that gcc-config is using the correct compiler, if not, follow the above
#guide
gcc-config -l
#Replace your make.conf/update to whatever profile you choose/etc.
#Rebuild the system with the new toolchain, and custom settings
emerge -eav system
#Rebuild and update world with new toolchain and settings
emerge -eav world
#Finally, remove any old packages which still survived the process
emerge --depclean -a
Which I made available here.
So, please people. Update on a regular basis so you don’t have to go through this stuff.
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