If you start a World update do you have to finish it?

[darkscot]

I think the answer is probably yes but i thought I would ask anyway. My installation of Sabayon is on the family PC and i am reluctant to start something that is going to take days to complete and so incur the wrath of other users. If you start a world update but are not able to complete it (i.e. "I WANT TO PLAY STRONGHOLD 2!" ) is it going to cause problems?

[Necoro]

It might - and it might not ...

You easily can resume your update (in case your system boots) with emerge --resume when there is time again.

[DontPanic]

Maybe other people's experience is different, but for me, when you do that first giant world update of a Sabayon-Linux installation, you'll encounter a few 'problems' even if things go relatively smoothly.

You have some potential for adding additional problems by interrupting the world update for a reboot, but I've done it.

Like you say, all of us aren't in a position to guarantee a computer's availability for a multi-day update. If you are willing to accept some risk in generating a problem that you'll have to fix, then go for it.

A couple of things I've learned to watch for:
(1) Try to break the update in the middle of a compile cycle. Try NOT to interrupt the update when it is merging the package at the end of installing a package. In theory, sandboxing will minimize that time window when you can really screw up installing a package. But there is a point at the end of the install that can really hurt things if it is interrupted.

(2) If you use some of the tricks for continuing the update by skipping the broken packages (such as: 'emerge -e world || until emerge --resume --skipfirst; do emerge --resume --skipfirst; done'), you have to be careful how you interrupt the update. Doing a simple Ctrl-C won't kill the update when it is called in this manner. It just kills the update it is currently working on, and goes on to the next update. I'm not 100% sure how to stop an update once it is started with this syntax. Sometimes, I just had to cross my fingers and re-boot.

Good Luck.

[MeaCulpa]

Or you could try CTRL-Z to suspend the emerge and if not in compile you would mostly have to deal with the locks and then do what you want.