[MacPorts] Migration modified

[Rainer Müller]

On 2017-09-01 15:35, Thomas R. Murphy wrote:
> As a long-time user of MacPorts, I've migrated a few times a memory from
> one of those times was how disastrously poorly the migration went. Be it
> my fault in following the directions or a problem with my setup, I ended
> up hard-uninstalling everything and reinstalling ports from memory/as I
> re-discovered needing them. Since then, I have actively sought out this
> set of instructions. My edits were to bring the instructions into a
> proactive position, knowing that the installed ports need to be logged
> and reinstalled, versus a reactive position, having MacPorts not work
> and direct you to the wiki page.

> Better documenting on the Migration wiki page to express the full
> context of the instructions would be useful. It may also be valuable to
> include at least a link to the Migration page as an "Uncommon Tasks"
> relative to https://guide.macports.org/chunked/using.common-tasks.html .
> This would give users more exposure to the process *before* they ever
> needed to use it rather than discovering additional effort as (some?)
> ports are broken and MacPorts requires a full reinstall to get a
> functioning system back.

Thank you for sharing your experience. Users like you that once went
through these instructions might remember that they can save the list of
installed ports before upgrading their OS.

Not sure where it would fit into the guide. I do not think the section
of "Common Tasks" is the best place, neither does it fit to the
installation instructions (as you just want to use it, not learn how to
make backups).

> Of course, it would be best if MacPorts could handle the majority of the
> OS-change work and the documentation was almost as short as "Upgrade OS,
> run `sudo port <some upgrade task>`, and let everything reinstall."

That is exactly what Umesh Singla is working on at the moment, sponsored
by Google Summer of Code.

> Meanwhile, while writing this email, I found an additional deficiency in
> the current process in which re-setting the requested status doesn't
> work reliably. I look forward to continuing to improve the documentation
> once the overall structure of this page is decided on.

The 'sudo port setrequested' should be reliable. In which case does it
not work?

I just reverted the order of the steps in the wiki page to start after
the OS upgrade.

Please do not be discouraged by this. Feel free to make more changes to
the Migration instructions and other pages as you see fit.

Rainer