Experimental branch

Warning

Funtoo Experimental where we test bleeding-edge stuff, and we're not afraid to break things. Don't use experimental unless you are helping us test new features.

Status

The experimental branch currently contains an updated version of gcc-4.6.2-r1, and an updated toolchain.eclass.

Future plans:

funtoo profile integration
udev and friends bump

Experimental Timeline

Mar 23, 2012 - experimental is now merged into master. Experimental follows master now.
Between Jan and Mar, 2012 - experimental contains Nova cloud computing libraries.
Between Jan and Mar, 2012 - perl-5.14 is added but kept hard-masked as it breaks stage1 builds.
Jan 28, 2012 - experimental now contains Progress_Overlay_Python
Dec 16, 2011 - experimental is now merged into master. Experimental follows master now.
Sep 27, 2011 - experimental tree is created, used for new gcc-4.6.2 toolchain development and ebuild cleanup.

Introduction

The Funtoo experimental branch is used by Funtoo Core Developers to try and test new features to be included in Funtoo stable and current branches when ready. Users that want to help the developers test those new features are welcome to switch to the experimental branch and report problems on IRC or the forum. However, problems may arise from using it and there is no guarantee that your system will stay usable.

Upgrading an existing Funtoo installation to experimental

# rm -rf /usr/portage
# nano -w /etc/make.conf

Add the following line (or modify it if it's already there):

SYNC="git://github.com/funtoo/experimental-mini-2011.git"

First method

# emerge --sync

Verify that the experimental tree has been properly installed:

# cat /usr/portage/.git/config
...
[remote "origin"]
	fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
	url = git://github.com/funtoo/experimental-mini-2011.git
...

You should see that the git repository is pointing to experimental-mini-2011.git.

If for any reason this method did not work, use the second method to manually clone the experimental branch.

Second method

# rm -rf /usr/portage
# cd /usr
# git clone git://github.com/funtoo/experimental-mini-2011.git portage
# emerge --sync

Installation from an experimental branch stage3

You can find some stage3s on the Funtoo mirror: [1]. These stages are updated weekly, possibly more often during active experimental development.

Building stage3s using Metro

You may build your own stages of the experimental branch using Metro. The stages from the Funtoo mirror ([2]) can be used as a seed. A funtoo-experimental target is available.

History

Iteration 1 (Completed Dec 16, 2011)

Implementation and stabilization of a new set of toolchain packages:

gcc-4.6.2
binutils-2.21-r1
linux-headers-2.6.39
glibc-2.13-r4
udev-171-r1
patched lvm2-2.02.85
Several patches to solve problems building with this toolchain

And some other features:

Portage Dynamic Slot
Modifications of Mesa, libdrm and radeon drivers to support each type of Radeon video card individually, as well as masked -9999 versions of those packages.