From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DswF7-0001vG-Kw for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 14 Jul 2005 05:26:42 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with SMTP id j6E5Q1TK015133; Thu, 14 Jul 2005 05:26:01 GMT Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [134.68.220.30]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id j6E5O4Ah000189 for ; Thu, 14 Jul 2005 05:24:05 GMT Received: from mailgate2.dslextreme.com ([66.51.199.95]) by smtp.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DswCc-0003za-G0 for gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org; Thu, 14 Jul 2005 05:24:06 +0000 Received: from mail5.dslextreme.com (unknown [192.168.7.93]) by mailgate2.dslextreme.com (Postfix) with SMTP id EEFBE3A6586 for ; Wed, 13 Jul 2005 21:23:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 22431 invoked from network); 14 Jul 2005 05:23:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO netblock-66-245-219-93.dslextreme.com) (66.245.219.93) by mail5.dslextreme.com with (RC4-MD5 encrypted) SMTP; Wed, 13 Jul 2005 22:23:43 -0700 Subject: [gentoo-dev] Proposal: pre-emerge advisories From: Craig Lawson To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 22:24:03 -0700 Message-Id: <1121318643.3180.6.camel@localhost.localdomain> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.0.4 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-DSLExtreme-MailGate-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-DSLExtreme-MailGate: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: craig.lawson@alum.mit.edu X-Archives-Salt: 9412ecdd-6495-4df4-9d99-7dbe46dbd23f X-Archives-Hash: f2c8636b80bdcd949a4b568ad52c34e2 This past weekend, I upgraded about 80 packages and a kernel and later discovered that my CD-ROM drive went missing and my lovingly crafted gnome menus were trashed by Gnome 2.10 and no longer editable. Oh joy, another portage upgrade surprise. Some rummaging around in the Gentoo forums sent me in the right direction and the CD-ROM was handily fixed. But the menus were more complicated and I reverted Gnome. Not the first time this has happened. Friends, I won't bore you with tales of my past singeing, as I sense your hand itching towards your Flame On! button. Instead, I have a proposal for discussion. What I'd like to see *before* I upgrade is a list of advisories about what trouble I'm in for. By the time most people upgrade a package, someone's been there before and felt the pain. The answers, or at least the warnings, are in the Forums. Yet searching the forums before upgrading each package is not practical. Similarly, the build logs are 99% stuff I don't care to read and 1% that I really do. How to find it? Better yet, I'd like to see it *before* I build. Currently that stuff comes from each ebuild's post-install procedure, however I don't think that's the best place for it: it's not easy to change or amend (gotta be the package maintainer), it's risky to change (too easy to introduce a syntax error), and it isn't specific to individual situations. To be more concrete, I'm thinking of something like a database with three entries per record: current package+version, target package +version, and some advisory text. For example, a few useful entries would be: current: any target: =gnome-base/gnome-menus-2.10.0 advisory: Menu editing disabled until follow-up release. Work-around is to install Python 4 + smeg. See forum topic http://forums.gentoo.org/blah... and: current: =sys-fs/udev-60 advisory: Rules file changed syntax. Preserve old rules file and be prepared to rewrite. and: current: