Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Unstable branch proposal - second round

[Troy Dack <troy@tkdack.com>]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2002 10:40, Chris Johnson got a bunch of monkeys together 
and come up with:

> What I don't like about this, and catching Aaron Cohen's tone perhaps in
> his follow-up email ("Great, we will be a Debian Want a be!"), is the
> complexity of a set of cvs branches, stability levels, etc.
> 
> It's what has made a mess of debian from the perspective of having
> mature packages float to the top and become available in a timely
> manner. See, if I run debian, I have to make all sorts of decisions
> about what stability level, which tree, which mirrors, etc. I want to
> connect to. With the quality of ebuilds and the ease of the gentoo
> system, we can have much lower complexity and higher quality.
> 
> I vote strongly against any cvs branches of the portage tree--that's why
> we currently have the -rx designations, anyway! Leverage that and the
> organic nature of the community (i.e., see my proposal at
> 
http://relentless.org:8000/gentoo/forum/message?message_id=6584&forum_id=6581
> ) to get a simple, effective system.
> 
> Please, avoid the duplication of effort that all the branches of debian
> represent!
> 
> Chris

Fair enough... I realise that the -rx designations are there, however I 
have had -rx .ebuilds fail on numerous occassions because there was simply 
not enough testing before the ebuild was submitted to CVS.

This is fine if you already have a package installed ... simply file a bug, 
or slap the ebuild maintainer on IRC and in a few hours (a day or two at 
most) the ebuild is fixed and away you go.

The problem comes when a new user is trying to build their system and they 
get all these errors.  We don't want to discourage newcomers by having a 
tree of ebuilds that is not 100% stable for their first installation.

That was my main reason for suggesting seperate CVS branch(es).

I agree that Gentoo is not targeted at the "I've never seen linux before 
and thought I'd give it a go" type of user (that's what RH & MDK do), but I 
don't think we should make new users jump through too many hoops simply 
because an ebuild maintainer has hastily submitted an ebuild -- 
particularly for core packages (baselayout is one that comes to mind).


Perhaps a comprimise ....

A stable/install CVS branch that is only used during the initial 
bootstrap/build process and afterwards portage defaults to using the 
regular CVS tree?

Still it is a refreshing way to get my linux "fix"!

--
        Troy Dack
        http://linuxserver.tkdack.com

The onset and the waning of love make themselves felt in the uneasiness
experienced at being alone together.
                -- Jean de la Bruyere