> In theory, Portage could track them if ebuild could be modified to use
> /usr/src/pkg when it existed instead of /var/tmp/portage/*/work and
> the application was installed via 'ebuild pkg merge'. I'm not sure how
> possible that would be for implementation, though.

But then the question is: Why? We already have the source unpacked in
/var/tmp/portage/*/work so why "move" it to /usr/src? There are already
ways for people to do the configure- and make-steps them selves if they
wish (through the ebuild-command as you yourself said). As I see it
there would be no advantage reimplementing it the proposed way...
As for the kernels to be auto-configured, why not do it the same way as
some other packages do it: have an extra section in the ebuild that
configures the kernel for you through genkernel... Several other
packages already have this section (think it's called config) including
postresql. This could be advertised in the same way as in the
postresql-ebuild at the end of the emerge-command, and thus everybody
has a choice in how they would like to configure and compile the kernel.

Patrick Börjesson

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