[gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Manuzhai]

Hi,

I've been thinking about Gentoo Linux for some time. I first installed
it a year ago, and I really liked it
(http://www.manuzhai.nl/weblog/related.keyword/gentoo-linux/). Since
then, I've installed it on my server and am in the process of getting a
workable desktop-installation on my workstation. I wonder about this,
though: do I really need the Portage tree.

I emerge sync my server about daily and my desktop somewhat irregular,
and I wonder: why do I have to do this. It seems (and I might be wrong
on this one) that I really only need package names, version numbers and
dependencies. These could easily be listed in a XML file (per category,
for example), which means I'd just have to download a few XML files
every time instead of having to rsync. I think the bandwidth use may be
equivalent, but mirroring would be a lot simpler and less CPU-intensive
if you just need to have a couple of XML files and a httpd.

So rephrasing my question: why do I have to download all these ebuilds
for software I never use? Just seems silly.

Regards,

Manuzhai



--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 01 April 2004 14:19, Manuzhai wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been thinking about Gentoo Linux for some time. I first installed
> it a year ago, and I really liked it
> (http://www.manuzhai.nl/weblog/related.keyword/gentoo-linux/). Since
> then, I've installed it on my server and am in the process of getting
> a workable desktop-installation on my workstation. I wonder about
> this, though: do I really need the Portage tree.
>
> I emerge sync my server about daily and my desktop somewhat irregular,
> and I wonder: why do I have to do this. It seems (and I might be wrong
> on this one) that I really only need package names, version numbers
> and dependencies. These could easily be listed in a XML file (per
> category, for example), which means I'd just have to download a few
> XML files every time instead of having to rsync. I think the bandwidth
> use may be equivalent, but mirroring would be a lot simpler and less
> CPU-intensive if you just need to have a couple of XML files and a
> httpd.
>
> So rephrasing my question: why do I have to download all these ebuilds
> for software I never use? Just seems silly.

Basically because having such a scheme complicates things. It would 
change portage significantly, but it would be doable.

In the meantime however please note that it is possible to exclude 
certain categories from the rsync (like games). That would be able to 
safe some space/time.

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Thu, 2004-04-01 at 08:46, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> In the meantime however please note that it is possible to exclude 
> certain categories from the rsync (like games). That would be able to 
> safe some space/time.

Why does everyone always say "like games" anyway?  Games are essential,
man.  KDE and Gnome are cruft... ;p

Honestly, if you're worried about the portage tree, stop updating it so
much.  There's really no need to be vigilant in portage updates.  This
will become even more true in the future with the security only
updates.  One other feature I would like to see is the ability to rsync
only certain parts of the tree, similar to how cvs works.  I should be
able to be in my $PORTDIR/games-fps and do an "emerge dirsync" (or
whatever) and have it sync just that directory.  I think it would save
the load on the servers if people are looking for specific updates to
specific packages.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

Is your power animal a penguin?

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[tigger]

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On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 09:56:43AM -0500, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-04-01 at 08:46, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > In the meantime however please note that it is possible to exclude 
> > certain categories from the rsync (like games). That would be able to 
> > safe some space/time.
> 
> Why does everyone always say "like games" anyway?  Games are essential,
> man.  KDE and Gnome are cruft... ;p
> 
> Honestly, if you're worried about the portage tree, stop updating it so
> much.  There's really no need to be vigilant in portage updates.  This
> will become even more true in the future with the security only
> updates.  One other feature I would like to see is the ability to rsync
> only certain parts of the tree, similar to how cvs works.  I should be
> able to be in my $PORTDIR/games-fps and do an "emerge dirsync" (or
> whatever) and have it sync just that directory.  I think it would save
> the load on the servers if people are looking for specific updates to
> specific packages.

That sounds really scary to me. Won't this break stuff? Like things
depending on ebuilds which you haven't synced as they are in a different
category?

-- 
rob holland - [ tigger@gentoo.org ]
irc://irc.freenode.net/#gentoo as tigger^
http://dev.gentoo.org/~tigger/tigger@gentoo.org.asc

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Thu, 2004-04-01 at 08:55, tigger@gentoo.org wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 09:56:43AM -0500, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> > On Thu, 2004-04-01 at 08:46, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > > In the meantime however please note that it is possible to exclude 
> > > certain categories from the rsync (like games). That would be able to 
> > > safe some space/time.
> > 
> > Why does everyone always say "like games" anyway?  Games are essential,
> > man.  KDE and Gnome are cruft... ;p
> > 
> > Honestly, if you're worried about the portage tree, stop updating it so
> > much.  There's really no need to be vigilant in portage updates.  This
> > will become even more true in the future with the security only
> > updates.  One other feature I would like to see is the ability to rsync
> > only certain parts of the tree, similar to how cvs works.  I should be
> > able to be in my $PORTDIR/games-fps and do an "emerge dirsync" (or
> > whatever) and have it sync just that directory.  I think it would save
> > the load on the servers if people are looking for specific updates to
> > specific packages.
> 
> That sounds really scary to me. Won't this break stuff? Like things
> depending on ebuilds which you haven't synced as they are in a different
> category?

You're probably right.  I just tend to work on a lot of ebuilds that
have very lax dependencies.  Ignore that request everyone... ;P

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

Is your power animal a penguin?

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Jani-Matti Hätinen]

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tigger@gentoo.org kirjoitti (torstai, 1. huhtikuuta 2004 16:55):
> That sounds really scary to me. Won't this break stuff? Like things
> depending on ebuilds which you haven't synced as they are in a different
> category?

This already happens when you define a certain package as ~arch in 
package.keywords and it depends on another which is also ~arch. (in an 
otherwise arch system that is)
  Naturally partial syncs would bring in an extra modifier to this problem 
(nowadays you know that it's always caused by something in package.keywords).

-- 
Jani-Matti Hätinen
"Oh I'm not drunk. I'm mentally ill"



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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 01 April 2004 16:56, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-04-01 at 08:46, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > In the meantime however please note that it is possible to exclude
> > certain categories from the rsync (like games). That would be able
> > to safe some space/time.
>
> Why does everyone always say "like games" anyway?  Games are
> essential, man.  KDE and Gnome are cruft... ;p

Well for servers games are even less usefull than kde/gnome, allthough 
both of them don't have a place on most servers either.

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Fri, 2004-04-02 at 02:53, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > Why does everyone always say "like games" anyway?  Games are
> > essential, man.  KDE and Gnome are cruft... ;p
> 
> Well for servers games are even less usefull than kde/gnome, allthough 
> both of them don't have a place on most servers either.

Except for servers servicing items from games-server... :]

Anyway, for now it is much simpler to have a tree of ebuilds which are
easily maintainable than a single (or a few) large xml files which would
become a maintenance nightmare for all the developers involved. 
Currently there are many developers who work on only one ebuild in a
particular area.  As a good example, I maintain exactly one ebuild in
app-emulation.  What kind of separation would there be for the xml
files?  How would different versions be accommodated?  Unless there was
some "magic" which translated the text ebuilds/eclasses/profiles into
xml (or a db, or whatever) before it went out to the world, and which
*didn't screw up* in the process, I don't think we'd see much of a
change any time soon.  Not to mention the amount of work that would need
to be done to portage itself to modify it to parse xml.  I know that
this sort of thing has been discussed before, and if memory serves me
correctly, the reason for not doing so was not so much it being a bad
idea or anything but really a matter of developer resources and
energies.  There's really nothing wrong with the current approach that
would be helped by having the portage tree be in xml or a database, at
least, not anything worth spending the tremendous amount of resources on
that it would take.  Personally, I would rather spend my time fixing
bugs and adding new features to portage, not redoing all of the work I
have done up until now to make it xml compliant.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

Is your power animal a pengiun?

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Friday 02 April 2004 20:43, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> Anyway, for now it is much simpler to have a tree of ebuilds which are
> easily maintainable than a single (or a few) large xml files which would
> become a maintenance nightmare for all the developers involved.
> Currently there are many developers who work on only one ebuild in a
> particular area.  As a good example, I maintain exactly one ebuild in
> app-emulation.  What kind of separation would there be for the xml
> files?  How would different versions be accommodated?  Unless there was
> some "magic" which translated the text ebuilds/eclasses/profiles into
> xml (or a db, or whatever) before it went out to the world, and which
> *didn't screw up* in the process, I don't think we'd see much of a
> change any time soon.  Not to mention the amount of work that would need
> to be done to portage itself to modify it to parse xml.  I know that
> this sort of thing has been discussed before, and if memory serves me
> correctly, the reason for not doing so was not so much it being a bad
> idea or anything but really a matter of developer resources and
> energies.  There's really nothing wrong with the current approach that
> would be helped by having the portage tree be in xml or a database, at
> least, not anything worth spending the tremendous amount of resources on
> that it would take.  Personally, I would rather spend my time fixing
> bugs and adding new features to portage, not redoing all of the work I
> have done up until now to make it xml compliant.

I agree. The only feasible option that could have some benefit (which doesn't 
mean I support it) is to make ebuild files selfcontained. There would be some 
benefits in that, but there is a lot that is more important than even 
considering that option.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Wazow]

Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@gentoo.org> writes:
> Anyway, for now it is much simpler to have a tree of ebuilds which are
> easily maintainable than a single (or a few) large xml files which would
> become a maintenance nightmare for all the developers involved. 
> Currently there are many developers who work on only one ebuild in a
> particular area.  As a good example, I maintain exactly one ebuild in
> app-emulation.  What kind of separation would there be for the xml
> files?  

Chris, I think you have confused things a bit. I believe that the OP
complained about the amount of useless information being
kept/transferred via portage tree, while only package names, versions and
names/versions of dependencies are needed to compute the set of
installed ebuilds. I guess nobody questions ebuilds. Only it seems way
to precautious to keep all of them on the local drive, instead of just
downloading those you need, once you call emerge package-name.

I am not a great fan of xml, but whatever format it would be it could be
automatically generated from the portage tree perhaps several times a
day (and then propagated to mirrors). Mirrors would still probably need
to keep the hole portage tree, but rsync would be performed only on the
packages you need at the point of emerging them. There seems to be some
restructuring in the code, but most of the mechanisms we have now would
need to be kept. Dependency calculation would need to use the new format
though and the batch generating the xml-thingy would need to be written.
Also not much (if anything) would change from developers
perspective. You would just work with ebuilds as you do today. Local
portage overlays could still be supported.

I actually like this idea a lot.

Andrzej


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Brian Jackson]

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On Thursday 01 April 2004 06:19, Manuzhai wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been thinking about Gentoo Linux for some time. I first installed
> it a year ago, and I really liked it
> (http://www.manuzhai.nl/weblog/related.keyword/gentoo-linux/). Since
> then, I've installed it on my server and am in the process of getting a
> workable desktop-installation on my workstation. I wonder about this,
> though: do I really need the Portage tree.
>
> I emerge sync my server about daily and my desktop somewhat irregular,
> and I wonder: why do I have to do this. 

What I do is share my /usr/portage via nfs between all my boxes, that way I 
only have one copy that has to be synced. This also shares the distfiles 
directory so I don't download all distfiles twice (or 6 times in my case). 
Then I just set my server up to sync in the middle of the night when I'm 
(supposed to be) asleep, and all is well.

- --Iggy

> It seems (and I might be wrong 
> on this one) that I really only need package names, version numbers and
> dependencies. These could easily be listed in a XML file (per category,
> for example), which means I'd just have to download a few XML files
> every time instead of having to rsync. I think the bandwidth use may be
> equivalent, but mirroring would be a lot simpler and less CPU-intensive
> if you just need to have a couple of XML files and a httpd.
>
> So rephrasing my question: why do I have to download all these ebuilds
> for software I never use? Just seems silly.
>
> Regards,
>
> Manuzhai

- -- 
http://www.brianandsara.net
For Sale : http://www.brianandsara.net/temp/forsale.php
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Do I really need the tree?

[Spider]

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begin  quote
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 11:26:21 -0600
Brian Jackson <iggy@gentoo.org> wrote:


> Then I just set my server up to sync in the middle of the night when
> I'm  (supposed to be) asleep, and all is well.

it works better at 2 in the afternoon.  If I'm at home, I'm asleep. if
I'm at work / school I won't notice.

and if its sunday its time to make food anyhow ;)
(same goes for all cron-jobs, and weekly jobs are executed on
tuesdays...;)

//Spider





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