[gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

Hello everyone,

I'm sure at least half of you are thinking "Oh no, not this again...",
and I agree. However, I'm /also/ thinking "Why the heck haven't we
done this yet?"

We've been discussing this since 2008, and probably waaay before that
too. The entire discussion about whether we should do this or not has
already passed, there is NO NEED to have that again. This email is
about discussion on what all is *left* before we can do $SUBJECT.

What prompted this email? libpng-1.4 and many other upgrades that have
left gentoo systems very very broken. We have to resort to random
scripts to fix breakage, which reflects very badly on us. Even worse,
a lot of users just give up and reinstall their system, or don't
upgrade, or just move away from Gentoo.

I understand that these kind of breakages are inevitable, but with
as-needed, we can reduce their effect *drastically*. Instead of having
to rebuild almost their entire system, the user would only need to
rebuild packages that directly link(ed) to libpng. I honestly think
that we cannot afford to expose our users to any more such upgrades
without as-needed in the default linux profile.

There's a tracker bug for this, and the problems still remaining are:
http://bugs.gentoo.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=129413&hide_resolved=1

*Most* of the problems listed there are forced-as-needed problems,
which need to be fixed no doubt, but should NOT block addition of
--as-needed to LDFLAGS in make.defaults which will not trigger those
build failures.

What needs to be done now is for someone with lots of CPU power to
grab the list of packages[1], and build them one-by-one (all
versions), adding to a new list all the ebuilds that fail. How to
test:

LDFLAGS="-Wl,--as-needed" emerge -v1 $atom

Once we have the list that fails with normal as-needed, we can fix
them, get the fix upstreamed (if possible), and switch the flag on.
This action should probably be accompanied by a news item informing
users about the change, and encouraging them to report the (rare) bug
which might hit them.

Let's try to make Gentoo less frustrating for our users.

1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/files/as-needed-failures.list
-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

[gentoo-dev] Re: Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Christian Faulhammer]

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Hi,

Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org>:
> What needs to be done now is for someone with lots of CPU power to
> grab the list of packages[1], and build them one-by-one (all
> versions), adding to a new list all the ebuilds that fail. How to
> test:
> 
> LDFLAGS="-Wl,--as-needed" emerge -v1 $atom
> 
> Once we have the list that fails with normal as-needed, we can fix
> them, get the fix upstreamed (if possible), and switch the flag on.
> This action should probably be accompanied by a news item informing
> users about the change, and encouraging them to report the (rare) bug
> which might hit them.

 And the stable tree should be safe, too. In general I like the idea.

V-Li

-- 
Christian Faulhammer, Gentoo Lisp project
<URL:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-lisp on FreeNode

<URL:http://www.faulhammer.org/>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:39:44 +0530
Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org> wrote:
> There's a tracker bug for this, and the problems still remaining are:
> http://bugs.gentoo.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=129413&hide_resolved=1

You've forgotten "make --as-needed not break correct code by making the
linker ignore explicit instructions from a program author to link two
things together". Until you do that, --as-needed is in the same
category as -ffast-math.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Samuli Suominen]

On 06/28/2010 10:35 AM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:39:44 +0530
> Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> There's a tracker bug for this, and the problems still remaining are:
>> http://bugs.gentoo.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=129413&hide_resolved=1
> 
> You've forgotten "make --as-needed not break correct code by making the
> linker ignore explicit instructions from a program author to link two
> things together". Until you do that, --as-needed is in the same
> category as -ffast-math.
> 

And we can't be held hostage by few packages (marginal cases), that's
why we have function called $(no-as-needed) in flag-o-matic.eclass to
disable the behavior for these packages.

I.e. your point is moot.

- Samuli

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:44:54 +0300
Samuli Suominen <ssuominen@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > You've forgotten "make --as-needed not break correct code by making
> > the linker ignore explicit instructions from a program author to
> > link two things together". Until you do that, --as-needed is in the
> > same category as -ffast-math.
> 
> And we can't be held hostage by few packages (marginal cases), that's
> why we have function called $(no-as-needed) in flag-o-matic.eclass to
> disable the behavior for these packages.

Will Gentoo be doing the same for -Ofast and its flags then? After all,
most packages work with them, and you can't let the few packages that
require standard-compliant behaviour from a compiler hold Gentoo
hostage.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 06/28/2010 10:51 AM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:44:54 +0300
> Samuli Suominen<ssuominen@gentoo.org>  wrote:
>>> You've forgotten "make --as-needed not break correct code by making
>>> the linker ignore explicit instructions from a program author to
>>> link two things together". Until you do that, --as-needed is in the
>>> same category as -ffast-math.
>>
>> And we can't be held hostage by few packages (marginal cases), that's
>> why we have function called $(no-as-needed) in flag-o-matic.eclass to
>> disable the behavior for these packages.
>
> Will Gentoo be doing the same for -Ofast and its flags then? After all,
> most packages work with them, and you can't let the few packages that
> require standard-compliant behaviour from a compiler hold Gentoo
> hostage.

--as-needed is a flag that tries to solve a specific (and very annoying) 
problem.  It deserves a bit of special treatment.  It's not a ricer flag :-)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Samuli Suominen]

On 06/28/2010 10:51 AM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:44:54 +0300
> Samuli Suominen <ssuominen@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> You've forgotten "make --as-needed not break correct code by making
>>> the linker ignore explicit instructions from a program author to
>>> link two things together". Until you do that, --as-needed is in the
>>> same category as -ffast-math.
>>
>> And we can't be held hostage by few packages (marginal cases), that's
>> why we have function called $(no-as-needed) in flag-o-matic.eclass to
>> disable the behavior for these packages.
> 
> Will Gentoo be doing the same for -Ofast and its flags then? After all,
> most packages work with them, and you can't let the few packages that
> require standard-compliant behaviour from a compiler hold Gentoo
> hostage.
> 

This is not about optimizing but preventing clear breakage, the benefits
of asneeded are not under debate here (like already stated in the
original message this thread started from)

So please stop trying to derail the thread

- Samuli

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Samuli Suominen <ssuominen@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 06/28/2010 10:51 AM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
>> Will Gentoo be doing the same for -Ofast and its flags then? After all,
>> most packages work with them, and you can't let the few packages that
>> require standard-compliant behaviour from a compiler hold Gentoo
>> hostage.
>>
>
> This is not about optimizing but preventing clear breakage, the benefits
> of asneeded are not under debate here (like already stated in the
> original message this thread started from)
>
> So please stop trying to derail the thread
>

++, all of this has been discussed to *death*.


-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Thomas Anderson]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 01:40:46PM +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Samuli Suominen <ssuominen@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > On 06/28/2010 10:51 AM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> >> Will Gentoo be doing the same for -Ofast and its flags then? After all,
> >> most packages work with them, and you can't let the few packages that
> >> require standard-compliant behaviour from a compiler hold Gentoo
> >> hostage.
> >>
> >
> > This is not about optimizing but preventing clear breakage, the benefits
> > of asneeded are not under debate here (like already stated in the
> > original message this thread started from)
> >
> > So please stop trying to derail the thread
> >
> 
> ++, all of this has been discussed to *death*.
> 
> 
> -- 
> ~Nirbheek Chauhan
> 
> Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team
> 

Not taking technical sides in this thread simply because I have no time to
argue it at length, BUT:

    Simply because a topic has been discussed to *death* does not mean the
    correct answer was obtained, only that a majority agree it is what they
    want. And while consensus may be enough to be considered 'right' in social
    situations(politics, etc.), the second the discussion becomes technical the
    opinion of the masses becomes irrelevant. All that then matters is getting
    the technical part objectively right, which IS possible, despite what some
    may say.

Regards,
Thomas
-- 
---------
~Thomas Anderson~
---------

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Roy Bamford]

On 2010.06.28 14:43, Thomas Anderson wrote:
[snip]
> 
> Not taking technical sides in this thread simply because I have no
> time to
> argue it at length, BUT:
> 
>     Simply because a topic has been discussed to *death* does not 
> mean
> the
>     correct answer was obtained, only that a majority agree it is 
> what
> they
>     want. And while consensus may be enough to be considered 'right'
> in social
>     situations(politics, etc.), the second the discussion becomes
> technical the
>     opinion of the masses becomes irrelevant. All that then matters 
> is
> getting
>     the technical part objectively right, which IS possible, despite
> what some
>     may say.
> 
> Regards,
> Thomas
> -- 
> ---------
> ~Thomas Anderson~
> ---------
> 
All of engineering involves compromise.

There is no point in waiting for a perfect solution to an engineering 
issue if that solution is so far away nobody wants to wait.

The compromises become political discussions and we have seen plenty of 
them already. As its 'the masses' that will implement the solution, not 
the idealists, its time to go with the compromise that has been 
hammered out elsewhere ... unless of course the idealists have a patch 
already.

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
trustees

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:59:21 +0100
Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@gentoo.org> wrote:
> All of engineering involves compromise.

It's not a question of compromise. It's a question of being right vs
being wrong. If one person says that 2 + 2 = 4 and a loud mob screams
that their prophet revealed to them in a blog post that 2 + 2 = 6, you
don't compromise and say that 2 + 2 = 5.

> There is no point in waiting for a perfect solution to an engineering 
> issue if that solution is so far away nobody wants to wait.
> 
> The compromises become political discussions and we have seen plenty
> of them already. As its 'the masses' that will implement the
> solution, not the idealists, its time to go with the compromise that
> has been hammered out elsewhere ... unless of course the idealists
> have a patch already.

You appear to be assuming that those pushing the --as-needed solution
have it finished. This is far from the case. There's still a lot of
work that would need to be done, and that work will have to be carried
on by every developer indefinitely as new versions of packages come
out. It's a case of "the wrong thing requires quite a lot more work
before it's ready, and once it's ready everyone will have to carry on
working on it forever".

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:05:19 +0100
Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com> wrote:

> You appear to be assuming that those pushing the --as-needed solution
> have it finished. This is far from the case. There's still a lot of
> work that would need to be done, and that work will have to be carried
> on by every developer indefinitely as new versions of packages come
> out. It's a case of "the wrong thing requires quite a lot more work
> before it's ready, and once it's ready everyone will have to carry on
> working on it forever".

Why do you care? Everybody intimately involved in Exherbo and
caring about it tells me you forked. If you didn't and are still
leeching off our ebuild tree, then please file --as-needed bugs like
everyone else, or shut up.


Kindest of kindest of regards,
     jer

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:30:24 +0200
Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:05:19 +0100
> Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > You appear to be assuming that those pushing the --as-needed
> > solution have it finished. This is far from the case. There's still
> > a lot of work that would need to be done, and that work will have
> > to be carried on by every developer indefinitely as new versions of
> > packages come out. It's a case of "the wrong thing requires quite a
> > lot more work before it's ready, and once it's ready everyone will
> > have to carry on working on it forever".
> 
> Why do you care? Everybody intimately involved in Exherbo and
> caring about it tells me you forked.

I use Gentoo, as you well know from every other time the "anyone who
ever touches any other distribution is a traitor and should go away
and never do anything with Gentoo again" line has been tried.

I care because it's a huge waste of everyone's time that's all happened
because one developer refused to admit that he was in effect advocating
the use of a flag in the same category as -ffast-math, even when shown
how it would break correct code.

> If you didn't and are still leeching off our ebuild tree, then please
> file --as-needed bugs like everyone else, or shut up.

Exherbo doesn't and never has used Gentoo ebuilds. Again, as you know
fine well.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Alex Alexander]

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On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 08:23:40AM +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:30:24 +0200
> Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:05:19 +0100
> > Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > You appear to be assuming that those pushing the --as-needed
> > > solution have it finished. This is far from the case. There's still
> > > a lot of work that would need to be done, and that work will have
> > > to be carried on by every developer indefinitely as new versions of
> > > packages come out. It's a case of "the wrong thing requires quite a
> > > lot more work before it's ready, and once it's ready everyone will
> > > have to carry on working on it forever".
> > 
> > Why do you care? Everybody intimately involved in Exherbo and
> > caring about it tells me you forked.
> 
> I use Gentoo, as you well know from every other time the "anyone who
> ever touches any other distribution is a traitor and should go away
> and never do anything with Gentoo again" line has been tried.
> 
> I care because it's a huge waste of everyone's time that's all happened
> because one developer refused to admit that he was in effect advocating
> the use of a flag in the same category as -ffast-math, even when shown
> how it would break correct code.

This community has shown many times that it doesn't follow your logic.
You've made your point, we listened, we rejected it.

Please _try_ to understand that you *can't* force your opinion no matter
how many times you repeat it. There are times when the majority will
reach a decision you think is wrong.

If the community feels their choice, albeit not perfect, will help the
project, you have to respect that. That is, if you want to be part of the
community :)

> > If you didn't and are still leeching off our ebuild tree, then please
> > file --as-needed bugs like everyone else, or shut up.
> 
> Exherbo doesn't and never has used Gentoo ebuilds. Again, as you know
> fine well.
> 
> -- 
> Ciaran McCreesh

Please try to restrain yourself from commenting on topics where the
community has already reached a decision in the future.

Even if you don't like it ;)

-- 
Alex Alexander :: wired
Gentoo Developer
www.linuxized.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[David Leverton]

On Tuesday 29 June 2010 09:46:52 Alex Alexander wrote:
> If the community feels their choice, albeit not perfect, will help the
> project, you have to respect that. That is, if you want to be part of the
> community :)

I see your point to some extent, but the concern is that such decisions might 
sometimes get made according to who's best at ignoring technical objections 
rather than what's the best thing to do.  It has happened before, although in 
that case the change was made first, and then when the issue was brought up 
it got basically ignored for so long that it would be pointless to fix.  It 
would be worrying if things like that started to happen more often.

In any case, as mentioned in my other mail, if this particular change is done 
in a way that's optional for the user, I personally won't be /too/ upset if 
the rest of you want to do unspeakable things to your systems ;-).

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Alex Alexander]

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On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 06:25:50PM +0100, David Leverton wrote:
> On Tuesday 29 June 2010 09:46:52 Alex Alexander wrote:
> > If the community feels their choice, albeit not perfect, will help the
> > project, you have to respect that. That is, if you want to be part of the
> > community :)
> 
> I see your point to some extent, but the concern is that such decisions might 
> sometimes get made according to who's best at ignoring technical objections 
> rather than what's the best thing to do.  It has happened before, although in 
> that case the change was made first, and then when the issue was brought up 
> it got basically ignored for so long that it would be pointless to fix.  It 
> would be worrying if things like that started to happen more often.

I understand your concern. But this is no such case. We went through the
discussion phase already. We're trying to avoid an endless loop.

> In any case, as mentioned in my other mail, if this particular change is done 
> in a way that's optional for the user, I personally won't be /too/ upset if 
> the rest of you want to do unspeakable things to your systems ;-).

This thread is about LDFLAGS+="--as-needed" in make.defaults, 
which can be overridden, so I don't see any issues there either.
You're free to change the defaults if you don't like them :)

-- 
Alex Alexander :: wired
Gentoo Developer
www.linuxized.com

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Peter Hjalmarsson]

mån 2010-06-28 klockan 15:05 +0100 skrev Ciaran McCreesh:
> On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:59:21 +0100
> Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > All of engineering involves compromise.
> 
> It's not a question of compromise. It's a question of being right vs
> being wrong. If one person says that 2 + 2 = 4 and a loud mob screams
> that their prophet revealed to them in a blog post that 2 + 2 = 6, you
> don't compromise and say that 2 + 2 = 5.
> 

Sorry for being late to the party, but:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/generic/60f5/ [1]

Nothing is EVER black or white. Not even the physical ones and zeros in
your computer are. That is why we have politics. To make compromises
which tells us what we should parse as a one or a zero.

1. (A t-shirt saying 2 + 2 = 5. For this joke to work you have to know
how to round numbers, and that 2 can be rounded from everything between
1,5 and 2,4, and that 4,8 rounds to 5. And it is still correct math.)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Arun Raghavan]

On 5 July 2010 18:31, Peter Hjalmarsson <xake@rymdraket.net> wrote:
[...]
> 1. (A t-shirt saying 2 + 2 = 5. For this joke to work you have to know
> how to round numbers, and that 2 can be rounded from everything between
> 1,5 and 2,4, and that 4,8 rounds to 5. And it is still correct math.)

Just to take this threat as far off-topic as I can,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_%2B_2_%3D_5 :p

Cheers,
-- 
Arun Raghavan
http://arunraghavan.net/
(Ford_Prefect | Gentoo) & (arunsr | GNOME)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[David Leverton]

On 5 July 2010 14:01, Peter Hjalmarsson <xake@rymdraket.net> wrote:
> 1. (A t-shirt saying 2 + 2 = 5. For this joke to work you have to know
> how to round numbers, and that 2 can be rounded from everything between
> 1,5 and 2,4, and that 4,8 rounds to 5. And it is still correct math.)

You said yourself that it's a joke, and yet somehow you don't seem to
understand what that means....

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:08:22 +0300
Samuli Suominen <ssuominen@gentoo.org> wrote:
> This is not about optimizing but preventing clear breakage, the
> benefits of asneeded are not under debate here (like already stated
> in the original message this thread started from)

--as-needed does not prevent breakage. It shoves some breakages under
the carpet so they're sometimes less visible, and sometimes easier to
fix when they happen. However, it does absolutely nothing to address
any of the root causes of the breakage, and it does introduce new
breakages itself.

Had one tenth of the effort that had been put into running around and
adding in hacks to work around a deliberately broken toolchain instead
been put into fixing libtool and delivering better slotting mechanisms,
none of this would be an issue.

Or is the policy "we've started running towards the cliff and we've
already debated the merits of jumping off it, so all you're allowed to
discuss now is how we remove the fence"?

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Duncan]

Ciaran McCreesh posted on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:16:32 +0100 as excerpted:

> --as-needed does not prevent breakage. It shoves some breakages under
> the carpet so they're sometimes less visible, and sometimes easier to
> fix when they happen. However, it does absolutely nothing to address any
> of the root causes of the breakage, and it does introduce new breakages
> itself.
> 
> Had one tenth of the effort that had been put into running around and
> adding in hacks to work around a deliberately broken toolchain instead
> been put into fixing libtool and delivering better slotting mechanisms,
> none of this would be an issue.
> 
> Or is the policy "we've started running towards the cliff and we've
> already debated the merits of jumping off it, so all you're allowed to
> discuss now is how we remove the fence"?

OK, let's take that last analogy of yours, and expand it to better match 
rather more of the situation.

The current situation is that we have a big mountain (with known unsafe 
cliffs) in the way of a journey we happen to make somewhat regularly.

Now there's a 10 kilometer (or read mile, if you prefer) road over the 
mountain, with the next shortest alternative being a 110 km road around 
the mountain.  Unfortunately, because the road over the mountain currently 
transits a particular cliff without tested guardrails, it's gated off 
(your fence) and marked with large warning signs, unguarded cliff ahead, 
proceed at your own risk.  The 110 km road around the mountain is thus 
what most folks take now, with only a few deciding they can manage the 
risk if they go carefully (often after someone else points out the 
shortcut, and describes the problems so they can be careful at that 
cliff), and choosing to take that road.

That's the current situation.  Everyone seems to agree that we have the 
mountain, the 110 km long route around it that most folks take, and a 
potentially quite dangerous 10 km shortcut over it, that some few take 
instead.

OK, as it so happens, a proposed guard rail along the dangerous parts has 
been surveyed, contracted, and is pretty much finished.  Pretty much all 
that remains now is painting the stripes on the new section, and putting 
up the various curve left, curve right, etc, signage, and getting official 
sign-offs on the guard rails at an already listed set of particular 
sections of the cliff that need it.

Except...

There's a particular set of individuals that despite that almost finished 
section of road, only awaiting the paint, signage, and official signoffs, 
continues to argue that's not the /proper/ solution, that the /proper/ 
solution is to tunnel straight thru a particular section of the mountain, 
thereby bypassing the cliff entirely.  In fact, not only do they claim 
that the tunnel is the proper solution and would in fact be less dangerous 
than transiting the cliff even with the guard rails is, they claim that 
the tunnel would have actually cost less to construct than the section of 
road transiting the cliff did.

So here we are, playing politics at the meeting set to give the final go-
ahead to complete the final inspections, the painting and the signage on 
the road transiting the cliff, a road that's all finished and actually in 
use by some already, save for that, and we still have this "tunnel bloc" 
of folks opposing it, continuing to argue that the tunnel is the /proper/ 
solution.

Who knows at this point?  The tunnel may in fact have been cheaper, and 
there's no question that it would have prevented the occasional careless 
driver still crashing thru the guard rails and going over the cliff.  But 
the point is, we don't have that tunnel, but we do have the already 
basically finished road, well surveyed and already constructed, with only 
a bit of painting and certification left, yet the "tunnel bloc" is still 
opposing the road, arguing that the gate and warnings be maintained as 
they are, until that tunnel is properly finished, even at the cost of all 
those travelers having to take the 110 km long way around until that 
tunnel is completed and opened at some unpredictable time in the future, 
possibly a decade or more away.

So yes, we ARE arguing that the final preparations be made and that the 
gate currently barring the way to that cliff come down.  The fact of the 
matter is that yes, there is a cliff, but there's also a well constructed 
road with proper guard rails transiting that cliff, and pending the paint, 
signage, and final signoffs, it's ready to open and there's no reason  
other than the political opposition of the "tunnel bloc" not to make those 
last preparations, and then remove that gate and the warnings currently 
barring the way.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[David Leverton]

On 28 June 2010 12:09, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> [...]

The only one playing politics here is you.  Adding --as-needed changes
the semantics of the toolchain so as to violate the relevant
standards.  In some specific cases it might be OK or even beneficial,
but doing it by default is wrong by definition.  This has been pointed
out ever since the issue was first discussed, but some people like to
stick their fingers in their ears and dismiss legitimate technical
arguments as "trolling" and "politics".  If people seriously want to
improve the tone in Gentoo, then the first thing to fix is those who
like to demonise others out of spite for pointing out flaws in their
ideas.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Brian Harring]

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On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 12:46:53PM +0100, David Leverton wrote:
> This has been pointed
> out ever since the issue was first discussed, but some people like to
> stick their fingers in their ears and dismiss legitimate technical
> arguments as "trolling" and "politics".

The issue is some folk are trying to be pragmatic, and some folk are 
sticking to "it's not the proper long term solution thus don't do it 
at all".

The question shouldn't be "is it long term the right or wrong 
solution", the question should be "yes it's not perfect, but what is 
the gain of deploying it?"

Literally, do we break more by deploying it then we gain?  Is the 
reduction in intermediate broken packages (and general linkage 
whonkyness) being mostly sorted worth the cost of some cranky packages 
breaking from it?

That is the question.  If the only correct answer is "it must be the 
right technical solution always" we'd theoretically be running hurd 
rather than linux after all, nor would the prefix project be in wide 
usage.

Alternatively rather than arguing, someone needs to go out and get 
some data to back this change (and/or back the stance it causes more 
damage than it's worth).

Personally, I've been running as-needed for a while- while not a fan 
of it, it's been an overall plus for my usage.  The question is if 
it's an overall gain to deploy globally (iirc fedora/ubuntu are 
running this way now).

~harring

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[gentoo-dev] [OT] h v l

[Mike Frysinger]

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On Monday, June 28, 2010 11:21:07 Brian Harring wrote:
> That is the question.  If the only correct answer is "it must be the
> right technical solution always" we'd theoretically be running hurd
> rather than linux after all

huh ?  since when has the vapor Hurd ever been technically superior to Linux ?
-mike

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [OT] h v l

[Luis Araujo]

On 06/29/2010 02:27 PM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Monday, June 28, 2010 11:21:07 Brian Harring wrote:
>    
>> That is the question.  If the only correct answer is "it must be the
>> right technical solution always" we'd theoretically be running hurd
>> rather than linux after all
>>      
> huh ?  since when has the vapor Hurd ever been technically superior to Linux ?
> -mike
>    
Well, I think the keyword here in Brian sentence is 'theoretically'.

The Hurd theoretically is a very beautiful thing :P

Regards,

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Markos Chandras]

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On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 06:39:44AM +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> 
> What needs to be done now is for someone with lots of CPU power to
> grab the list of packages[1], and build them one-by-one (all
> versions), adding to a new list all the ebuilds that fail. How to
> test:
> 
> LDFLAGS="-Wl,--as-needed" emerge -v1 $atom
> 
> Let's try to make Gentoo less frustrating for our users.
> 
> 1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/files/as-needed-failures.list
> -- 
> ~Nirbheek Chauhan
> 
> Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team
> 
I have the CPU power so I will start building those packages and report
back here
-- 
Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 06:39:44AM +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>>
>> What needs to be done now is for someone with lots of CPU power to
>> grab the list of packages[1], and build them one-by-one (all
>> versions), adding to a new list all the ebuilds that fail. How to
>> test:
>>
>> LDFLAGS="-Wl,--as-needed" emerge -v1 $atom
>>
>> Let's try to make Gentoo less frustrating for our users.
>>
>> 1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/files/as-needed-failures.list
>>
> I have the CPU power so I will start building those packages and report
> back here

Thanks! My hardware currently consists of one (1) netbook, so I can't
help much :)

I'll be keeping a list of packages which are known to fail only in
forced as-needed mode[1], as well as a list which is known to fail
with "normal" as-needed[2]

1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/files/as-needed-forced-only.list
2. http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/files/as-needed-normal.list

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Pacho Ramos]

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El lun, 28-06-2010 a las 06:39 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan escribió:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> I'm sure at least half of you are thinking "Oh no, not this again...",
> and I agree. However, I'm /also/ thinking "Why the heck haven't we
> done this yet?"
> 
> We've been discussing this since 2008, and probably waaay before that
> too. The entire discussion about whether we should do this or not has
> already passed, there is NO NEED to have that again. This email is
> about discussion on what all is *left* before we can do $SUBJECT.
> 
> What prompted this email? libpng-1.4 and many other upgrades that have
> left gentoo systems very very broken. We have to resort to random
> scripts to fix breakage, which reflects very badly on us. Even worse,
> a lot of users just give up and reinstall their system, or don't
> upgrade, or just move away from Gentoo.
> 
> I understand that these kind of breakages are inevitable, but with
> as-needed, we can reduce their effect *drastically*. Instead of having
> to rebuild almost their entire system, the user would only need to
> rebuild packages that directly link(ed) to libpng. I honestly think
> that we cannot afford to expose our users to any more such upgrades
> without as-needed in the default linux profile.
> 
> There's a tracker bug for this, and the problems still remaining are:
> http://bugs.gentoo.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=129413&hide_resolved=1
> 
> *Most* of the problems listed there are forced-as-needed problems,
> which need to be fixed no doubt, but should NOT block addition of
> --as-needed to LDFLAGS in make.defaults which will not trigger those
> build failures.
> 
> What needs to be done now is for someone with lots of CPU power to
> grab the list of packages[1], and build them one-by-one (all
> versions), adding to a new list all the ebuilds that fail. How to
> test:
> 
> LDFLAGS="-Wl,--as-needed" emerge -v1 $atom
> 
> Once we have the list that fails with normal as-needed, we can fix
> them, get the fix upstreamed (if possible), and switch the flag on.
> This action should probably be accompanied by a news item informing
> users about the change, and encouraging them to report the (rare) bug
> which might hit them.
> 
> Let's try to make Gentoo less frustrating for our users.
> 
> 1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/files/as-needed-failures.list

Thanks for taking care

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[Alex Alexander]

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On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 06:39:44AM +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> ...
>
> What needs to be done now is for someone with lots of CPU power to
> grab the list of packages[1], and build them one-by-one (all
> versions), adding to a new list all the ebuilds that fail. How to
> test:
> 
> LDFLAGS="-Wl,--as-needed" emerge -v1 $atom
> 
> Once we have the list that fails with normal as-needed, we can fix
> them, get the fix upstreamed (if possible), and switch the flag on.
> This action should probably be accompanied by a news item informing
> users about the change, and encouraging them to report the (rare) bug
> which might hit them.
> 
> Let's try to make Gentoo less frustrating for our users.

I'll help ;)

Testing from the bottom up to avoid overlapping with hwoarang.

> 1. http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/files/as-needed-failures.list
> -- 
> ~Nirbheek Chauhan
> 
> Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

-- 
Alex Alexander :: wired
Gentoo Developer
www.linuxized.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Adding --as-needed to LDFLAGS in profiles/default/linux/make.defaults

[David Leverton]

On Monday 28 June 2010 02:09:44 Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm sure at least half of you are thinking "Oh no, not this again...",
> and I agree. However, I'm /also/ thinking "Why the heck haven't we
> done this yet?"
>
> [...]

/If/ you're¹ going to insist on doing this, could you please at least do it in 
a way that's easy for users to disable?  (Profile LDFLAGS as the subject line 
says obviously qualifies, but there's also been talk of creating gcc-config 
profiles, modified specs etc.)  That way people can choose according to their 
own preferences for correctness versus convenience etc.

[1] Whoever does it, not specifically Nirbheek