[gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Michał Górny]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1225 bytes --]

Fellow Developers!

I have the pleasure to announce that portage-2.2.25 has just been
committed and it comes with complete EAPI 6 support. This effectively
means that from this moment forward Gentoo developers are permitted to
commit EAPI 6 ebuilds to ~arch.

Some quick notes:

1. Remember that you can't stabilize ebuilds using EAPI 6. Therefore,
if you go for EAPI 6, you ebuild may be forced to stay ~arch for quite
a while.

2. The Portage implementation needs more testing and can be buggy.
Write ebuilds according to the spec, not Portage behavior or they will
fail.

2a. It just occurred to me that Portage does not fail when eapply_user
is not called. This is a bug, so make sure to call it or
default_src_prepare.

3. EAPI 6 is not a drop-in replacement for EAPI 5. Study it to use it
efficiently. Use it as an opportunity to improve the API of your
eclasses.

4. I've written an extensive guide [1] with some explanations
and rationale for many of the features. Consider it a must-read.

4a. We need someone to update the devmanual.

[1]:https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2015/11/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-eapi-6/

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny
<http://dev.gentoo.org/~mgorny/>

[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 949 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 11/17/2015 05:09 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
> Fellow Developers!
> 
> I have the pleasure to announce that portage-2.2.25 has just been
> committed and it comes with complete EAPI 6 support. This effectively
> means that from this moment forward Gentoo developers are permitted to
> commit EAPI 6 ebuilds to ~arch.
> 

Thanks for all the work on this and the guide.

Is it really safe to start committing ~arch ebuilds that don't work with
stable portage? Might not things get wonky for stable users who have a
few keyworded packages?

For developers, is my stable version of repoman smart enough to make
sure I don't break any dependencies in this way?

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Mike Gilbert]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Michael Orlitzky <mjo@gentoo.org> wrote:
> For developers, is my stable version of repoman smart enough to make
> sure I don't break any dependencies in this way?

As a developer, please run the latest ~arch version of repoman at the
very least.

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Ian Stakenvicius]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 17/11/15 05:45 PM, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 11/17/2015 05:09 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
>> Fellow Developers!
>> 
>> I have the pleasure to announce that portage-2.2.25 has just
>> been committed and it comes with complete EAPI 6 support. This
>> effectively means that from this moment forward Gentoo
>> developers are permitted to commit EAPI 6 ebuilds to ~arch.
>> 
> 
> Thanks for all the work on this and the guide.
> 
> Is it really safe to start committing ~arch ebuilds that don't
> work with stable portage? Might not things get wonky for stable
> users who have a few keyworded packages?
> 
> For developers, is my stable version of repoman smart enough to
> make sure I don't break any dependencies in this way?
> 
> 

If your PM doesn't support EAPI6, then those ebuilds will be ignored
just as if they do not exist.  It is plenty safe.  There can be
issues if EAPI5 or older ~arch packages start -needing- EAPI6-only
~arch dependencies, but so long as people are careful (and likely,
start bumping to EAPI6 along with the dependencies) then things will
work out without much incident.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2

iF4EAREIAAYFAlZLzp4ACgkQAJxUfCtlWe00AAEA5RoB95Z/pvQcqYu+1dDzPh2d
/MP+kcQdHus14B+SnMsBANZubHScfv/9z75lY3Hub3GnamyPLgtSDGyK43UatKBv
=m7RY
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[NP-Hardass]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 23:09:34 +0100
Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Fellow Developers!
> 
> I have the pleasure to announce that portage-2.2.25 has just been
> committed and it comes with complete EAPI 6 support. This effectively
> means that from this moment forward Gentoo developers are permitted to
> commit EAPI 6 ebuilds to ~arch.
> 
> Some quick notes:
> 
> 1. Remember that you can't stabilize ebuilds using EAPI 6. Therefore,
> if you go for EAPI 6, you ebuild may be forced to stay ~arch for quite
> a while.
> 
> 2. The Portage implementation needs more testing and can be buggy.
> Write ebuilds according to the spec, not Portage behavior or they will
> fail.
> 
> 2a. It just occurred to me that Portage does not fail when eapply_user
> is not called. This is a bug, so make sure to call it or
> default_src_prepare.
> 
> 3. EAPI 6 is not a drop-in replacement for EAPI 5. Study it to use it
> efficiently. Use it as an opportunity to improve the API of your
> eclasses.
> 
> 4. I've written an extensive guide [1] with some explanations
> and rationale for many of the features. Consider it a must-read.
> 
> 4a. We need someone to update the devmanual.
> 
> [1]:https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2015/11/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-eapi-6/
> 

I just read your guide.   What's the recommended manner to upgrade an
ebuild from the autotools-utils eclass?  General advice would be
preferred, but I'm specifically looking at app-emulation/wine.

- -- 
NP-Hardass
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=pWAw
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Duncan]

Michael Orlitzky posted on Tue, 17 Nov 2015 17:45:49 -0500 as excerpted:

> On 11/17/2015 05:09 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
>> 
>> I have the pleasure to announce that portage-2.2.25 has just been
>> committed and it comes with complete EAPI 6 support. This effectively
>> means that from this moment forward Gentoo developers are permitted to
>> commit EAPI 6 ebuilds to ~arch.
> 
> Is it really safe to start committing ~arch ebuilds that don't work with
> stable portage? Might not things get wonky for stable users who have a
> few keyworded packages?

Gentoo has never really guaranteed the stability of a mostly-stable 
system with a few ~arch accept-keyworded packages as that's simply not a 
properly testable setup.

All-stable is testable and pains are taken not to break it, tho of course 
bugs do happen on occasion.

Similarly, ~arch is testable and known-broken ebuilds aren't to be 
committed, tho it's accepted as part of running ~arch that previously 
unknown breakage might happen from time to time.  But there, the 
assumption is that people are running full-~arch, and individual ~arch 
packages aren't generally expected or tested to work on a generally arch-
stable system, so people trying to run individual ~arch packages are 
accepting that they're generally not tested on arch-stable and may in 
fact be known to break it.

Tho for EAPIs, PMs are supposed to mask packages in EAPIs they don't 
understand, so in theory at least, even EAPI-6 ~arch accept-keyworded 
packages shouldn't break systems with stable PMs, because the PMs should 
mask EAPI-6 ebuilds if they don't understand EAPI-6 yet.

So it shouldn't be a problem, but if it is, it's still only a problem to 
the extent already written on the label for people accepting the risk of 
~arch accept-keywording specific packages.

-- 
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] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 11/17/2015 08:04 PM, Ian Stakenvicius wrote:
> 
> If your PM doesn't support EAPI6, then those ebuilds will be ignored
> just as if they do not exist.  It is plenty safe.  There can be
> issues if EAPI5 or older ~arch packages start -needing- EAPI6-only
> ~arch dependencies, but so long as people are careful (and likely,
> start bumping to EAPI6 along with the dependencies) then things will
> work out without much incident.
> 

It doesn't seem that unlikely to me...

  1. Otherwise stable system with package "foo" keyworded as ~arch.

  2. foo needs some dependency of a dependency named "bar".

  3. The bar maintainer revbumps and removes the old EAPI=5 ebuild.

I don't really care either way, I'm just wondering whether this is
"safe" because it's actually safe, or "safe" because we're gonna do it
anyway.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 8:54 PM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
>
> Gentoo has never really guaranteed the stability of a mostly-stable
> system with a few ~arch accept-keyworded packages as that's simply not a
> properly testable setup.
>

True, but Gentoo has never really guaranteed much of anything at all.
In my experience stable with a few ~arch packages tends to work just
fine, and that is the configuration I typically use.  Certainly I know
that any packages that I maintain work fine on a stable system.  I
always figured that this should be the focus of testing, since stable
is the ultimate target for anything we deploy.  If a package happens
to break on ~arch that isn't as big a deal, since that is what ~arch
users are signing up for.  Such issues should be fixed, of course.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Michał Górny]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2092 bytes --]

On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 20:20:26 -0500
NP-Hardass <NP-Hardass@gentoo.org> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
> 
> On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 23:09:34 +0100
> Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > Fellow Developers!
> > 
> > I have the pleasure to announce that portage-2.2.25 has just been
> > committed and it comes with complete EAPI 6 support. This effectively
> > means that from this moment forward Gentoo developers are permitted to
> > commit EAPI 6 ebuilds to ~arch.
> > 
> > Some quick notes:
> > 
> > 1. Remember that you can't stabilize ebuilds using EAPI 6. Therefore,
> > if you go for EAPI 6, you ebuild may be forced to stay ~arch for quite
> > a while.
> > 
> > 2. The Portage implementation needs more testing and can be buggy.
> > Write ebuilds according to the spec, not Portage behavior or they will
> > fail.
> > 
> > 2a. It just occurred to me that Portage does not fail when eapply_user
> > is not called. This is a bug, so make sure to call it or
> > default_src_prepare.
> > 
> > 3. EAPI 6 is not a drop-in replacement for EAPI 5. Study it to use it
> > efficiently. Use it as an opportunity to improve the API of your
> > eclasses.
> > 
> > 4. I've written an extensive guide [1] with some explanations
> > and rationale for many of the features. Consider it a must-read.
> > 
> > 4a. We need someone to update the devmanual.
> > 
> > [1]:https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2015/11/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-eapi-6/
> >   
> 
> I just read your guide.   What's the recommended manner to upgrade an
> ebuild from the autotools-utils eclass?  General advice would be
> preferred, but I'm specifically looking at app-emulation/wine.

Basically you replace autotools-utils with default phase functions
and/or econf "${myeconfargs[@]}" or alike. In case of wine, the only
usage seems to be 'autotools-utils_src_prepare' which goes straight to
'default'.

For 9999, you also 'inherit autotools' and run eautoreconf explicitly.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny
<http://dev.gentoo.org/~mgorny/>

[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 949 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Ulrich Mueller]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 837 bytes --]

>>>>> On Tue, 17 Nov 2015, Michael Orlitzky wrote:

> It doesn't seem that unlikely to me...

>   1. Otherwise stable system with package "foo" keyworded as ~arch.

>   2. foo needs some dependency of a dependency named "bar".

>   3. The bar maintainer revbumps and removes the old EAPI=5 ebuild.

> I don't really care either way, I'm just wondering whether this is
> "safe" because it's actually safe, or "safe" because we're gonna do
> it anyway.

Actually it is quite simple:

- The stable tree should not contain any EAPI 6 ebuilds at this point,
  so stable users should not see any change.
- Unstable users will have a package manager aware of EAPI 6, so all
  ebuilds will be visible for it.
- If you mix stable and unstable then you are by definition an
  advanced user, who will be able to cope with the situation. :)

Ulrich

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 490 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Alexander Berntsen]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 18/11/15 08:25, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> - If you mix stable and unstable then you are by definition an 
> advanced user, who will be able to cope with the situation. :)
This attitude is shitty, and I am willing to wager a really big bunch
of users fall into this category.

I don't think EAPI 6 is *that* shiny, that we need to start using it
prior to stable Portage supporting it. It's a potential mess for a
huge portion of our users.


That said, I'd like to extend my thanks to Micha? for working on this.
- -- 
Alexander
bernalex@gentoo.org
https://secure.plaimi.net/~alexander
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=WAIc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Raymond Jennings]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2172 bytes --]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 1:25 AM, Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@gentoo.org>
wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA512
>
> On 18/11/15 08:25, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> > - If you mix stable and unstable then you are by definition an
> > advanced user, who will be able to cope with the situation. :)
> This attitude is shitty, and I am willing to wager a really big bunch
> of users fall into this category.
>

I second the motion.

I can vouch for myself as such a user who often uses unstable packages to
get new features or dodge bugs in the stable versions.

As a general default, though, I stick with stable packages.

Taking an occasional unstable package in an otherwise stable system (and
obeying any revbump directives provoked by dependencies) is a legal
operation that is actually supported by commit rules that prohibit stable
versions from depending on unstable versions of dependencies.

Why would that policy exist if mixing stable and unstable were unsupported?

I don't think EAPI 6 is *that* shiny, that we need to start using it
> prior to stable Portage supporting it. It's a potential mess for a
> huge portion of our users.
>
>
> That said, I'd like to extend my thanks to Micha? for working on this.
> - --
> Alexander
> bernalex@gentoo.org
> https://secure.plaimi.net/~alexander
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v2
>
> iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJWTEQCAAoJENQqWdRUGk8BrQ0P/j4ZDShZNWtvyw/QtCSgY5+i
> CTYx2cqv0+dmtIE4pdteaf535I8Ax7WH9c1OnTbMl1taAmTvEIulQUof64rjz/PB
> t5csfLQqgNV6w0ck5g6+dJq2iNgC65QpPbtENXYOwkq6bo9Zs1KFuodq6b0y9M7y
> 7Wk3gLIzjZBwXFpEbSupu0lM3nS/RPUJ20SH0aUfkpxgUVJJr5UENsxPyk8XzETf
> caJyfGmb5LcNVKmq6bRUA67KPzAWtQJTw2eUHyyTd0lob1QVIKDwizFXA5ZxCPsC
> PrZZ7txyOEiKdOOupF2HYlit2pWCITaS1ELyzr9aKDsRB4+WsrvuSA0JuRUNV9yn
> PP4aocOpmSbGiuYsQl2kvZcuEipVjqFc+iqZAW6HQlf6/v2LMOTSeCp1lpwLEbxQ
> zvK29IdR0uOQDctI3i0X0arV0CW/C3DVxdHlyxHMMKgjmCmr2lPmB+xPSzpU1aYE
> kB8+9l82PjoBvI5+A3S0ynACF4c018NrIDWC+RLgPh3KfBw2yiXRZOouW1snfXca
> 7Rqv5BDaURKuwlfckl2mNG5bWCq0jc2K+Rru9JcgviX7HaAO3SBIhH1g860Xi9Nn
> UN4CoXZohXph8XD/o6CEu+TD4puu5H1xMGsDkD5PihGsxnYyhR9pJdlz0nf5ZuPk
> p8r78oHdqMX2Sb7LmUh1
> =WAIc
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3009 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Ulrich Mueller]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1106 bytes --]

>>>>> On Wed, 18 Nov 2015, Alexander Berntsen wrote:

> On 18/11/15 08:25, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>> - If you mix stable and unstable then you are by definition an 
>> advanced user, who will be able to cope with the situation. :)
> This attitude is shitty, and I am willing to wager a really big
> bunch of users fall into this category.

Only that there is no real difference to the existing situation when
mixing stable and unstable. It is not guaranteed that all dependencies
of an unstable package are stable, so already now users may have to
accept the ~ keyword for dependencies in some cases. Similarly, such
users may have to accept EAPI 6 for some dependencies, which implies
that they install a package manager supporting EAPI 6.

> I don't think EAPI 6 is *that* shiny, that we need to start using it
> prior to stable Portage supporting it.

And on what basis would you stabilise Portage, when there are no
ebuilds in the tree to test its EAPI 6 code?

> It's a potential mess for a huge portion of our users.

If we had followed this argument in the past, we would be at EAPI 0
still.

Ulrich

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 490 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Alexander Berntsen]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 18/11/15 12:05, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> Only that there is no real difference to the existing situation
> when mixing stable and unstable. It is not guaranteed that all
> dependencies of an unstable package are stable, so already now
> users may have to accept the ~ keyword for dependencies in some
> cases. Similarly, such users may have to accept EAPI 6 for some
> dependencies, which implies that they install a package manager
> supporting EAPI 6.
There's a difference between some packages being troublesome, and
encouraging everyone to rewrite their eclasses and ebuilds, if the end
result is a huge portion of ebuilds causing headaches.

> And on what basis would you stabilise Portage, when there are no 
> ebuilds in the tree to test its EAPI 6 code?
When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.

> If we had followed this argument in the past, we would be at EAPI
> 0 still.
Reaching.
- -- 
Alexander
bernalex@gentoo.org
https://secure.plaimi.net/~alexander
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=0ySj
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Ulrich Mueller]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 722 bytes --]

>>>>> On Wed, 18 Nov 2015, Alexander Berntsen wrote:

>> And on what basis would you stabilise Portage, when there are no 
>> ebuilds in the tree to test its EAPI 6 code?
> When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
> Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
> details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.

That sort of QA should take place before making a new Portage relaese.
I was talking about marking it stable, though.

Quoting the devmanual:

   arch
   Both the package version and the ebuild are widely tested, known
   to work and not have any serious issues on the indicated platform.

"Widely tested" has always meant tested on unstable users' systems.

Ulrich

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 490 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Alexander Berntsen]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 18/11/15 12:23, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> That sort of QA should take place before making a new Portage 
> relaese. I was talking about marking it stable, though.
The problem we are talking about isn't making sure Portage's EAPI 6
support is bug free, but the pain caused by encouraging widespread use
of features not available in the stabilised Portage.

> Quoting the devmanual:
> 
> arch Both the package version and the ebuild are widely tested, 
> known to work and not have any serious issues on the indicated 
> platform.
> 
> "Widely tested" has always meant tested on unstable users'
> systems.
Appealing to tradition or technical debt is not a strong way of
convincing me. That you've been doing things wrong all along does not
make for a good excuse to keep doing it wrong.
- -- 
Alexander
bernalex@gentoo.org
https://secure.plaimi.net/~alexander
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=9smD
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:05 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> And on what basis would you stabilise Portage, when there are no
> ebuilds in the tree to test its EAPI 6 code?
>

As long as the EAPI6 code in the new portage is no more broken than
the EAPI6 code in the current stable version of portage (which doesn't
work/exist at all), it isn't much of a regression.  What would be more
of a pain is dealing with fixes in stable.

But, I don't have a problem with starting to use EAPI6 now, mainly
because the ~arch version of portage does not require any new ~arch
dependencies that would create a mess for stable users.  So, if a user
needs to switch to a newer portage for a month or two it shouldn't be
that big of a deal.

Actually, what is less clear to me is how portage versioning actually
works, or if we attach any meaning to the version numbers at all.
Both the stable and unstable series are on 2.2.x, but there are no
versions in the tree between 2.2.20 and 2.2.23.

The main thing I find painful in following ~arch on the odd package is
when maintainers drop versions quickly after bumping them.  That tends
to result in a situation where if you follow ~arch you end up having
to accept lots of updates because none of the versions stay in the
tree long enough to actually get stabilized.  Unless a ~arch package
version is so broken that it could never be stabilized it is probably
better to leave them there so that it is easier for users to drop back
from ~arch to stable without downgrading.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Alexander Berntsen]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 18/11/15 12:59, Rich Freeman wrote:
> Actually, what is less clear to me is how portage versioning
> actually works, or if we attach any meaning to the version numbers
> at all.
The higher number is the newer version.

- -- 
Alexander
bernalex@gentoo.org
https://secure.plaimi.net/~alexander
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=yAZB
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:12 AM, Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@gentoo.org> wrote:
> When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
> Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
> details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.
>

People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're contributors
who have volunteered to test packages.

But, if you want to contribute a unit testing framework for portage
I'm sure it would be welcome!

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Alexander Berntsen]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 18/11/15 13:01, Rich Freeman wrote:
> People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're 
> contributors who have volunteered to test packages.
We are talking about people who run Gentoo stable who need to
keyword several specific packages because the lack of manpower
leads to Gentoo stable by itself not being very usable for most
people.


Whatever. I just wanted to raise my concern. It has been raised.
You're all free to not care. Too bad for the user^Wthankless
contributors.
- -- 
Alexander
bernalex@gentoo.org
https://secure.plaimi.net/~alexander
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=5xCX
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 7:06 AM, Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@gentoo.org> wrote:
> We are talking about people who run Gentoo stable who need to
> keyword several specific packages because the lack of manpower
> leads to Gentoo stable by itself not being very usable for most
> people.
>

In this case, however, I don't really see that much impact on stable
users.  At most they need to accept a ~arch version of portage until
it becomes stable again.  It is a PITA because of how we tend to drop
versions of ~arch packages before they ever become stable, but any
stable user is already familiar with this pain and I don't really
think it is related to the EAPI6 introduction.

There really isn't a great alternative either.  It seems likely that
portage will end up having a bunch of little bumps with bugfixes until
things settle down, so it isn't a great time to try to stabilize EAPI6
versions of portage.  We'll get through the pain faster with the
widespread testing you get in ~arch.

>
> Whatever. I just wanted to raise my concern. It has been raised.
> You're all free to not care. Too bad for the user^Wthankless
> contributors.

Well, if you care that much, do more than post about it on a list.
This is actually a topic I care a lot about, but right now I don't
have a better solution to offer so it isn't productive to just hurl
abuse on those trying to actually improve things simply because they
aren't improving everything at once.

I don't really have a problem with politely pointing out the downsides
of the current state, but you need to be patient if you don't actually
have a solution for them as nothing is going to happen without one.

So, in an attempt to try to make this discussion more productive, feel
free to start a thread if you have any ideas of practical solutions
for making life better for mixed-keyword users?  My biggest suggestion
would be to avoid pruning older ~arch versions unless they have
serious problems, so that they can become potential stable targets
later, and that maintainers should always have a path to stable in
mind.  Another suggestion would be for maintainers to store some kind
of metadata that communicates their stabilization/versioning strategy
(which could be useful both to mixed-keyword users and to
co-maintainers or other random devs who need to touch ebuilds).  Some
package just can never go stable, and some version series might never
go stable due to upstream reasons, and it would be nice if that were
all captured in some way.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Andreas K. Huettel]

Am Mittwoch, 18. November 2015, 10:25:23 schrieb Alexander Berntsen:
> On 18/11/15 08:25, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> > - If you mix stable and unstable then you are by definition an
> > advanced user, who will be able to cope with the situation. :)
> 
> This attitude is shitty, and I am willing to wager a really big bunch
> of users fall into this category.
> 
> I don't think EAPI 6 is *that* shiny, that we need to start using it
> prior to stable Portage supporting it. It's a potential mess for a
> huge portion of our users.

It would be helpful if you could point out what exactly *didn't* work in the 
past, instead of just making big words and large noise here. After all that's 
exactly the procedure that has been used for the last EAPI introductions.

-- 
Andreas K. Huettel
Gentoo Linux developer (council, perl, libreoffice)
dilfridge@gentoo.org
http://www.akhuettel.de/

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Andreas K. Huettel]

Am Mittwoch, 18. November 2015, 12:12:05 schrieb Alexander Berntsen:
> On 18/11/15 12:05, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> > Only that there is no real difference to the existing situation
> > when mixing stable and unstable. It is not guaranteed that all
> > dependencies of an unstable package are stable, so already now
> > users may have to accept the ~ keyword for dependencies in some
> > cases. Similarly, such users may have to accept EAPI 6 for some
> > dependencies, which implies that they install a package manager
> > supporting EAPI 6.
> 
> There's a difference between some packages being troublesome, and
> encouraging everyone to rewrite their eclasses and ebuilds, if the end
> result is a huge portion of ebuilds causing headaches.

Well, at some point it has to be introduced in the main tree. 
Can you prove at any point that portage is 100% correct? 

Also, adding EAPI=6 support to eclasses mostly consists of adding branches to 
case statements. I.e. the new code paths will never run on old EAPI.

> > And on what basis would you stabilise Portage, when there are no
> > ebuilds in the tree to test its EAPI 6 code?
> 
> When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
> Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
> details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.

So, I suggest you branch gentoo.git, start adding some new ebuilds to it 
(don't forget to use a random combination of eclasses, like perl-module, 
python-r1, kde4-base ...), update your system and check for all possible 
resolver oddities... Too much work? Tough.

-- 
Andreas K. Huettel
Gentoo Linux developer (council, perl, libreoffice)
dilfridge@gentoo.org
http://www.akhuettel.de/

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Brian Dolbec]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 06:59:19 -0500
Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:05 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > And on what basis would you stabilise Portage, when there are no
> > ebuilds in the tree to test its EAPI 6 code?
> >  
> 
> As long as the EAPI6 code in the new portage is no more broken than
> the EAPI6 code in the current stable version of portage (which doesn't
> work/exist at all), it isn't much of a regression.  What would be more
> of a pain is dealing with fixes in stable.
> 
> But, I don't have a problem with starting to use EAPI6 now, mainly
> because the ~arch version of portage does not require any new ~arch
> dependencies that would create a mess for stable users.  So, if a user
> needs to switch to a newer portage for a month or two it shouldn't be
> that big of a deal.
> 

The above part is fine :)


But this next bit...

> Actually, what is less clear to me is how portage versioning actually
> works, or if we attach any meaning to the version numbers at all.
> Both the stable and unstable series are on 2.2.x, but there are no
> versions in the tree between 2.2.20 and 2.2.23.
> 

So, we have 2 user groups, stable and unstable.

Current stable is 2.2.20.1
current unstable is 2.2.25 <==just released

So, when we release a new unstable version, unstable users upgrade,
what do you think happens to the older unstable version at that point.
It no longer receives much testing as the unstable users upgrade to the
newer unstable version.

If we feel that there is enough bugs in those that we do not want to
stabilize it.  Why would we keep it in the tree?  Just so more users
can potentially come across those bugs and open new bugs, since the old
bugs for those were closed with the newer release that contains the fix?
Are the bug wranglers low on work?

Here is a current example:

portage-2.2.23 is now old enough to consider stabilizing it.  It
contains a new cgroup feature.  It has a bug making it difficult for
people unless they again disable that feature.

portage-2.2.24 has no new features, just a bunch of bug fixes.

We decided that we will wait a few weeks and call for 2.2.24 to be
stabilized, maybe we will wait just one week (not the normal 30 days),
since 2.2.23 is out of consideration, 2.2.24 testing will dwindle to
nothing in the next week as people upgrade to 2.2.25.  

With 2.2.4 becoming stable, why would we keep the buggy ~ 2.2.3 in the
tree taking up space?  We already established that ~ users will have
migrated away from it.



> The main thing I find painful in following ~arch on the odd package is
> when maintainers drop versions quickly after bumping them.  

You want a package version with known serious bugs left in the tree so
more people can experience them? 

> That tends
> to result in a situation where if you follow ~arch you end up having
> to accept lots of updates because none of the versions stay in the
> tree long enough to actually get stabilized.  

that happens for some pkgs, if it happens too much for you, update less
often.

> Unless a ~arch package
> version is so broken that it could never be stabilized it is probably
> better to leave them there so that it is easier for users to drop back
> from ~arch to stable without downgrading.
> 

Rich, please re-read your above statements until you see the total
failure in your logic.

-- 
Brian Dolbec <dolsen>

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 10:10 AM, Brian Dolbec <dolsen@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 06:59:19 -0500
> Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> Actually, what is less clear to me is how portage versioning actually
>> works, or if we attach any meaning to the version numbers at all.
>> Both the stable and unstable series are on 2.2.x, but there are no
>> versions in the tree between 2.2.20 and 2.2.23.
>>
>
> So, we have 2 user groups, stable and unstable.
>
> Current stable is 2.2.20.1
> current unstable is 2.2.25 <==just released

So, my first point was that the version numbering seems to have no
relationship to what is stable and unstable.  It isn't really meant as
a big complaint, but it just suggests a lack of a release strategy.

>
> With 2.2.4 becoming stable, why would we keep the buggy ~ 2.2.3 in the
> tree taking up space?  We already established that ~ users will have
> migrated away from it.
>

Sure, and my comment wasn't really directed at portage in particular,
though it is a fair reply because I did use it as an example.  Portage
is a bit unique in that it has no upstream QA process - the QA is
being done entirely within Gentoo.  For packages other than portage
there should be less reason to drop versions, since they probably
wouldn't have been released if they were unsuitable to release.

>
>> That tends
>> to result in a situation where if you follow ~arch you end up having
>> to accept lots of updates because none of the versions stay in the
>> tree long enough to actually get stabilized.
>
> that happens for some pkgs, if it happens too much for you, update less
> often.

What do you mean by "update less often?"  Are you suggesting not
running emerge --sync?  Not wanting to follow every ~arch version of a
package whose stable version has a problem isn't the same as not
wanting to update your entire tree, and there is no reason to force
users to choose between only those choices.

>
>> Unless a ~arch package
>> version is so broken that it could never be stabilized it is probably
>> better to leave them there so that it is easier for users to drop back
>> from ~arch to stable without downgrading.
>>
>
> Rich, please re-read your above statements until you see the total
> failure in your logic.

It is a bit ironic that you chose this as the part to quote when
adding a snide remark.  My whole point was that we shouldn't
NEEDLESSLY drop old versions,  You seemed to have taken this as a
complaint about dropping old versions when there is a valid reason for
doing so.

Your tone here is anything but helpful.  My intent was really to
contribute to the discussion constructively and point out a pain point
for people running mixed-keywords.  Perhaps I didn't explain my point
as well as I could have.  When somebody is saying something that
doesn't seem sensible to you, it is usually better to assume that they
just didn't make their point well than to assume that they don't have
anything worth saying.

-- 
Rich

[gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[»Q«]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 12:05:26 +0100
Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:

> > On 18/11/15 08:25, Ulrich Mueller wrote:  
> >> - If you mix stable and unstable then you are by definition an 
> >> advanced user, who will be able to cope with the situation. :)
  
> Only that there is no real difference to the existing situation when
> mixing stable and unstable. It is not guaranteed that all dependencies
> of an unstable package are stable, so already now users may have to
> accept the ~ keyword for dependencies in some cases. Similarly, such
> users may have to accept EAPI 6 for some dependencies, which implies
> that they install a package manager supporting EAPI 6.

When ~ keywording is needed for dependencies, the PM's output makes it
clear what's needed.  In cases where EAPI 6 is needed for dependencies
but the PM is unaware of EAPI 6, will there be good clues in the PM's
output that the PM itself needs to be ~ keyworded?

[gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Ulrich Mueller]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 486 bytes --]

>>>>> On Wed, 18 Nov 2015, »Q«  wrote:

> When ~ keywording is needed for dependencies, the PM's output makes
> it clear what's needed. In cases where EAPI 6 is needed for
> dependencies but the PM is unaware of EAPI 6, will there be good
> clues in the PM's output that the PM itself needs to be ~ keyworded?

IIRC, portage will output a message like "masked by EAPI" along with
a longer explanation that you should upgrade portage to a version
aware of that EAPI.

Ulrich

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 490 bytes --]

[gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[»Q«]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 18:06:23 +0100
Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:

> >>>>> On Wed, 18 Nov 2015, »Q«  wrote:  
> 
> > When ~ keywording is needed for dependencies, the PM's output makes
> > it clear what's needed. In cases where EAPI 6 is needed for
> > dependencies but the PM is unaware of EAPI 6, will there be good
> > clues in the PM's output that the PM itself needs to be ~
> > keyworded?  
> 
> IIRC, portage will output a message like "masked by EAPI" along with
> a longer explanation that you should upgrade portage to a version
> aware of that EAPI.

Thanks.  ISTM that's plenty, and as a mostly-stable user with a 
few ~ packages it's all I'd hope for.

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Ian Stakenvicius]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 18/11/15 02:25 AM, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>>>>>> On Tue, 17 Nov 2015, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> 
>> It doesn't seem that unlikely to me...
> 
>> 1. Otherwise stable system with package "foo" keyworded as
>> ~arch.
> 
>> 2. foo needs some dependency of a dependency named "bar".
> 
>> 3. The bar maintainer revbumps and removes the old EAPI=5
>> ebuild.
> 
>> I don't really care either way, I'm just wondering whether this
>> is "safe" because it's actually safe, or "safe" because we're
>> gonna do it anyway.
> 
> Actually it is quite simple:
> 
> - The stable tree should not contain any EAPI 6 ebuilds at this
> point, so stable users should not see any change. - Unstable
> users will have a package manager aware of EAPI 6, so all ebuilds
> will be visible for it. - If you mix stable and unstable then you
> are by definition an advanced user, who will be able to cope with
> the situation. :)
> 

And, as a developer maintaining bar in #3 above, you should make
sure that either the stable version satisfies all rdeps (even those
in ~arch), or you don't remove the EAPI5 ~arch version until all the
rdeps are EAPI6.

Theoretically repoman could check for this; i don't know if it's
implemented though or if there are any plans to implement it..
IIRC, confirming removals don't break rdeps is not something repoman
can do unless you run a 'repoman full' on the whole tree (or at
least all the rdeps) yourself.  This really isn't any different from
the case where foo-1.0 has RDEPEND=" =bar-3.0 " and then bar-3.0 is
dropped.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2

iF4EAREIAAYFAlZMyF8ACgkQAJxUfCtlWe21RAD7Bxku5bXPbQGLcCwgefjJqadB
LA1tSiK0OkCeUKwvtXEBALw4owHTN/cIOZTFgJkx+scKVvH8lefZbQVjTl9w8KlS
=qb2w
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Andreas K. Huettel]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

> And, as a developer maintaining bar in #3 above, you should make
> sure that either the stable version satisfies all rdeps (even those
> in ~arch), or you don't remove the EAPI5 ~arch version until all the
> rdeps are EAPI6.
> 
> Theoretically repoman could check for this; i don't know if it's
> implemented though or if there are any plans to implement it..
> IIRC, confirming removals don't break rdeps is not something repoman
> can do unless you run a 'repoman full' on the whole tree (or at
> least all the rdeps) yourself. 

- -> good usecase for autorepoman (hi Patrick) or the github QA checks after 
adding some extra code in both cases

- -- 
Andreas K. Huettel
Gentoo Linux developer (council, perl, libreoffice)
dilfridge@gentoo.org
http://www.akhuettel.de/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=9nqS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Daniel Campbell]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 11/18/2015 01:54 AM, Raymond Jennings wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 1:25 AM, Alexander Berntsen
> <bernalex@gentoo.org <mailto:bernalex@gentoo.org>> wrote:
> 
> On 18/11/15 08:25, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>> - If you mix stable and unstable then you are by definition an 
>> advanced user, who will be able to cope with the situation. :)
> This attitude is shitty, and I am willing to wager a really big
> bunch of users fall into this category.
> 
> 
>> I second the motion.
> 
>> I can vouch for myself as such a user who often uses unstable
>> packages to get new features or dodge bugs in the stable
>> versions.
> 
>> As a general default, though, I stick with stable packages.
> 
>> Taking an occasional unstable package in an otherwise stable
>> system (and obeying any revbump directives provoked by
>> dependencies) is a legal operation that is actually supported by
>> commit rules that prohibit stable versions from depending on
>> unstable versions of dependencies.
> 
>> Why would that policy exist if mixing stable and unstable were
>> unsupported?
> 

Mixing keywords is generally unsupported because of the sheer amount
of testing and possible combinations there are. In many cases, you can
get away with it and it's easy enough to debug, but if you end up in
package.use hell and/or have a bunch of blockers, you're kinda on your
own.

The policy exists to prevent developers from causing users to fall
into the trap of mixing keywords. Stable packages depending on testing
packages means they'll have to add entries to package.accept_keywords,
which can greatly complicate maintenance of a Gentoo system. Someone
willing to do that work *is* advanced, even if it's only a few
packages. "Advanced" doesn't have to mean "can build an LFS system in
an evening". :)

In the case of this recent change, worst case scenario you'll need to
add portage to your p.accept_keywords until it's stable. If you want
to simplify things, choose arch or ~arch without mixing.

In the Gentoo spirit, though, users are free to do with their systems
whatever they want; mixing keywords is one of the cases where you get
to keep the pieces, however.

> I don't think EAPI 6 is *that* shiny, that we need to start using
> it prior to stable Portage supporting it. It's a potential mess for
> a huge portion of our users.
> 
> 
> That said, I'd like to extend my thanks to Micha? for working on
> this.
> 
> 

- -- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=83f3
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Ian Delaney]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 11:47:01 -0500
Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 10:10 AM, Brian Dolbec <dolsen@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> > On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 06:59:19 -0500
> > Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
  
> 
> It is a bit ironic that you chose this as the part to quote when
> adding a snide remark.  My whole point was that we shouldn't
> NEEDLESSLY drop old versions,  You seemed to have taken this as a
> complaint about dropping old versions when there is a valid reason for
> doing so.
> 
> Your tone here is anything but helpful.  My intent was really to
> contribute to the discussion constructively and point out a pain point
> for people running mixed-keywords.  Perhaps I didn't explain my point
> as well as I could have.  When somebody is saying something that
> doesn't seem sensible to you, it is usually better to assume that they
> just didn't make their point well than to assume that they don't have
> anything worth saying.
> 

Bravo.
Lemme think of an example of similar replies I have had to endure in
this style.
'Your logic / code makes no sense' (Well logical thinking is a tad beyond me yeah)

One will do. Other authors might recognise their closed minded retorts
and other such blunders.
What ever was so hard about politely prompting to please re-phrase, or,
more casually, run that by me again, or "I need you to re-state that",
or even plain 'huh'. Alternatively; wtf are you saying? (Love that one)

Let's consider the lack of virtues of leaping to the wrong
interpretation aka misunderstanding the data put, then jumping in head
first & retorting to the 'sender' with what amounts to a blatant
smack down. But, as the guides to use of irc tells us in the first
place; pure text, absent of the remainder of visual and auditory
metadata, offers a highly restricted context, highly prone to error.
aka, text on a screen. In other words, a disaster looking for a
location.

Oh and dol-sen don't feel you're being picked on. You of all
folk are NOT one to typically fall over this one. Wish it were
someone far more 'typical'. 

But I stray, NOT troll.
What were we talking about again?


-- 
kind regards

Ian Delaney

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Patrick Lauer]

On 11/18/2015 01:01 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:12 AM, Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
>> Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
>> details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.
>>
> People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're contributors
> who have volunteered to test packages.
Or people that use Gentoo because it allows them to satisfy requirements.

At work I don't 'want' to use ~arch packages, but external constraints
very strongly suggest that. Otherwise we'd just be on CentOS 5 and not
worry about things working properly.

And still we try to run updates in a sandbox first so we catch breakage
before it becomes a problem.

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 4:39 AM, Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> On 11/18/2015 01:01 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:12 AM, Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
>>> Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
>>> details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.
>>>
>> People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're contributors
>> who have volunteered to test packages.
> Or people that use Gentoo because it allows them to satisfy requirements.
>

So, again portage is a bit unusual in that it doesn't have an upstream
outside of Gentoo.

I think that a QA layer for Portage is a great idea, but it simply
isn't going to happen unless somebody actually steps up to create one.
The fact that more portage QA would be useful doesn't mean that the
few volunteers working on portage should be banned from introducing
new versions into ~arch until they create and staff a new QA effort.
They're of course welcome to work on that if that is what they want to
do, but I don't think anybody is going to try to dictate to them what
they work on.

If somebody really would benefit from more portage QA, I'd suggest
either pitching in to do the work, or finding some way to entice
others to do so.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Daniel Campbell]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 11/18/2015 04:06 AM, Alexander Berntsen wrote:
> On 18/11/15 13:01, Rich Freeman wrote:
>> People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're 
>> contributors who have volunteered to test packages.
> We are talking about people who run Gentoo stable who need to 
> keyword several specific packages because the lack of manpower 
> leads to Gentoo stable by itself not being very usable for most 
> people.
> 
> 
> Whatever. I just wanted to raise my concern. It has been raised. 
> You're all free to not care. Too bad for the user^Wthankless 
> contributors.
> 

I can't speak for other maintainers, but I thank each bug reporter
that I work with; ~arch users *are* important because their (and our)
testing is what allows us to even *have* a stable set of packages.

That said, I wouldn't feel comfortable writing EAPI 6 ebuilds on
packages with any stable dependencies. At least for the time being; I
wouldn't want to disturb stable users. But once EAPI 6-compatible
portage is stabilized, I see no issue.
- -- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2
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=JpWy
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Andrew Savchenko]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1331 bytes --]

Hi,

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 07:01:21 -0500 Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:12 AM, Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
> > Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
> > details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.
> >
> 
> People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're contributors
> who have volunteered to test packages.

I strongly disagree with you. We do not use stable even at
enterprise grade production systems and HPC setups. Stable is just
too freaking old in order to be usable for our purposes, not to
mention that it lacks many packages at all. We tried stable
several times, it just freaks out admins (including myself) too
badly or results in horrible mess of stable and unstable which is
less stable that unstable setups. I do not use stable at
workstations and personal setups as well.

Nevertheless I consider stable useful as stabilization process
gives more testing for packages (and some fixes are forward ported
to unstable versions). Of course I understand that there are people
using it and I try to support stable packages as well, but these
versions are mostly a burden and I can't really understand stable
users.

Best regards,
Andrew Savchenko

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 819 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 07:01:21 -0500 Rich Freeman wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:12 AM, Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> > When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
>> > Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
>> > details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.
>> >
>>
>> People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're contributors
>> who have volunteered to test packages.
>
> I strongly disagree with you. We do not use stable even at
> enterprise grade production systems and HPC setups. Stable is just
> too freaking old in order to be usable for our purposes, not to
> mention that it lacks many packages at all. We tried stable
> several times, it just freaks out admins (including myself) too
> badly or results in horrible mess of stable and unstable which is
> less stable that unstable setups. I do not use stable at
> workstations and personal setups as well.

Interesting.  I've had the opposite experience, and don't run ~arch
except for testing purposes.  I don't hesitate to keyword packages
when necessary, and file bugs for their stabilization if appropriate.

Also, if you're doing something like HPC then you're probably focused
on a specific application, with your own QA system, so Gentoo's QA
doesn't really impact you much anyway as your own regression test is
going to catch issues.  I'm not nearly that formal but I've
containerized almost all my services because I don't like relying on
Gentoo's QA.  If I update my mariadb container I just make sure that
mariadb is working, and revert it if not.  If it happens to contain a
broken ssh client it doesn't concern me at all, since I don't use that
container for ssh.  Of course, the downside of this is that I end up
updating a lot of hosts, all for personal use.

> Of course I understand that there are people
> using it and I try to support stable packages as well, but these
> versions are mostly a burden and I can't really understand stable
> users.

Well, to be fair it seems like most Gentoo developers consider half
the tree a burden (that would be the "other" half).  We all have our
itches that we're trying to scratch.  As long as everybody follows the
policies the results end up working out reasonably well for everybody.
Some of us barely test ~arch at all, and others barely test stable at
all, and it seems that for the most part things work out.

In any case, the purpose of ~arch is testing, and is not intended to
be a stable experience, even if it often ends up being that way (which
is certainly nothing to complain about).  If we added another layer of
testing above ~arch, all we'd see happen is that everybody who runs
~arch today would just switch to that, since it would essentially be
the same thing, and ~arch wouldn't really serve any purpose at all.
If the purpose of ~arch isn't testing, then why have it at all?

But, like I said, if somebody wants to volunteer to do a barrage of QA
tests on portage, by all means do so.  It will only make life better
for everybody.  I just don't see any reason to bar the portage authors
from introducing a version if they consider it suitable for testing.

-- 
Rich

[gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Martin Vaeth]

Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> commit EAPI 6 ebuilds to ~arch.

For an overlay maintainer like me, it is not reasonable
to bump eclasses locally.

So please bump the relevant eclasses timely, most notably
(AFAICS these needs just extending the check; perhaps a
*negative* check would be simpler for future EAPI bumps?)

readme.gentoo
bash-completion-r1
systemd

perhaps more work (I didn't check) and less urgent being:

distutils-r1
python-r1
python-single-r1
perl-module
gnome2
gnome2-utils

Or should I open a bug for each of it? And what about:

latex-package.eclass
games.eclass

Are these going to be deprecated due to inheriting base
unconditionally?

[gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Michael Palimaka]

On 22/11/15 05:51, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 07:01:21 -0500 Rich Freeman wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:12 AM, Alexander Berntsen <bernalex@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
>>> Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
>>> details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.
>>>
>>
>> People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're contributors
>> who have volunteered to test packages.
> 
> I strongly disagree with you. We do not use stable even at
> enterprise grade production systems and HPC setups. Stable is just
> too freaking old in order to be usable for our purposes, not to
> mention that it lacks many packages at all. We tried stable
> several times, it just freaks out admins (including myself) too
> badly or results in horrible mess of stable and unstable which is
> less stable that unstable setups. I do not use stable at
> workstations and personal setups as well.
> 
> Nevertheless I consider stable useful as stabilization process
> gives more testing for packages (and some fixes are forward ported
> to unstable versions). Of course I understand that there are people
> using it and I try to support stable packages as well, but these
> versions are mostly a burden and I can't really understand stable
> users.

Is the state of stable really that bad? I see this sentiment a lot.

I run mostly-stable systems and rarely have an issue with old/missing
packages (but I'm involved in the maintenance of many of the packages I
use so I try to keep on top of stable requests).

Are there particular areas that are lagging particularly, or is it just
in general?

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Dirkjan Ochtman]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Michael Palimaka <kensington@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 22/11/15 05:51, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> Is the state of stable really that bad? I see this sentiment a lot.
>
> I run mostly-stable systems and rarely have an issue with old/missing
> packages (but I'm involved in the maintenance of many of the packages I
> use so I try to keep on top of stable requests).
>
> Are there particular areas that are lagging particularly, or is it just
> in general?

I also run mostly-stable systems, and mostly haven't had problems.
Some specific areas lag (like apache-2.4), but I think generally it
works quite well.

Cheers,

Dirkjan

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Andreas K. Huettel]

Am Sonntag, 22. November 2015, 16:54:58 schrieb Michael Palimaka:
> 
> Is the state of stable really that bad? I see this sentiment a lot.
> 
> I run mostly-stable systems and rarely have an issue with old/missing
> packages (but I'm involved in the maintenance of many of the packages I
> use so I try to keep on top of stable requests).

IMHO not really. 

Nearly every system I run or administer is stable base plus selected ~arch 
packages of local interest. The degree of ~arch varies (my own boxes tend to 
have more, those I run for others less), but on the whole this is a fully 
workable combination.

And no I dont really worry about EAPI=6, since as far as I can remember 
portage outputs a fat message "Masked by EAPI" once a package with EAPI too 
new for portage is required. 

[Most of my systems also run ~arch portage by default. Rarely any problems.]

-- 
Andreas K. Huettel
Gentoo Linux developer (council, perl, libreoffice)
dilfridge@gentoo.org
http://www.akhuettel.de/

[gentoo-dev] Re: EAPI 6 portage is out!

[Duncan]

Michael Palimaka posted on Mon, 23 Nov 2015 02:54:58 +1100 as excerpted:

> On 22/11/15 05:51, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 07:01:21 -0500 Rich Freeman wrote:
>>> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 6:12 AM, Alexander Berntsen
>>> <bernalex@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>>> When I do QA in projects I'm involved with (at least outside of
>>>> Gentoo), we don't do it live on end-user systems. I'll leave the
>>>> details as an exercise for the Gentoo developer.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> People who run ~arch are not really end-users - they're contributors
>>> who have volunteered to test packages.
>> 
>> I strongly disagree with you. We do not use stable even at enterprise
>> grade production systems and HPC setups. Stable is just too freaking
>> old in order to be usable for our purposes, not to mention that it
>> lacks many packages at all. We tried stable several times, it just
>> freaks out admins (including myself) too badly or results in horrible
>> mess of stable and unstable which is less stable that unstable setups.
>> I do not use stable at workstations and personal setups as well.
>> 
>> Nevertheless I consider stable useful as stabilization process gives
>> more testing for packages (and some fixes are forward ported to
>> unstable versions). Of course I understand that there are people using
>> it and I try to support stable packages as well, but these versions are
>> mostly a burden and I can't really understand stable users.
> 
> Is the state of stable really that bad? I see this sentiment a lot.
> 
> I run mostly-stable systems and rarely have an issue with old/missing
> packages (but I'm involved in the maintenance of many of the packages I
> use so I try to keep on top of stable requests).
> 
> Are there particular areas that are lagging particularly, or is it just
> in general?

My own biggest concern about gentoo stable would be the timeliness of 
security updates, particularly if you're waiting for GLSAs to do them, as 
the GLSAs normally don't come out until all affected archs have 
stabilized, and that's often *much* longer than I'd be comfortable with 
running world-known-vulnerable versions.

If you're not on a lagging arch, sync and update every couple weeks to 
once a month at am absolute minimum, and consistently use --deep on 
updates so you should always get available stable updates, then stable 
shouldn't be /that/ bad, security-wise, as you won't be waiting for those 
GLSAs after the lagging archs have stabilized, but will instead be 
picking up the packages, including --deep dependencies, as they do 
stabilize.

Tho obviously ~arch with --deep updates are still likely to get you those 
security updates faster... but hopefully stable --deep updates will be 
fast /enough/.


My #2 concern with stable wouldn't be so much the median or even mean age 
of packages, but the effectively age-unlimited "long-tail".  I'm not sure 
what the worst cases are, age-wise, but I know of a number of bad to 
arguably "severely bad" "system-critical-package" examples.

How long did baselayout-2 and openrc take to stabilize?  IIRC it was at 
least two years, long after they were effectively stable in ~arch, with 
the holdup being primarily lack of the documentation necessary for stable 
users, both for initial installation (handbook updates) and upgraders 
(upgrade documentation).

Similarly, it took stable portage a /very/ long time to get proper sets 
support, primarily due to political issues, I believe.

And of course both glibc and gcc, particularly gcc, tend to take ages to 
make it to even unmasked ~arch, let alone stable, because for better or 
worse, the policy is basically that they can't be unmasked until all 
packages have a patched version that can work with them at the target 
unmask level (~arch or stable).  So gcc in particular takes /ages/ to 
make it to even ~arch, because while most packages that normal users run 
will at least have bugs filed with patches available, it takes months for 
them to be worked into actual in-tree ~arch packages, so gcc can build 
them all and be unmasked to the same ~arch.  Back when amd64 was newer 
and gcc updates generally had much more noticeable performance boosts 
with newer versions, I'd routinely unmask gcc and go fetching those 
patches from bugzilla when necessary, so I _know_, tho I don't do it so 
much these days, both due to having less time available, and because as a 
mature gcc arch, gcc updates don't bring the marked performance increases 
on amd64 that they used to, so it's less of a big deal and I often wait 
at least until there's noises on -dev about unmasking gcc to ~arch, 
before unmasking it and doing the rebuilds, here.

Of course, it's that same process over again before ~arch gcc and glibc 
are stabilized, so that puts them _seriously_ behind for stable, even 
more so than they are for ~arch, which is bad enough, but I know why the 
policy is what it is and I don't disagree with it, even if it /does/ mean 
gentoo, which arguably depends at the user level far more on gcc than 
normal binary distros, actually ends up way behind them in terms of 
deployment even to ~arch.


Those are my own two big reasons for preferring ~arch.  Security is the  
big one, but provided users follow appropriate update procedures, it's at 
least manageable on stable.  But the unlimited long tail on stabilization 
age is in some ways even more worrying, because while security is at 
least a limited and managed problem, as a user you really /don't/ have 
any limits on how far back into upstream ancient history the stable 
versions of packages you're running may be, and unless you actually check 
all your installed-package upstreams or at least compare against gentoo 
~arch versions for them all, you really /don't/ know which stable 
packages are furthest behind and thus which packages you're running are 
effectively out of upstream's support range and by how far.

At least with an enterprise distro like Red Hat, yes, the packages are 
going to be out of date, but you know you still have /some/ sort of 
decent support available, because that's what the enterprise distros are 
in the business of actually /providing/ -- it's their primary feature and 
reason to exist.  On Gentoo, not so much, not because maintainers won't 
do their honest best to support you on stable (they generally do), but 
because that's simply not Gentoo's primary product or reason for 
existence -- on Gentoo, that primary product and reason for existence is 
generally considered to be more the end user customizability -- 
otherwise, why not just be a binary distro and avoid all that hassle of 
end-user building in the first place.

-- 
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