Re: [gentoo-dev] emerge -C eselect-python disaster

[Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On 01/24/2010 07:02 PM, Dale wrote:
> Is there something that I am missing here? For me, system should
> include the things needed for booting and for the package manager to
>  work.

It should include the programs directly involved in booting, and the
package manager.  I'm not sure that it should contain their dependencies
- since that information can be derived from the packages themselves.

> As I pointed out in another reply, portage won't let you unmerge
> itself but it will let you unmerge a package that will render portage
> useless.

Well, it shouldn't allow you to unmerge anything that will render
ANYTHING useless without some explicit instruction to do so.

The documentation does warn of this behavior:

--unmerge (-C)
WARNING: This action can remove important packages! Removes  all 
matching packages.  This does no checking of dependencies, so it
may remove packages necessary for the proper operation  of your
system.  Its arguments can be atoms or ebuilds. For a dependency
aware version of --unmerge, use --depclean or --prune.

If you use --depclean to remove your package then you're safe.

Note - the command line option names are not well-chosen here.  -C 
should really be --unmerge-without-checking-dependencies-unsafe or some 
other obnoxious option, and --depclean should be the easy to type parameter.