[gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Tomáš Chvátal]

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Hi lads,
due to recent situation about .la files status we would like to inform
users about this situation. See attached file that we propose to be
included as news item.

Step 2 will be finding global policy how to get rid of them as fast as
possible  without too much more hassle for our users :)

--------
Tomáš Chvátal
Gentoo Linux Developer [Clustering/Council/KDE/QA/Sci/X11]
E-Mail          : scarabeus@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP        : 94A4 5CCD 85D3 DE24 FE99 F924 1C1E 9CDE 0341 4587
GnuPG ID        : 03414587

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Title: Removal of .la files
Author: Diego Elio Pettenò <flameeyes@gentoo.org>
Content-Type: text/plain
Posted: 2010-10-01
Revision: 1
News-Item-Format: 1.0

Some of you might have noticed, others might notice, a few would
probably not notice at all, that some Gentoo developers have started
removing the libtool archive files from packages that they maintain;
these changes have some times been applied to stable ebuilds as well,
but in all cases they won't be applied unless the package is re-emerged.

Removing .la files can cause, though, temporary disruption in the build
processes of libraries depending on those involved, because of the
transitive nature of .la files. For instance you could experiences
something like this:

libtool: link: `/usr/lib/libdbus-1.la' is not a valid libtool archive

with libdbus-1.la being replaced by other library names. If this is the
case, _do not panic_! Nothing is irremediably broken and nothing will
have to be rebuilt!

First of all, you should install lafilefixer and let it pass through the
currently-installed system:

# emerge lafilefixer
# lafilefixer --justfixit

This will convert the references to libtool archives to the -llibname
form, which works both with and without them.

Secondly, you can avoid any future requirement for this by sanitising
the newly installed .la files; this can be done either by using the
(currently testing) Portage 2.1.9 series, or by adding the following
snippet to your /etc/portage/bashrc:

post_src_install() {
    lafilefixer "${D}"
}

It's a one time process that _will_ save you from more breakage and work
to do in the future, so please bear with us.

We'll be looking forward to make this more widely available knowledge
and we hope to be able to provide a better experience for all of you at
the end of this (bumpy) journey.

For more informations please see post [1] to gentoo-user mailing list
that contain more detailed description.

[1] http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user/msg_b144a138af822433344f6064e2fa9c66.xml

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Re: [gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

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On 10/1/10 12:27 PM, Tomáš Chvátal wrote:
> Some of you might have noticed, others might notice, a few would
> probably not notice at all

Is this an appropriate language for a user-targeted announcement? Let's
just say what we want to say, and don't try to be "funny".

> First of all, you should install lafilefixer and let it pass through the
> currently-installed system:
> 
> # emerge lafilefixer
> # lafilefixer --justfixit
> 
> This will convert the references to libtool archives to the -llibname
> form, which works both with and without them.

Can we move this section closer to the beginning of the message, so that
more impatient people will actually read it?


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Re: [gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Peter Volkov]

В Птн, 01/10/2010 в 12:27 +0200, Tomáš Chvátal пишет:
> this can be done either by using the
> (currently testing) Portage 2.1.9 series, or by adding the following
> snippet to your /etc/portage/bashrc:
> 
> post_src_install() {
>     lafilefixer "${D}"
> }

It's better to avoid suggesting this as such things tend to stay for a
very long time on user's systems and since this'll became redundant once
portage 2.1.9 will go stable soon it'll la files will be "fixed" twice
for no reason.

-- 
Peter.

[gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Diego Elio Pettenò]

Il giorno ven, 01/10/2010 alle 17.31 +0400, Peter Volkov ha scritto:
> 
> It's better to avoid suggesting this as such things tend to stay for a
> very long time on user's systems and since this'll became redundant
> once
> portage 2.1.9 will go stable soon it'll la files will be "fixed" twice
> for no reason. 

It won't hurt anyway, and it'll definitely avoid people having to re-run
lafilefixer manually from time to time.

-- 
Diego Elio Pettenò — “Flameeyes”
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/

If you found a .asc file in this mail and know not what it is,
it's a GnuPG digital signature: http://www.gnupg.org/

Re: [gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

2010/10/1 Tomáš Chvátal <scarabeus@gentoo.org>:
> Hi lads,
> due to recent situation about .la files status we would like to inform
> users about this situation. See attached file that we propose to be
> included as news item.
>
> Step 2 will be finding global policy how to get rid of them as fast as
> possible  without too much more hassle for our users :)
>

Does lafilefixer fix binpkgs now? As well as the vdb manifests for the
files? If it doesn't, I strongly object to having it as an official
recommendation. A surprisingly large no. of people (at least on
bugzilla) have FEATURES=buildpkg .

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Zac Medico]

On 10/01/2010 08:13 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> Does lafilefixer fix binpkgs now? As well as the vdb manifests for the
> files? If it doesn't, I strongly object to having it as an official
> recommendation. A surprisingly large no. of people (at least on
> bugzilla) have FEATURES=buildpkg .

It works if you run it on $D in post_src_install like the news item
recommends. The binary package is created from $D after that.
-- 
Thanks,
Zac

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Eray Aslan]

On Fri, Oct 01, 2010 at 05:04:15PM +0200, Diego Elio Pettenò wrote:
> Il giorno ven, 01/10/2010 alle 17.31 +0400, Peter Volkov ha scritto:
> > It's better to avoid suggesting this as such things tend to stay for a
> > very long time on user's systems and since this'll became redundant
> > once
> > portage 2.1.9 will go stable soon it'll la files will be "fixed" twice
> > for no reason. 
> 
> It won't hurt anyway, and it'll definitely avoid people having to re-run
> lafilefixer manually from time to time.

Stabilize 2.1.9 and get rid of the post_src_install() stuff alltogether in
the news item?  A distro should not ask its users to fiddle with package
management software lightly.

Besides, if it is such a good idea -and it is- it should be part of
portage.

Why not push for stabilization of 2.1.9 and then do the news item?  Am I
missing something?

-- 
Eray

Re: [gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 10/01/2010 08:13 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> Does lafilefixer fix binpkgs now? As well as the vdb manifests for the
>> files? If it doesn't, I strongly object to having it as an official
>> recommendation. A surprisingly large no. of people (at least on
>> bugzilla) have FEATURES=buildpkg .
>
> It works if you run it on $D in post_src_install like the news item
> recommends. The binary package is created from $D after that.
>

I'm talking about the first part which says the following:

[quote]
First of all, you should install lafilefixer and let it pass through the
currently-installed system:

# emerge lafilefixer
# lafilefixer --justfixit
[/quote]

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

[gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Diego Elio Pettenò]

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Il giorno ven, 01/10/2010 alle 20.43 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan ha scritto:
> 
> Does lafilefixer fix binpkgs now? As well as the vdb manifests for the
> files? If it doesn't, I strongly object to having it as an official
> recommendation. A surprisingly large no. of people (at least on
> bugzilla) have FEATURES=buildpkg . 

And usually (even if not always) have one system where they build and
one system where they install. The one where they install only, and not
build, will do nothing with .la files, so fixed or not doesn't make any
difference.

The other, if they install back a built package might require another
run of it, I don't think it makes much difference though to them —
beside making you feel righteous at dragging your feet. Nice try.

-- 
Diego Elio Pettenò — “Flameeyes”
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/

If you found a .asc file in this mail and know not what it is,
it's a GnuPG digital signature: http://www.gnupg.org/


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[gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Diego Elio Pettenò]

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Il giorno ven, 01/10/2010 alle 18.42 +0300, Eray Aslan ha scritto:
> 
> Why not push for stabilization of 2.1.9 and then do the news item?  Am
> I
> missing something? 

Yah, the bickering of some people at having .la files disappear under
their feet, probably because they are affectionate to them, or force
them to consider dong a bit more cleanup work.

But since the suggestions are already useful, I guess it would be a
decent time to tell users about them; I have suggested doing so for a
very long time already; it worked for all the people whom I know have
been using it, it worked for me; heck it even avoided the tinderbox to
stop when automagic dependencies over selinux where passing down.

But it's trying to solve a problem that is at least three years old;
it's a suggestion I made more over an year ago; and that people shot
down many many times.

Sincerely, the naysayers on the .la matter have already broken enough
systems by not allowing .la files to die earlier, and now they are
pretending that there is no problem in waiting another X years in
"planning" a conversion that for what they are concerned is never going
to happen.

So basically, this is my token: we can tell users to do it this way and
they won't feel pain at all; or we can't tell them, and when maintainers
get pissed off by .la files enough they delete them, leaving users to
Google their solution.

I, sincerely, have poured enough effort in trying to solve the issue,
discussing it, documenting it, showing how to deal with new packages,
showing how to identify pointless .la files that only increase the
number of them installed and cause false positives… and I'm still told
that a) I haven't done _enough_, as I had to prepare a master plan of it
and b) I'm too negative about stuff.

-- 
Diego Elio Pettenò — “Flameeyes”
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/

If you found a .asc file in this mail and know not what it is,
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 11:24 PM, Diego Elio Pettenò <flameeyes@gmail.com> wrote:
> Il giorno ven, 01/10/2010 alle 20.43 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan ha scritto:
>>
>> Does lafilefixer fix binpkgs now? As well as the vdb manifests for the
>> files? If it doesn't, I strongly object to having it as an official
>> recommendation. A surprisingly large no. of people (at least on
>> bugzilla) have FEATURES=buildpkg .
>
> And usually (even if not always) have one system where they build and
> one system where they install. The one where they install only, and not
> build, will do nothing with .la files, so fixed or not doesn't make any
> difference.
>

Right, so a few weeks later when they re-merge a binpkg, they suddenly
get build failures again. And that confuses them since it's
unexpected. This is in general a bad experience for stable users who
want to get work done, not baby-sit their system.

> The other, if they install back a built package might require another
> run of it,

Of course, that's the easiest solution. But I can't help but wonder
what kind of an impression it leaves on the users of our distro, who
use stable expecting it to not break unless absolutely required, and
with prior notice (or by accident, which is understandable).

Having said that, I was informed off-list that this is not meant to be
*the* solution for la file removal breakage, but merely an informative
notice to raise awareness for the (oft-useful) hammer that is
lafilefixer.

If the shortcomings of the tool (i.e. it doesn't fix vdb, binpkgs,
etc) are made clear in the news item, and devs do not start taking
this news item as license to unleash la file removal on stable, I have
no problems with it. Infact, I would say it's an injustice to users
not to get this news out to them ASAP.

So In short, (aiui) this news item is (or should be) "Some breakage
slipped in, if you face it and want a quick solution, do this: <blah>.
Note that it has the following problems: <list>. To minimize such
breakages in future, a feature called "fixpackages" (enabled by
default) has been added to ~arch portage, which will soon go stable
and will be accompanied by another news item"

Hmm, in retrospect that isn't short at all.

> I don't think it makes much difference though to them —
> beside making you feel righteous at dragging your feet. Nice try.
>

I'm sorry, but I do not understand your hostility. Could you rephrase
your objections with what I said in a way I can understand so that I
can address them?

Thanks

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Enrico Weigelt]

* Diego Elio Pettenò <flameeyes@gmail.com> schrieb:

Hi folks,

<big_snip />

I didn't follow the whole thread, just a quick note on .la files:

Why not just introducing a FEAUTURE or USE flag which causes
them not to be installed at all ?

la-files have a long, long history of causing headaches, and I
actually don't see the use of them. (there're much better
solutions, eg. pkg-config).



cu
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Zac Medico]

On 10/01/2010 12:12 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 11:24 PM, Diego Elio Pettenò <flameeyes@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Il giorno ven, 01/10/2010 alle 20.43 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan ha scritto:
>>>
>>> Does lafilefixer fix binpkgs now? As well as the vdb manifests for the
>>> files? If it doesn't, I strongly object to having it as an official
>>> recommendation. A surprisingly large no. of people (at least on
>>> bugzilla) have FEATURES=buildpkg .
>>
>> And usually (even if not always) have one system where they build and
>> one system where they install. The one where they install only, and not
>> build, will do nothing with .la files, so fixed or not doesn't make any
>> difference.
>>
> 
> Right, so a few weeks later when they re-merge a binpkg, they suddenly
> get build failures again. And that confuses them since it's
> unexpected. This is in general a bad experience for stable users who
> want to get work done, not baby-sit their system.

Maybe advise them to use post_pkg_preinst instead of post_src_install,
so it works even for binary packages.
-- 
Thanks,
Zac

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 1:08 AM, Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 10/01/2010 12:12 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> Right, so a few weeks later when they re-merge a binpkg, they suddenly
>> get build failures again. And that confuses them since it's
>> unexpected. This is in general a bad experience for stable users who
>> want to get work done, not baby-sit their system.
>
> Maybe advise them to use post_pkg_preinst instead of post_src_install,
> so it works even for binary packages.
>

If that won't cause problems with portage-2.1.9 (mtime/checksum
messiness, for example; you're the best judge for this), then we
should do it.

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Alistair Bush]

> Hi lads,
> due to recent situation about .la files status we would like to inform
> users about this situation. See attached file that we propose to be
> included as news item.
> 

Would it not be a better solution to have this information documented 
"properly" under Upgrade Guides or Gentoo System Documentation and then have 
this news item linked to it.    

What i'm concerned about is that this is not really a news item.   From what I 
understand this issue could be with us for a rather long time (years even) 
so...

How is this news item going to help ppl in a month from now (till the issue is 
solved in its entirety). 
Can we reasonably expect a new user to be aware of this.   Do we expect users 
to read old ( and this could potentially become very old) news items.

This is potentually a different situation from someone updating dbus (for 
example) from <y.y.y to >=y.y.y and having a once off (fire and forget) 
migration task.  It is for this reason that I think this should be documented.

Alistair.

> Step 2 will be finding global policy how to get rid of them as fast as
> possible  without too much more hassle for our users :)
> 
> --------
> Tomáš Chvátal
> Gentoo Linux Developer [Clustering/Council/KDE/QA/Sci/X11]
> E-Mail          : scarabeus@gentoo.org
> GnuPG FP        : 94A4 5CCD 85D3 DE24 FE99 F924 1C1E 9CDE 0341 4587
> GnuPG ID        : 03414587

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Zac Medico]

On 10/01/2010 02:10 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 1:08 AM, Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> On 10/01/2010 12:12 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>>> Right, so a few weeks later when they re-merge a binpkg, they suddenly
>>> get build failures again. And that confuses them since it's
>>> unexpected. This is in general a bad experience for stable users who
>>> want to get work done, not baby-sit their system.
>>
>> Maybe advise them to use post_pkg_preinst instead of post_src_install,
>> so it works even for binary packages.
>>
> 
> If that won't cause problems with portage-2.1.9 (mtime/checksum
> messiness, for example; you're the best judge for this), then we
> should do it.

It won't cause problems because the mtime/checksum stuff is all done
after preinst, immediately as the files are being merged.
-- 
Thanks,
Zac

[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Diego Elio Pettenò]

Il giorno ven, 01/10/2010 alle 21.22 +0200, Enrico Weigelt ha scritto:
> 
> Why not just introducing a FEAUTURE or USE flag which causes
> them not to be installed at all ?
> 
Because don't ask obvious questions unless you read the original
references.

Libtool archive files are used by ImageMagick, mpg123, libltdl itself,
and a few more packages. Just removing all of them is not going to help.

Plus at least one package install plugin files with .la extension even
if they are not libtool archives.

So please, we're not just avoiding the quick path out of spite, but
because _it's not an accessible path at all_.

-- 
Diego Elio Pettenò — “Flameeyes”
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/

If you found a .asc file in this mail and know not what it is,
it's a GnuPG digital signature: http://www.gnupg.org/

[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Diego Elio Pettenò]

Il giorno sab, 02/10/2010 alle 00.42 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan ha scritto:
> Right, so a few weeks later when they re-merge a binpkg, they suddenly
> get build failures again. And that confuses them since it's
> unexpected. This is in general a bad experience for stable users who
> want to get work done, not baby-sit their system.

Seriously, how many times do you re-install packages out of binpkgs on a
_build_ system? I'll be honest: for me it's never. I reinstall them
often on a _production_ system, but there, I mostly have INSTALL_MASK
on .la files because _I don't build on those_. And in that situation,
there is no breakage to begin with.

> Having said that, I was informed off-list that this is not meant to be
> *the* solution for la file removal breakage, but merely an informative
> notice to raise awareness for the (oft-useful) hammer that is
> lafilefixer.

Which is going to cover their bases. *The* solution is to keep removing
(in ~arch) everything else, and get it merged back into stable with
time, which means that anything introduced _now_ should be stabled not
before Portage 2.1.9.x is stabled, or can be a security stable; in that
case users with lafilefixer set up will not even see it happening.

> I'm sorry, but I do not understand your hostility. Could you rephrase
> your objections with what I said in a way I can understand so that I
> can address them?

I'm pretty sure I did that before, otherwise you might ask Remi, as he
probably have more patience than me on the matter and is up-to-date with
the situation last I knew.



-- 
Diego Elio Pettenò — “Flameeyes”
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 10:20 Sat 02 Oct     , Alistair Bush wrote:
> Would it not be a better solution to have this information documented 
> "properly" under Upgrade Guides or Gentoo System Documentation and 
> then have this news item linked to it.

This is a good point if it turns out that this isn't temporary. See 
below...

> How is this news item going to help ppl in a month from now (till the 
> issue is solved in its entirety). Can we reasonably expect a new user 
> to be aware of this.  Do we expect users to read old ( and this could 
> potentially become very old) news items.

As soon as new stages get built with portage 2.1.9 (i.e., as soon as it 
goes stable, as I understand the autobuild process), it should no longer 
be a problem for fresh installations.

It will of course remain a problem for people who wait forever to update 
their systems, but it will come in as a news item whenever they do 
update.

It almost makes you wonder whether portage-2.1.9 should run lafilefixer 
itself in postinst, just to ensure everything's fixed on the system 
before it starts fixing individual new packages.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Sr. Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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[gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Duncan]

Diego Elio Pettenò posted on Sat, 02 Oct 2010 03:06:56 +0200 as excerpted:

> Il giorno sab, 02/10/2010 alle 00.42 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan ha scritto:
>> Right, so a few weeks later when they re-merge a binpkg, they suddenly
>> get build failures again. And that confuses them since it's unexpected.
>> This is in general a bad experience for stable users who want to get
>> work done, not baby-sit their system.
> 
> Seriously, how many times do you re-install packages out of binpkgs on a
> _build_ system?

Frequently enough for it to be a consideration.  Among other things, it's 
a fast way to roll-back to a working version when a new version goes 
haywire, for whatever reason.

I strongly recommend that users enable FEATURES=buildpkg for a host of 
reasons, and having it break or cause additional complications for them is 
not a good thing.  Of course I also strongly recommend lafilefixer (based 
on your blog, BTW), too, but yeah, people /do/ sometimes reinstall from 
binpkgs on a build system.  Having binpkgs around for my build system has 
saved my behind a number of times!

You can't simply ignore potential issues because they don't happen to fit 
your usage case.

But is there anything wrong with Zac's suggestion to use post_pkg_preinst 
instead?  (Better to reply to that under his post, just mentioning that 
there's a suggested solution.)

[context reinserted]

>>> I don't think it makes much difference though to them —
>>> beside making you feel righteous at dragging your feet. Nice try.

>> I'm sorry, but I do not understand your hostility. Could you rephrase
>> your objections with what I said in a way I can understand so that I
>> can address them?
>
> I'm pretty sure I did that before

But even if that "before" included him, it is not yet part of the public 
record of this discussion.  Perhaps a simple link to that previous 
discussion, for the public record in this one?

The jab /was/ rather unnecessary and uncalled for, and would have been 
better not posted.  Even if the subject had been dealt with before, the 
question raised was a legitimate one to be raised here as part of the 
public record of /this/ discussion (where it had yet to be raised), which 
is, after all, part of the reason for the policy to post such things to 
this (public) list before simply adding them to the tree.

And, it would seem, Zac has a suggestion to help, again part of the reason 
for the policy, the end product ends up better for it. =:^)

I realize there's a reason for your nick, but that doesn't mean you have 
to live up to it. =:^)

Meanwhile, thanks for pushing the news item.  The whole lafilefixer thing 
has been needed for some time, and now that it's available and quite well 
tested, getting the news out is a /good/ thing! =:^)

-- 
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: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Dale]

Duncan wrote:
> Diego Elio Pettenò posted on Sat, 02 Oct 2010 03:06:56 +0200 as excerpted:
>
>    
>> Il giorno sab, 02/10/2010 alle 00.42 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan ha scritto:
>>      
>>> Right, so a few weeks later when they re-merge a binpkg, they suddenly
>>> get build failures again. And that confuses them since it's unexpected.
>>> This is in general a bad experience for stable users who want to get
>>> work done, not baby-sit their system.
>>>        
>> Seriously, how many times do you re-install packages out of binpkgs on a
>> _build_ system?
>>      
> Frequently enough for it to be a consideration.  Among other things, it's
> a fast way to roll-back to a working version when a new version goes
> haywire, for whatever reason.
>
> I strongly recommend that users enable FEATURES=buildpkg for a host of
> reasons, and having it break or cause additional complications for them is
> not a good thing.  Of course I also strongly recommend lafilefixer (based
> on your blog, BTW), too, but yeah, people /do/ sometimes reinstall from
> binpkgs on a build system.  Having binpkgs around for my build system has
> saved my behind a number of times!
>
>    

Same here.  That has saved me a lot of time and frustration in the past 
as well.  I have had buildpkg set in make.conf for ages.  I use it 
regularly and would not want to have that messed up.  I recently used it 
when a KDE upgrade went bust.  Without being able to go back to the old 
binaries, I would have had almost a day of compiling and no GUI at all.  
With it, just a hour or so for it to unpack and put it back.

Some people may not have it set or use it but there are people that do.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Peter Volkov]

В Птн, 01/10/2010 в 12:38 -0700, Zac Medico пишет:
> Maybe advise them to use post_pkg_preinst instead of post_src_install,
> so it works even for binary packages.

Is it possible for portage-2.1.8.x to depend on lafilefixer and add run
lafilefixer (if installed) from base profile bashrc?

-- 
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-dev] .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 02-10-2010 03:01, Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> On 10:20 Sat 02 Oct     , Alistair Bush wrote:
>> How is this news item going to help ppl in a month from now (till the 
>> issue is solved in its entirety). Can we reasonably expect a new user 
>> to be aware of this.  Do we expect users to read old ( and this could 
>> potentially become very old) news items.
> 
> As soon as new stages get built with portage 2.1.9 (i.e., as soon as it 
> goes stable, as I understand the autobuild process), it should no longer 
> be a problem for fresh installations.

You're correct. The weekly stages are built from the latest stable
revisions of packages in the tree.

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections / RelEng
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Peter Volkov]

В Птн, 01/10/2010 в 20:02 +0200, Diego Elio Pettenò пишет:
> I, sincerely, have poured enough effort in trying to solve the issue,
> discussing it, documenting it, showing how to deal with new packages,
> showing how to identify pointless .la files that only increase the
> number of them installed and cause false positives… and I'm still told
> that a) I haven't done _enough_, as I had to prepare a master plan of
> it and b) I'm too negative about stuff. 

Diego, I guess that you were "told that..." is due to the way you've
tried to reach developer's community. Actually I failed to find any
mails on '.la files removal' subject in gentoo-dev-announce or
gentoo-dev mailing lists. Now I assume that by efforts you mean blog
posts and bug reports. Both of this medias are targeted on small
subgroup of Gentoo developers: blogs contain only personal opinion and
no Gentoo developer supposed to read blogs (btw, I'm not reading all
blog entries); bug reports are really better but again only small
fraction of developers is informed (only 10 bugs is currently opened).
Yea, there were some discussions on -dev mailing list: first discussion
I found was "Removing .la files..." where we discussed _problems_ such
removal may cause with no clear resolution. After that 'la file'
substring matches thread about libpng (again problems) and some even
shorter threads. So every developer knew that we should remove .la files
but also we knew that inconsistent removal (like currently happened
again) causes problems for users and nobody ever announced any
distro-wide guidelines. It is obvious that to avoid useless rebuild we
should have been started from most popular leaf packages like
gnome/xfce/X11 and only then move on dependent libraries but nobody
told: please, start now from here and here. Currently it'll be great if
you could point on relevant information so we could continue to
remove .la files without mess (e.g. altering stable packages). But looks
like before such plan could be announced we really need to discuss how
we handle stable packages (heh, again). So I'll end with bottom line:
please, post really important distribution wide things to appropriate
media (gentoo-dev-announce mailing list)!

-- 
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Luca Barbato]

On 10/01/2010 09:12 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> I don't think it makes much difference though to them —
>> >  beside making you feel righteous at dragging your feet. Nice try.
>> >
> I'm sorry, but I do not understand your hostility. Could you rephrase
> your objections with what I said in a way I can understand so that I
> can address them?

During the past discussions you were somehow overly conservative, taking 
issue of corner cases and overall on the aggressive stance.

I know that you had a rough week but others do as well, Diego among them.

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo/linux
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Luca Barbato <lu_zero@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 10/01/2010 09:12 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't think it makes much difference though to them —
>>> >  beside making you feel righteous at dragging your feet. Nice try.
>>> >
>>
>> I'm sorry, but I do not understand your hostility. Could you rephrase
>> your objections with what I said in a way I can understand so that I
>> can address them?
>
> During the past discussions you were somehow overly conservative, taking
> issue of corner cases and overall on the aggressive stance.
>

My opinions haven't changed one bit in the past week. I don't see how
not breaking the stable tree can be called being "overly
conservative".



-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Zac Medico]

On 10/02/2010 05:21 AM, Peter Volkov wrote:
> В Птн, 01/10/2010 в 12:38 -0700, Zac Medico пишет:
>> Maybe advise them to use post_pkg_preinst instead of post_src_install,
>> so it works even for binary packages.
> 
> Is it possible for portage-2.1.8.x to depend on lafilefixer and add run
> lafilefixer (if installed) from base profile bashrc?

The profile bashrc may not be a very good place for this since it's
executed by all versions of portage, and thus would be redundant for
>=portage-2.1.9.

We can do a portage-2.1.8.4 version bump with support for running
lafilefixer, but this is a questionable move given that this version
bump will be eligible for stabilization at about the same time as
portage-2.1.9.13.
-- 
Thanks,
Zac

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Peter Volkov]

В Сбт, 02/10/2010 в 10:43 -0700, Zac Medico пишет:
> On 10/02/2010 05:21 AM, Peter Volkov wrote:
> > Is it possible for portage-2.1.8.x to depend on lafilefixer and add run
> > lafilefixer (if installed) from base profile bashrc?

> We can do a portage-2.1.8.4 version bump with support for running
> lafilefixer, but this is a questionable move given that this version
> bump will be eligible for stabilization at about the same time as
> portage-2.1.9.13.

This looks like the good case for fast stabilization so I'd better went
this way. Any objections?

-- 
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Luca Barbato]

On 10/02/2010 06:26 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> My opinions haven't changed one bit in the past week. I don't see how
> not breaking the stable tree can be called being "overly
> conservative".

you have a quite broad definition of "breaking".

- clean slate emerge works before and after.
- adding a suggestion to use either the .la fixer scripts or 
revdep-rebuild should be enough to have the system in a working state.
- the rough solution of removing all the .la files in the system works 
for most use cases (that's my local solution)

So it isn't an earth shattering change like a nonfunctional libc in the 
stable tree or a broken version of coreutils, please keep a bit of 
perspective.

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo/linux
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: .la files removal news item (GLEP 42)

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 7:41 PM, Luca Barbato <lu_zero@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 10/02/2010 06:26 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>>
>> My opinions haven't changed one bit in the past week. I don't see how
>> not breaking the stable tree can be called being "overly
>> conservative".
>
> you have a quite broad definition of "breaking".
>
> - clean slate emerge works before and after.
> - adding a suggestion to use either the .la fixer scripts or revdep-rebuild
> should be enough to have the system in a working state.
> - the rough solution of removing all the .la files in the system works for
> most use cases (that's my local solution)
>

Okay, so you're saying that "it works fine in these specific cases,
and if it doesn't, then you can fix it by doing XYZ". I would use that
attitude with the unstable tree, not the stable tree.

> So it isn't an earth shattering change like a nonfunctional libc in the
> stable tree or a broken version of coreutils, please keep a bit of
> perspective.
>

If half of QA team is so adamant in saying that this isn't an issue, I
guess I'll just have to shut up.


-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team