Florian Schmaus <flow@gentoo.org> writes:

> [[PGP Signed Part:Undecided]]
> On 21/06/2023 17.56, Mike Gilbert wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 11:41 AM Florian Schmaus <flow@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 20.06.23 19:26, Mike Gilbert wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 1:08 PM Florian Schmaus <flow@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 20.06.23 16:41, TOMAS FABRIZIO ORSI wrote:
>>>>>>       Isn't that duplicating the information of metadata/layout.conf's
>>>>>>       'master' key-value pair [1]?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, I agree that it would be duplicating that information. As a matter
>>>>>> of fact, Michał Górny pointed the same thing out.
>>>>>> However, Michał also added, quote: "What's really lacking here is
>>>>>> support for specifying dependencies via |repositories.xml|
>>>>>
>>>>> Do we need to duplicate the information in repositories.xml, with all
>>>>> the drawbacks of duplication?
>>>>>
>>>>> Can't eselect repository add the new repository, then read the 'masters'
>>>>> value from layout.conf, and add the missing repositories recursively?
>>>>
>>>> That would be a significant change in behavior for eselect repository.
>>>
>>> Right, but it seems to be a desirable behaviour. Cases where the user
>>> wants to add a repo but not immediately sync it are probably rare.
>>>
>>> Furthermore, it would avoid duplicating the information, which avoids
>>> the typical drawbacks of duplication (e.g., the two sets getting out of
>>> sync).
>>>
>>> I've looked at the eselect-repository code, and it seems not hard to
>>> change the behaviour of "eselect repository add" to add and sync a
>>> repository and then, recursively, add and sync further required
>>> repositories.
>>>
>>> I may give it a shot, but ideally I'd know if it has a chance to be
>>> accepted upstream first. Or maybe there is a good reason why
>>> eselect-repository behaves as it currently does that I am missing?
>> I can't speak for "upstream", but here are my concerns:
>> 1. As a developer, I might just want to create the repos.conf config
>> snippet and sync the repo manually.
>> 2. As a user, I might have any arbitrary reason for not wanting to
>> sync immediately.
>
> Would an opt-out switch be enough to alleviate those concerns of you?
>
>
>> 3. eselect-repository does not currently depend on any particular
>> package manager. It writes config files intended for Portage, but it
>> does not actually invoke any Portage commands. That feels like a
>> significant distinction to me.
>> 4. If you start invoking Portage commands, you then have to deal with
>> the possibility of people using alternate package managers. pkgcore
>> can also utilize Portage's repos.conf, and the user might prefer to
>> use pmaint instead of emaint or emerge --sync.
>
> Those two points seem to be based on the same fundamental concern.
>
> The only portage specific code would be the call to "emaint sync -r
> $repo" (remember that "emerge --sync" is just a wrapper for "emaint
> sync --auto"). I think it would be easy to add later 1. add support
> for different package managers (if the need arises), and 2. make the
> "sync command" user configurable.

While looking at this, it might be worth evaluating 2 other things
which users have mentioned during the migration away from layman:
1. Adding a way to fully disable the cache fetching;
2. Add a way to use the "real" upstream sources instead of our mirrored
ones

best,
sam