[gentoo-dev] Re: new profile layout with flavors and mix-ins

[Martin Vaeth <martin@mvath.de>]

Michael Haubenwallner <haubi@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> The idea being that, in /etc/make.conf (or wherever
>> that file is now), you'd define $PROFILE like this:
>>
>> linux-mips o32 uclibc server:
>> PROFILE="base:kernel/linux:arch/mips:[...]"
>
> What about making /etc/portage/make.profile a directory
> rather than a symlink, having /etc/portage/make.profile/parent
> to reference all the flavours?

/etc/portage/make.profile already *is* a directory
(only on most user systems it is currently implemented as a symlink
to a directory from the portage tree, but there is no technical
requirement to do that).

I can assure you (from some requests I got as a maintainer of eix
to implement this correctly) that already quite some people
use such an approach:

They specify in the "parent" file (either in their
/etc/portage/make.profile or in /etc/portage/profiles/...)
all sort of additions to profiles which they have written themselves
for various tasks.

So, technically, all this is already covered by portage and
existing tools; no new magic "PROFILE" variable or similar things
have to implemented, and no tools (like eix) need to be changed.

It might, however, be appropriate to reorganize the profile structure
to support this approach better.

> So the only missing thing would be the eselect profile module
> to manage entries

Yes, if you want a user interface for convenient handling of
such a new profiles style, this would need to be written.
However, such a user interface ("eselect profile"?) is perhaps
overkill: The user should be able to handle a single configuration
file "parent" if it is described in the documentation.
The documentation would need to be updated, of course:
Currently, users have to read pms or similar things to understand
what the "parent" file is for...
Also a news item would be appropriate for such a major change, of course.