[gentoo-releng] Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[davecode@nospammail.net]

Hi Gentoo-

My overall impression of Gentoo is "what a fantastic system"!  I can't
believe how good, really.  These are all fairly minor things.  I'm new
to Gentoo, so forgive dumb ignorance, but Linux and programming are my
profession.

For your 2008.0 release:

The 2007.0~ppc branch fails to upgrade over a Bash / Portage block.  So
will 2008.0 break too, until attended?  A Bash / Portage conflict is the
worst possible.

I tried to fix it (from zsh chroot into Gentoo) but gave up.  Stock
advice on FAQs does not work in this thorny case.  Forums show
occasional situations between Python / Portage, too.

I do not want/ask your help, but only to share a thought:

Portage should have embedded Python and embedded Bash.  Exactly the
versions it needs, with bare minimum required libraries, statically
compiled.

The Portage 'snapshot' is already a special install step.  And Gentoo
already ships regular snapshots.  The only thing missing is embedding
the dependencies directly.

I've never embedded Bash, but have Python, several times.  Bash could
probably work too.  The combined ELFs weigh around 2 MB total, not bad
for a critical executive controller like Portage which has its own
dedicated snapshots.

Finally - how about some recent stage3 ~arch tarballs.  I can't find
any.  Most distros do daily/weekly/monthly build snapshots.  The only
snapshots for Gentoo seem to be Portage snapshots.  Am I wrong?  I know
the 2008.0 beta is due soon, but I mean on a continuous basis.  Not
binary builds, just the latest ~arch tarball.  If not frequent, at least
quarterly?

Normal ppc 2007.0 works fine from a dependency standpoint.  The entire
reason for trying Gentoo is that ppc boxes need the absolute most
bleeding edge of everything.  Hence the interest in Gentoo and
specifically ~arch.  We also want the latest GNOME anyhow, plus
compiz-fusion.

Would it be best to wait a month until beta, or is it reasonable to
install ~arch right now?  A few bugzilla contributions from us might
help the beta project but deadly bash/Portage conflicts are a little too
thick for my taste right now...

Thank you!
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  davecode@nospammail.net

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