[gentoo-user] pain, PAIN, and more pain again.

[Alan Grimes <alonzotg@verizon.net>]

I probably owe you guys an appology which is not forthcoming, at least
not tonight for obvious reasons. Instead, lets me explain my problem
solving procedure.


At this point in time, if you have a problem, especially on linux, it is
almost never the problem that existed before a penguin tried to solve it
for you. Instead, the problem you are facing is the problem caused when
either a penguin or a whole flock of penguins sanctamoniously decided
that you needed a solution and that this solution would be installed on
your system without your intervention, or knowledge or concent.
Occasionally they get away wtith this and your life gets a little easier
and you are none the wiser. Usually, however, their solution to the
thing that wasn't really bothering you in the first place fails
spectacularly and spoils your whole week.

Ok, what are your options?

A: Figure out what brand of dope the penguin was on and what dose, ratio
of dope to vodka, and get on precisely the same prescription to get in
just the right mindset to try to understand how their crappy software
was supposed to work so you can fix it.

B. Exterminate the penguin's software from your computer so that you can
experience the underlying problem in its rawest and most brutal form and
find that it's not even worth solving or that it admits an utterly
trivial solution that, at least, makes sense to you and that you won't
have any trouble maintaining for the long haul.


For me, choice A is always always always wrong. The computer is supposed
to work for you, not the other way around. If you are spending hours, or
even weeks of your rotten miserable life chasing down obscure answers to
questions you shouldn't even have, then you are doing computing wrong
and need to stop, take two steps back, and figure out what your real
problem is.

I get angry when Linux does not let me do that. =|

Instead, the penguins seem obsessed with inventing more and more garbage
that I need to manage.

Example:

Old way:

"My boot drive is plugged into this port on the motherboard"

New way:

Spend hours figuring out what your UUID is, create a physical pocket
folder (which you will subsequently have to store and manage) with the
UUID which is long and complex and copy it by hand, very carefully, then
set that up in your mtab....

Example:

Old way: "My network printer is at this IP address"

New way:

Master a list of 5-6 obscure and arcane packages that let you assign
"human friendly" network names to devices and then get all those
packages working with each other so you can print. Yeah, it looks more
like christmass tree wiring than a solution to a problem, You'll be
doing it again from scratch next month when we decide to change it again
for no reason and No, you can't print using the old way.

Ie, the printer I spent $400 on so that I could print from anywhere in
my house only works with my windows computer because I made the mistake
of updating CUPS.


It's only been 3 months innce I updated last so therefore I'm hurting
BAD tonight. I had to update the hack I used last time to get around the
libicuuc fuckup by implementing the same hack again but version
bumped... (symlink 1.71.1 to 1.70)... It seemed gung ho about python
3.11 but it turned out that 3.11 is still beta and that I should ignore
it.  

The maintainers of steam overlay seem to have given up, so I used layman
to -d it and now I get
!!! Invalid PORTDIR_OVERLAY (not a dir): '/var/lib/layman/steam-overlay'
each time I invoke emerge...

What's killing me dead, however is:
 
>>> Running pre-merge checks for www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0
 * sys-devel/clang:14 is missing! Cannot use LLVM slot 14 ...
 * =sys-devel/lld-13* is missing! Cannot use LLVM slot 13 ...
 * =sys-devel/lld-12* is missing! Cannot use LLVM slot 12 ...
 * =sys-devel/lld-11* is missing! Cannot use LLVM slot 11 ...
 * sys-devel/clang:10 is missing! Cannot use LLVM slot 10 ...
 * sys-devel/clang:9 is missing! Cannot use LLVM slot 9 ...
 * sys-devel/clang:8 is missing! Cannot use LLVM slot 8 ...
 * ERROR: www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0::gentoo failed (pretend phase):
 *   No LLVM slot <= 14 satisfying the package's dependencies found
installed!
 *
 * Call stack:
 *                      ebuild.sh, line 127:  Called pkg_pretend
 *   chromium-104.0.5110.0.ebuild, line 283:  Called pre_build_checks
 *   chromium-104.0.5110.0.ebuild, line 243:  Called llvm_pkg_setup
 *                    llvm.eclass, line 201:  Called get_llvm_prefix '14'
 *                    llvm.eclass, line 180:  Called die
 * The specific snippet of code:
 *      die "No LLVM slot${1:+ <= ${1}} satisfying the package's
dependencies found installed!"
 *
 * If you need support, post the output of `emerge --info
'=www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0::gentoo'`,
 * the complete build log and the output of `emerge -pqv
'=www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0::gentoo'`.
 * The complete build log is located at
'/var/tmp/portage/www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0/temp/build.log'.
 * The ebuild environment file is located at
'/var/tmp/portage/www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0/temp/die.env'.
 * Working directory:
'/var/tmp/portage/www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0/empty'
 * S:
'/var/tmp/portage/www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0/work/chromium-104.0.5110.0'
>>> Failed to emerge www-client/chromium-104.0.5110.0, Log file:
##########################


Slot conflict??? 

No problem! I'll just go to eselect and pick a different slot.........


Oh wait, that was the OLD way of selecting slots... I went searching for
an explanation for how to set it up and it was like:


shifty informant: "Well you are supposed to go to the alley behind the
tavern?"

Me:  "Which tavern?"

shifty informant: "You know *the* tavern... You go there between
midnight and 3 AM and when you are confronted you make the sign."

Me: "What sign, how am I supposed to make the sign?"

shifty informant:  "You know, the sign, every thief knows how to make
it..."

Me: [ starts to say I'm not a thief then gives up..]

shifty informant: When you get inside the club just show off your dagger
throwing skills and then they'll give you the line you need to put in
the file to make it work."

Me: I don't even own a dagger....   Wait, file?!?!? WHAT FILE??? WHERE
IS THIS FILE??? WHY DO i HAVE TO EDIT IT?? WHERE DID YOU RUN OFF TO???
WHO DO I TALK TO TO GET SOME REAL INFORMATION???



KDE will keep me busy the rest of the night, I only use a handful of its
utilities and don't even know how to set it up as a window manager but
it likes to version bump its packages several times an hour and cause
emerge conflicts just to piss me off...

-- 
Beware of Zombies. =O 
#EggCrisis  #BlackWinter
White is the new Kulak.
Powers are not rights.