Re: [gentoo-user] Painted into a corner: avahi and mDNSResponder

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Sunday 12 October 2008 08:04:22 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Sonntag 12 Oktober 2008, Alan E. Davis wrote:
> > Almost perpetually, the following packages or their versions are
> > blocking.  I have run emerge -e system several times.  Some other
> > problems were cleared up, and this
> > avahi--mDNSResponder/mdnsresponder-compat whatever it all is, just
> > keeps coming back even when solved by some skullduggery.  I've removed
> > both of them at one time or another.
> >
> > [blocks B     ] net-dns/avahi ("net-dns/avahi" is blocking
> > net-misc/mDNSResponder-107.6-r5)
> >
> > [blocks B     ] net-misc/mDNSResponder ("net-misc/mDNSResponder" is
> > blocking net-dns/avahi-0.6.23)
> >
> > I guess the problem is that I am running gnome and also have two or
> > three different versions/slots of kde installed.  I suppose, then,
> > it's remarkable that only these blocks are showing up?
> >
> > Can someone lend a hand on this?  Anything I do is little more than
> > blind tinkering.
> >
> > Alan
>
> set the avahi useflag, unmerge mdnsresponder, emerge avahi.

That looks familiar. I remember similar deep blocks myself - it was nasty at 
the time.

For the OP's benefit, here's a high level summary of what is going on:

Avahi and mDNSResponder implement a system called ZeroConf, first designed by 
Apple. It's a way for machines on a network to find each other and what 
network features they support. These systems are quite low-level so 
unfortunately the implementations are often incompatible.

By and large you will find that Gnome stuff supports Avahi and KDE stuff 
supports mDNSResponder, so the only way out of this mess is often extensive 
use of 'equery hasuse', 'equery depends' and 'emerge -pvt' so see what pulls 
in what. But first you should research what these things are so you can make 
intelligent decisions about what to include and what to drop. The thing that 
cleared it up for me was an interview with the KDE team lead responsible for 
these features - Google will find it for you.

Personally, I find these things more trouble than they are worth. They seem to 
be designed for the "Apple Generation User" (whatever that is), and I have no 
use for that on the networks I work on. ZeroConf is not necessarily something 
you have to have installed...

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com