On Sun, 24 May 2009 07:17:07 -0500, Dale wrote:

> 1:  If I accidentally remove python, portage will not say a word as far
> as warning me this is bad.  This is what got the OP into this.

Yes, and that's a recent change, presumably as part of the move to make
Gentoo and the portage tree work with any valid package manager.

> 2:  Once #1 happens, your pretty much screwed because you don't even
> have a binary backup even tho it is set in make.conf to have one.  That
> was the reason I put that setting in make.conf but someone chose to
> screw with my setting and its meaning.

Not exactly, buildsyspkg does the same as it always did, but @system has
changed. This cold have happened at any time as there was never a need
for python to be in @system,because it's a dependency of portage.

> 3:  Portage is the package manager for Gentoo.  As Alan said, it always
> has been and most likely always will.  I'm not against having other
> package managers but if they are going to start messing up my settings,
> then I plan to gripe at least a little.  If they are not going to
> support buildsyspkg then it needs to be announced and removed.  False
> security is worse than none at all. 

That's not the case. The problem is that buildsyspkg does exactly what it
says, which is not what you want. The definition of buildsyspkg should be
changed so that it build binary packages for all packages needed to
install @system, not just the packages named in 'system.

> My opinion on how this SHOULD work.  If I do a emerge -e system, every
> package it builds should have a binary saved for back up.  It doesn't
> matter if it is a dependency on something else or not, it should be
> built and stored.

Exactly, and a buildsyspkg user should file an enhancement bug requesting
this change in its behaviour.

> Dale is going to go change this to buildpkg and run emerge -e system.

That's not the way to deal with it. Address the problem,don't hide from
it :)

> Let's see if that even works or not.

It will, at the expense of more storage space. I've used buildpkg for
years.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

STATUS QUO is Latin for "the mess we're in."