[gentoo-user] Gentoo Portage Feature Request

[gentoo-user] Gentoo Portage Feature Request

[Paige Thompson]

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I hope nobody finds this offensive, I'm not a great writer but I gotta get
this out there.

Goal: to resolve quality issues with packages and the behavior of portage

Problem 1:

This is a really simple thing, first of all it would help a lot if packages
will not try to build with specified cxxflags if the maintainer hasn't
tested the build and enabled them for that package.

case and point:
I have -fstack-protector-all in my cxxflags because I'm a paranoid idiot and
I'm overly confident that it could never be wrong to have that. emacs, fails
to build because of it but it's not obvious. I file a really pedantic bug
report, and later through trial and error and after having gotten over my
confidence in -fstack-protector-all realized that without it the package
*does* build. If the ebuild had a feature where it's metadata did not
indicate that it could build with that cxxflag, then portage could stop and
just tell me that up front *OR* prompt me and ask me what do next. I
understand that this would require package maintainers to actually *test*
their packages which is no trivial issue, and who wouldn't agree that if
they're not willing to then somebody else should? Not only that but it gives
you the ability to score maintainers based on the accuracy of the results.
I'm not even suggesting that this feature should be mandatory it could be
something that I could turn on or off-- I just want it so that I know what's
going on and I don't end up wasting people's time filing bug reports and
making them mad at me for being a noob.

Problem 2:
I know this is might be kind of nitpicky to you, and it's more or less the
same as problem 1 but I think if I specify -O0 in my cxxflags, that a
package that needs -O2 should not build and tell me that it needs it rather
than just building with -O2 anyway!! I mean seriously, why even give me the
option to specify the optimization level in the cxxflags. It's deceptive, I
don't like that I find it very difficult to take it seriously because of
that.

-Paige Thompson
erratic@devel.ws
saved on 9/21/09 8:41 AM by Paige Thompson

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo Portage Feature Request

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 21 September 2009 18:16:32 Paige Thompson wrote:
> I hope nobody finds this offensive, I'm not a great writer but I gotta get
> this out there.
> 
> Goal: to resolve quality issues with packages and the behavior of portage
> 
> Problem 1:
> 
> This is a really simple thing, first of all it would help a lot if packages
> will not try to build with specified cxxflags if the maintainer hasn't
> tested the build and enabled them for that package.
> 
> case and point:
> I have -fstack-protector-all in my cxxflags because I'm a paranoid idiot
>  and I'm overly confident that it could never be wrong to have that. emacs,
>  fails to build because of it but it's not obvious. I file a really
>  pedantic bug report, and later through trial and error and after having
>  gotten over my confidence in -fstack-protector-all realized that without
>  it the package *does* build. If the ebuild had a feature where it's
>  metadata did not indicate that it could build with that cxxflag, then
>  portage could stop and just tell me that up front *OR* prompt me and ask
>  me what do next. I understand that this would require package maintainers
>  to actually *test* their packages which is no trivial issue, and who
>  wouldn't agree that if they're not willing to then somebody else should?
>  Not only that but it gives you the ability to score maintainers based on
>  the accuracy of the results. I'm not even suggesting that this feature
>  should be mandatory it could be something that I could turn on or off-- I
>  just want it so that I know what's going on and I don't end up wasting
>  people's time filing bug reports and making them mad at me for being a
>  noob.
> 
> Problem 2:
> I know this is might be kind of nitpicky to you, and it's more or less the
> same as problem 1 but I think if I specify -O0 in my cxxflags, that a
> package that needs -O2 should not build and tell me that it needs it rather
> than just building with -O2 anyway!! I mean seriously, why even give me the
> option to specify the optimization level in the cxxflags. It's deceptive, I
> don't like that I find it very difficult to take it seriously because of
> that.

This is the wrong forum for that. You need to take it up with the devs, IIRC 
they are at gentoo-dev. Few of them read this list.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo Portage Feature Request

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

a) wrong list

b) please read this and think about it:
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2009/09/04/filtering-compiler-optimisation-flags-is-not-
a-solution

c) gentoo is about responsibility. You are responsible for the stuff you do. 
Gentoo tries not to get in your way if it can. What you ask for is completly 
against its basic philosophy:
the user knows best what he wants.