[gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Meino.Cramer]

Hi,

A novice asks the master Emerge:
"Is there Zen also in every upgrade, which will serve to Gentoo?"

Master Emerge moved a little bit and spoke:

WARNING: One or more updates/rebuilds have been skipped due to a dependency conflict:

x11-libs/libXfont:0

  (x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.1:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
    <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
    ^                  ^^^^^

x11-proto/fontsproto:0

  (x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
    <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-libs/libXfont-1.4.9:0/0::gentoo, installed)
    ^                     ^^^^^
    <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
    ^                     ^^^^^

The novice was buffled and did not understand a single word.
He tries hard to circumvent any conflict with the master but
finally he struggled and failed.

It seems that the inner light of the Zen of Gentoo will not be shed on
everyone...

;)

Any enlightenment is hardly welcome!

Best regards,
a Novice
(at least when it comes to this output)

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Daniel Frey]

On 04/25/2015 09:07 AM, Meino.Cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> A novice asks the master Emerge:
> "Is there Zen also in every upgrade, which will serve to Gentoo?"
> 
> Master Emerge moved a little bit and spoke:
> 
> WARNING: One or more updates/rebuilds have been skipped due to a dependency conflict:

Hah!

> 
> x11-libs/libXfont:0
> 
>   (x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.1:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
>     <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
>     ^                  ^^^^^

Emerge is trying to install libXfont 1.5.1 but the xorg-server version
installed requires 1.5.0.

> 
> x11-proto/fontsproto:0
> 
>   (x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
>     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-libs/libXfont-1.4.9:0/0::gentoo, installed)
>     ^                     ^^^^^
>     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
>     ^                     ^^^^^
> 

It can't upgrade fontsproto because the current installed version of
libXfont requires 2.1.3.

Looks like all these messages are thrown because of libXfont.

> The novice was buffled and did not understand a single word.
> He tries hard to circumvent any conflict with the master but
> finally he struggled and failed.

Looks like Master Emerge was confused by a circular dependency it could
not resolve.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Meino.Cramer]

Daniel Frey <djqfrey@gmail.com> [15-04-26 03:12]:
> On 04/25/2015 09:07 AM, Meino.Cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > A novice asks the master Emerge:
> > "Is there Zen also in every upgrade, which will serve to Gentoo?"
> > 
> > Master Emerge moved a little bit and spoke:
> > 
> > WARNING: One or more updates/rebuilds have been skipped due to a dependency conflict:
> 
> Hah!
> 
> > 
> > x11-libs/libXfont:0
> > 
> >   (x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.1:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
> >     <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
> >     ^                  ^^^^^
> 
> Emerge is trying to install libXfont 1.5.1 but the xorg-server version
> installed requires 1.5.0.
> 
> > 
> > x11-proto/fontsproto:0
> > 
> >   (x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
> >     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-libs/libXfont-1.4.9:0/0::gentoo, installed)
> >     ^                     ^^^^^
> >     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
> >     ^                     ^^^^^
> > 
> 
> It can't upgrade fontsproto because the current installed version of
> libXfont requires 2.1.3.
> 
> Looks like all these messages are thrown because of libXfont.
> 
> > The novice was buffled and did not understand a single word.
> > He tries hard to circumvent any conflict with the master but
> > finally he struggled and failed.
> 
> Looks like Master Emerge was confused by a circular dependency it could
> not resolve.
> 
> Dan
> 


Hi Dan,

Thanks for your Koan! :)

...and the novice is confused still...

I tried (after shuttong down X) to remove libXfont and fontsproto (to
install it later again) but this does not help...

How can I get out of this? 

Best regards,
Meino

[gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Martin Vaeth]

Meino.Cramer@gmx.de <Meino.Cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> A novice asks the master Emerge:
> "Is there Zen also in every upgrade, which will serve to Gentoo?"

Did the novice ask the correct question about the life, the world,
and everything? Your mantra should be
emerge -NaDu @world
(--with-bdeps=y in EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS in /etc/portage/make.conf)

I am asking, because it seems that the novice's question did
not contain the question/permission about upgrading xorg-server:

>:  required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo

If the question was correct, the master means:
"Thou shalt not use ancient xorg-server or thou shalt be doomed."

Have you masked newer xorg-server or are you using drivers which
require this like e.g. ancient (now masked in portage)
nvidia legacy drivers?
In the latter case you are doomed...
I also had to throw out recently an nvidia card because of this.
Of course, this is what nvidia wants you to force to.
This is why my new machine does not have an nvidia card anymore.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Meino.Cramer]

Martin Vaeth <martin@mvath.de> [15-04-26 08:56]:
> Meino.Cramer@gmx.de <Meino.Cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> > A novice asks the master Emerge:
> > "Is there Zen also in every upgrade, which will serve to Gentoo?"
> 
> Did the novice ask the correct question about the life, the world,
> and everything? Your mantra should be
> emerge -NaDu @world
> (--with-bdeps=y in EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS in /etc/portage/make.conf)
> 
> I am asking, because it seems that the novice's question did
> not contain the question/permission about upgrading xorg-server:
> 
> >:  required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo
> 
> If the question was correct, the master means:
> "Thou shalt not use ancient xorg-server or thou shalt be doomed."
> 
> Have you masked newer xorg-server or are you using drivers which
> require this like e.g. ancient (now masked in portage)
> nvidia legacy drivers?
> In the latter case you are doomed...
> I also had to throw out recently an nvidia card because of this.
> Of course, this is what nvidia wants you to force to.
> This is why my new machine does not have an nvidia card anymore.
> 
> 

:)

...and the novice, who deeply dig into the great mysterious machine
before, pulls out an ancient script, which shows

[I] media-video/nvidia-settings
     Available versions:  331.20 (~)340.58 (~)343.22 {examples}
     Installed versions:  343.22(15:39:16 11/16/14)(-examples)
     Homepage:            http://www.nvidia.com/
     Description:         NVIDIA Linux X11 Settings Utility

According to the hieroglyphs engraved on the pages of that script,
the all mighty nvidia daemon is damn new (how can this stated by
an ancient script?...ah! wait...great Albert once said: "Time is relative!")
But the same script states:

[I] x11-base/xorg-server
     Available versions:  1.12.4-r4(0/1.12.4) [m]1.15.2-r2(0/1.15.2) [m]1.16.4(0/1.16.1) [m]~1.16.4-r1(0/1.16.1) [m]~1.16.4-r2(0/1.16.1) [m]~1.17.1(0/1.17.1) [m]~1.17.1-r1(0/1.17.1) {dmx doc glamor ipv6 kdrive minimal nptl selinux static-libs +suid systemd tslib +udev unwind wayland xephyr xnest xorg xvfb}
     Installed versions:  1.12.4-r4(17:47:13 04/25/15)(ipv6 nptl udev xnest xorg xvfb -dmx -doc -kdrive -minimal -selinux -static-libs -tslib)
     Homepage:            http://xorg.freedesktop.org/
     Description:         X.Org X servers

It is not the newest one the novice recognized then -- but
it is still offered by master Emerge to all his novices.

The novice is bound to the Gates of Nvidia, since he also
worship the great Blender (3D).

And suddenly the novice was struck by something -- enlightenement
or not -- which whispers to his soul saying "Shutdown X, remove
the server, install the newer server and you will be freed!"

To be a follower of this temptations or not to be a follower -- that
is the question!


Where will he go from here?

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Alan McKinnon]

On 25/04/2015 18:07, Meino.Cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> A novice asks the master Emerge:
> "Is there Zen also in every upgrade, which will serve to Gentoo?"
> 
> Master Emerge moved a little bit and spoke:
> 
> WARNING: One or more updates/rebuilds have been skipped due to a dependency conflict:
> 
> x11-libs/libXfont:0
> 
>   (x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.1:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
>     <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
>     ^                  ^^^^^
> 
> x11-proto/fontsproto:0
> 
>   (x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
>     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-libs/libXfont-1.4.9:0/0::gentoo, installed)
>     ^                     ^^^^^
>     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
>     ^                     ^^^^^
> 
> The novice was buffled and did not understand a single word.
> He tries hard to circumvent any conflict with the master but
> finally he struggled and failed.
> 
> It seems that the inner light of the Zen of Gentoo will not be shed on
> everyone...
> 
> ;)
> 
> Any enlightenment is hardly welcome!
> 
> Best regards,
> a Novice
> (at least when it comes to this output)



So here's how you read that dense stuff:

<x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by
(x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)

This means that you have xorg-server-1.12.4-r4 installed which depends
on libXfont with this limitation: <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0

You only get that sort of emerge output when portage is forced to
install a package that is NOT latest due to some other package having a
constraint on it dependencies. Look at eix for libXfont, there's a
version 1.5.1 available but portage can't use it because of limitations
from your current version of xorg-server.

The same process applies to fontsproto as well.

There is nothing for you to do with this output, it is informational
(but not labelled as such so you can see it). Maybe run emerge without
-v, see if that removes the output

tl;dr

Why is this confusing?

Well, it's because portage's output is ass-hat backwards. Portage is
actually making a fundamental cock-up in output design called "exposing
the underlying interface in the output" and it's a sign of lazy design.

What you really want to know is "libXfont-1.5.1 is available, so why
can't portage use it?" The output dumps the depends tree to screen and
totally doesn't say what you really want to know. So now you have to run
eix and read ebuilds to get a proper answer. Stupid really, when portage
already has all of the information available to it!


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Alan McKinnon]

On 26/04/2015 04:06, Meino.Cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> Daniel Frey <djqfrey@gmail.com> [15-04-26 03:12]:
>> On 04/25/2015 09:07 AM, Meino.Cramer@gmx.de wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> A novice asks the master Emerge:
>>> "Is there Zen also in every upgrade, which will serve to Gentoo?"
>>>
>>> Master Emerge moved a little bit and spoke:
>>>
>>> WARNING: One or more updates/rebuilds have been skipped due to a dependency conflict:
>>
>> Hah!
>>
>>>
>>> x11-libs/libXfont:0
>>>
>>>   (x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.1:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
>>>     <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
>>>     ^                  ^^^^^
>>
>> Emerge is trying to install libXfont 1.5.1 but the xorg-server version
>> installed requires 1.5.0.
>>
>>>
>>> x11-proto/fontsproto:0
>>>
>>>   (x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
>>>     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-libs/libXfont-1.4.9:0/0::gentoo, installed)
>>>     ^                     ^^^^^
>>>     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
>>>     ^                     ^^^^^
>>>
>>
>> It can't upgrade fontsproto because the current installed version of
>> libXfont requires 2.1.3.
>>
>> Looks like all these messages are thrown because of libXfont.
>>
>>> The novice was buffled and did not understand a single word.
>>> He tries hard to circumvent any conflict with the master but
>>> finally he struggled and failed.
>>
>> Looks like Master Emerge was confused by a circular dependency it could
>> not resolve.
>>
>> Dan
>>
> 
> 
> Hi Dan,
> 
> Thanks for your Koan! :)
> 
> ...and the novice is confused still...
> 
> I tried (after shuttong down X) to remove libXfont and fontsproto (to
> install it later again) but this does not help...
> 
> How can I get out of this? 



There is nothing to get out of, and there is no circular dep.

You have a few X related packages where the latest in the tree cannot be
installed just yet, so portage is going with earlier versions. It's
trying to tell you why, but doing a really piss-poor fucked up idiotic
job of it :-)


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Meino.Cramer]

Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> [15-04-26 09:44]:
> On 25/04/2015 18:07, Meino.Cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > A novice asks the master Emerge:
> > "Is there Zen also in every upgrade, which will serve to Gentoo?"
> > 
> > Master Emerge moved a little bit and spoke:
> > 
> > WARNING: One or more updates/rebuilds have been skipped due to a dependency conflict:
> > 
> > x11-libs/libXfont:0
> > 
> >   (x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.1:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
> >     <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
> >     ^                  ^^^^^
> > 
> > x11-proto/fontsproto:0
> > 
> >   (x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) conflicts with
> >     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-libs/libXfont-1.4.9:0/0::gentoo, installed)
> >     ^                     ^^^^^
> >     <x11-proto/fontsproto-2.1.3 required by (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
> >     ^                     ^^^^^
> > 
> > The novice was buffled and did not understand a single word.
> > He tries hard to circumvent any conflict with the master but
> > finally he struggled and failed.
> > 
> > It seems that the inner light of the Zen of Gentoo will not be shed on
> > everyone...
> > 
> > ;)
> > 
> > Any enlightenment is hardly welcome!
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > a Novice
> > (at least when it comes to this output)
> 
> 
> 
> So here's how you read that dense stuff:
> 
> <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by
> (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
> 
> This means that you have xorg-server-1.12.4-r4 installed which depends
> on libXfont with this limitation: <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0
> 
> You only get that sort of emerge output when portage is forced to
> install a package that is NOT latest due to some other package having a
> constraint on it dependencies. Look at eix for libXfont, there's a
> version 1.5.1 available but portage can't use it because of limitations
> from your current version of xorg-server.
> 
> The same process applies to fontsproto as well.
> 
> There is nothing for you to do with this output, it is informational
> (but not labelled as such so you can see it). Maybe run emerge without
> -v, see if that removes the output
> 
> tl;dr
> 
> Why is this confusing?
> 
> Well, it's because portage's output is ass-hat backwards. Portage is
> actually making a fundamental cock-up in output design called "exposing
> the underlying interface in the output" and it's a sign of lazy design.
> 
> What you really want to know is "libXfont-1.5.1 is available, so why
> can't portage use it?" The output dumps the depends tree to screen and
> totally doesn't say what you really want to know. So now you have to run
> eix and read ebuilds to get a proper answer. Stupid really, when portage
> already has all of the information available to it!
> 
> 
> -- 
> Alan McKinnon
> alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
> 
> 


Hi Alan,

thanks for your help! Good to know, that's not totally me not
understanding, what's going on on my machine...but there are  also the
enigmatic words of Master Emerge, which blows fog into my pain
suffering brain... ;)))

For me it looked like a typical "blocked" situation and something,
which needs to be fixxed...

But it only means: Everything is fine but it is not using the newest
of the valid siftware revisions.

But I am sure it will not take too long until I am again kneeling in
front of altar of the allmigthy Emerge as a novice trying to decipher
its holy words....

Until then,..best regards and have a nice Sunday!
Meino

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1726 bytes --]

On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 09:35:57 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by
> (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
> 
> This means that you have xorg-server-1.12.4-r4 installed which depends
> on libXfont with this limitation: <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0
> 
> You only get that sort of emerge output when portage is forced to
> install a package that is NOT latest due to some other package having a
> constraint on it dependencies. Look at eix for libXfont, there's a
> version 1.5.1 available but portage can't use it because of limitations
> from your current version of xorg-server.
> 
> The same process applies to fontsproto as well.
> 
> There is nothing for you to do with this output, it is informational
> (but not labelled as such so you can see it). Maybe run emerge without
> -v, see if that removes the output

Running without -v doesn't help. I almost never use -v with emerge, it's
output is verbose enough as it is and burying useful messages in even
more trivial, not-for-users output makes decoding it even harder.

emerge really needs an option to hide such "informational" messages. Even
if they really were informative, that are not necessary to maintaining a
functioning system. When I tell portage to update my system to the latest
suitable versions of everything, I have no need to be told "there is a
later version for libfoo, but you can't have it". I just want the latest
I can have.

It doesn't help that these warning messages have a superficial
resemblance to blocker errors.

emerge --just-tell-me-when-something-is-wrong @world please.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

I can't walk on water, but I can stagger on alcohol.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 06:49:09 +0000 (UTC), Martin Vaeth wrote:

> Have you masked newer xorg-server or are you using drivers which
> require this like e.g. ancient (now masked in portage)
> nvidia legacy drivers?
> In the latter case you are doomed...
> I also had to throw out recently an nvidia card because of this.

Was nouveau not an option. Avoiding this crap is one of the reasons I use
it.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

If such a program has not crashed yet, it is waiting for a critical moment
before it crashes.
  -- Murphy's Computer Laws n\xB06

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Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Alan McKinnon]

On 26/04/2015 09:57, Meino.Cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> Hi Alan,
> 
> thanks for your help! Good to know, that's not totally me not
> understanding, what's going on on my machine...but there are  also the
> enigmatic words of Master Emerge, which blows fog into my pain
> suffering brain... ;)))
> 
> For me it looked like a typical "blocked" situation and something,
> which needs to be fixxed...
> 
> But it only means: Everything is fine but it is not using the newest
> of the valid siftware revisions.
> 
> But I am sure it will not take too long until I am again kneeling in
> front of altar of the allmigthy Emerge as a novice trying to decipher
> its holy words....
> 
> Until then,..best regards and have a nice Sunday!


I couldn't see from your posted output if emerge can continue or not, or
if these were fatal blockers. Which one was it?

Either way, it comes down to the same thing: emerge can update
everything to absolutely latest (in your case because of nvidia drivers)
so emerge either offers a second-best scenario, or fails to find
anything that can work and bails.

The confusing bit is the reams of junk on the screen.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Meino.Cramer]

Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> [15-04-26 13:36]:
> On 26/04/2015 09:57, Meino.Cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> > Hi Alan,
> > 
> > thanks for your help! Good to know, that's not totally me not
> > understanding, what's going on on my machine...but there are  also the
> > enigmatic words of Master Emerge, which blows fog into my pain
> > suffering brain... ;)))
> > 
> > For me it looked like a typical "blocked" situation and something,
> > which needs to be fixxed...
> > 
> > But it only means: Everything is fine but it is not using the newest
> > of the valid siftware revisions.
> > 
> > But I am sure it will not take too long until I am again kneeling in
> > front of altar of the allmigthy Emerge as a novice trying to decipher
> > its holy words....
> > 
> > Until then,..best regards and have a nice Sunday!
> 
> 
> I couldn't see from your posted output if emerge can continue or not, or
> if these were fatal blockers. Which one was it?
> 
> Either way, it comes down to the same thing: emerge can update
> everything to absolutely latest (in your case because of nvidia drivers)
> so emerge either offers a second-best scenario, or fails to find
> anything that can work and bails.
> 
> The confusing bit is the reams of junk on the screen.
> 
> -- 
> Alan McKinnon
> alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
> 
> 

Hi Alan,

the problem here is, that the naked eye of a novice cant tell a real
blocker from a "everything is fine but not of bleeding edge version of
software". This needs to be fixed, since Gentoo will always be new to
new users. Thats why they are new users. And even the older ones get
confused from time to time (me).

I did the following:
Shutdown X and went back to "mother eart": The FB console.
Start an update to see what "blocks" what.
Emerge -C of all blockers (and remember what I removed.)
Repeat the last two steps until no blockers are there.
Do a real update.
If some of the removed items are not automagically reinstalled:
Do it by hand.
This way my update is now at the newest version.

If I can do that...I think emerge should also able of doing
this (or at least suggest this to the user).

"Just remove the blocker and install it later." helped me
often.

Best regards,
Meino

[gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Martin Vaeth]

Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 06:49:09 +0000 (UTC), Martin Vaeth wrote:
>
>> nvidia legacy drivers?
>> In the latter case you are doomed...
>> I also had to throw out recently an nvidia card because of this.
>
> Was nouveau not an option.

No. It seems, nouvau is lost without support from nvidia:

Despite the "matrix" on nouveau claims since many years
that the card be "fully" supported, it practically never got
over crashes. The actual progress over several years was from
1. immediate kernel panic during booting, over
2. booting but not running X, to
3. running X but displaying only gray, to
4. running X but halting the machine (or at least X) with
a chance of ~30% when doing daring things like opening a window
or writing text in a window. Latest versions before I dumped
the card got me back to
5. Start over with 1.

On another machine (with a newer graphics card), DPMS state is
not kept for longer than a few seconds, and despite I reported
the issue and had a lot of work testing with patched kernels,
it apparently could not be fixed; it is still not working.

Of course, things like googleearth etc. do not work at all
(well, after a few minutes the first picture of the rotating
earth was finally finished, and the next picture started to
be drawn... new versions of googleearth crash now immediately.)

My experience: Completely unusable for both cards, even if I am
willing to make a lot of compromise.

[gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Martin Vaeth]

Meino.Cramer@gmx.de <Meino.Cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> But the same script states:
>
> [I] x11-base/xorg-server
>      Available versions:  1.12.4-r4(0/1.12.4) [m]1.15.2-r2(0/1.15.2)

The [m] means that you masked newer versions of xorg-server locally.
If you remove that local mask, the blockers should be gone.
Do you have a reason to keep this mask?
If you must keep it, you will have to mask a lot of other packages, too,
since they "want" to be upgraded but cannot, because they do not work
with that ancient xorg-server.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Meino.Cramer]

Martin Vaeth <martin@mvath.de> [15-04-26 15:28]:
> Meino.Cramer@gmx.de <Meino.Cramer@gmx.de> wrote:
> > But the same script states:
> >
> > [I] x11-base/xorg-server
> >      Available versions:  1.12.4-r4(0/1.12.4) [m]1.15.2-r2(0/1.15.2)
> 
> The [m] means that you masked newer versions of xorg-server locally.
> If you remove that local mask, the blockers should be gone.
> Do you have a reason to keep this mask?
> If you must keep it, you will have to mask a lot of other packages, too,
> since they "want" to be upgraded but cannot, because they do not work
> with that ancient xorg-server.
> 
> 

Hi Martin,

I found that masks previously and removed them but emerge insists
of feeling blocked.

So I physically removed all blockers (emerge -C), update and
reinstalled what was not installed by the update later.

That works (finally).

Best regards,
Meino

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Alan McKinnon]

On 26/04/2015 10:17, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 09:35:57 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> 
>> <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0 required by
>> (x11-base/xorg-server-1.12.4-r4:0/1.12.4::gentoo, installed)
>>
>> This means that you have xorg-server-1.12.4-r4 installed which depends
>> on libXfont with this limitation: <x11-libs/libXfont-1.5.0
>>
>> You only get that sort of emerge output when portage is forced to
>> install a package that is NOT latest due to some other package having a
>> constraint on it dependencies. Look at eix for libXfont, there's a
>> version 1.5.1 available but portage can't use it because of limitations
>> from your current version of xorg-server.
>>
>> The same process applies to fontsproto as well.
>>
>> There is nothing for you to do with this output, it is informational
>> (but not labelled as such so you can see it). Maybe run emerge without
>> -v, see if that removes the output
> 
> Running without -v doesn't help. I almost never use -v with emerge, it's
> output is verbose enough as it is and burying useful messages in even
> more trivial, not-for-users output makes decoding it even harder.
> 
> emerge really needs an option to hide such "informational" messages. 


I disagree. emerge really needs to have it's output redesigned from
scratch. Right now it arrives at the conclusion (the top) and dumps it's
data tree bottom-up, apparently stopping halfway and never getting to
output what the top is.

It needs to print it's output top-down instead. Yeah gods, this is such
a basic output design principle that I keep stating so I start to wonder
if maybe I'm crazy after all....

Top-down output lets you easily add more and more output depending on
the number of -v in the arguments! So much software out there does with
apparent ease, I can't figure why the portage devs persist with the
current obtuse method. Especially as portage HAS TO HAVE all necessary
information available at the time



> Even
> if they really were informative, that are not necessary to maintaining a
> functioning system. When I tell portage to update my system to the latest
> suitable versions of everything, I have no need to be told "there is a
> later version for libfoo, but you can't have it". I just want the latest
> I can have.
> 
> It doesn't help that these warning messages have a superficial
> resemblance to blocker errors.
> 
> emerge --just-tell-me-when-something-is-wrong @world please.
> 
> 


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Daniel Frey]

On 04/26/2015 12:38 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> There is nothing to get out of, and there is no circular dep.

I didn't mean a true circular dep, more like you want this and it wants
that, repeat. :-)

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 26 April 2015 15:49:19 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> I disagree. emerge really needs to have it's output redesigned from
> scratch. Right now it arrives at the conclusion (the top) and dumps it's
> data tree bottom-up, apparently stopping halfway and never getting to
> output what the top is.

This discussion reminds me of an AGR (Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor) power 
station being commissioned 40-odd years ago, in which a minor plant failure 
(e.g. a high oil temp in an auxiliary pump) could lead to cascades of other 
abnormal conditions, making it impossible for a reactor operator to discover 
the real problem he needed to fix, and ignore all the others. So we put up a 
second alarm screen alongside the first, showing major causes only; it was 
populated with the output of an analysis routine that was called whenever an 
alarm occurred.

All those decision trees had to be designed and input by hand (on paper tape, 
like everything else). Not to mention testing, of course. And there were 
thousands of digital inputs.

Maybe something like that would be useful here.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

[gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[walt]

On 04/26/2015 06:49 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> I can't figure why the portage devs persist with the
> current obtuse method.

I suspect that they do what they do because they're overworked and
underpaid -- exactly like all the rest of us :)

I suspect also that the problem with portage has already been described
succinctly in one of Neil's taglines.  Can't remember which one, though.

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 15:49:19 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> > Running without -v doesn't help. I almost never use -v with emerge,
> > it's output is verbose enough as it is and burying useful messages in
> > even more trivial, not-for-users output makes decoding it even harder.
> > 
> > emerge really needs an option to hide such "informational"
> > messages.   
> 
> I disagree. emerge really needs to have it's output redesigned from
> scratch. Right now it arrives at the conclusion (the top) and dumps it's
> data tree bottom-up, apparently stopping halfway and never getting to
> output what the top is.

Well ,yes. But it also needs an option to hide QA and trivial info
messages. Having the same message pop up every time I run emerge,
because of a package I know I masked is annoying enough, but the
confusion it causes to many users is far more annoying.
 
Yes, I agree it needs a full overhaul of the way it communicates what is
happening.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

A Smith & Wesson beats Four Aces everytime.

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Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Philip Webb]

150426 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 15:49:19 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>> Emerge really needs to have it's output redesigned from scratch.
> I t needs a full overhaul of the way it communicates what is happening.

 +1 : Portage needs to tell users (1) more clearly what's gone wrong,
(2) what their choices are, (3) how to resolve the problem.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 04/26/2015 03:17 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
> 150426 Neil Bothwick wrote:
>> On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 15:49:19 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>> Emerge really needs to have it's output redesigned from scratch.
>> I t needs a full overhaul of the way it communicates what is happening.
> 
>  +1 : Portage needs to tell users (1) more clearly what's gone wrong,
> (2) what their choices are, (3) how to resolve the problem.
> 

The process goes something like this:

1. Become frustrated with the obtuse portage output.

2. Get familiar with the portage source code.

3. Develop an understanding of the dependency resolution process and
   all of the possible conflicts that can arise.

4. Come up with some better ways to explain the error messages that are
   shown.

5. Never get around to writing the patch, because now you understand
   what portage is telling you.


More seriously, once you start working on (3), you'll realize that just
because the error messages suck doesn't mean you can make them better.
Maybe the best solution to a conflict is to buy a new video card for $5
so that a newer version of nvidia-drivers will work so that the new
version of xorg-server will work so that the new version of opengl will
work so that you can upgrade tuxracer. Portage can't figure out stuff
like that.

If you're willing to wait an hour, it might be able to come up with a
list of ways you could resolve a conflict, but basically all of them
will be wrong (e.g. suggestion #1, uninstall everything). All portage
errors are essentially, "you want something and you can't have it." The
solution is then to adjust slightly what it is that you asked for, but
portage doesn't know what you really want or what you're willing to
settle for, so the best it can do is give you the information you need
to ask it a different question.

[gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[james]

Neil Bothwick <neil <at> digimed.co.uk> writes:

> 
> On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 15:49:19 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Yes, I agree it needs a full overhaul of the way it communicates what is
> happening.


One simple fix is this blockage of packages that do not need to be blocked.
When I wait more than 5 or 6 days to update, I often get many packages to
build, running something like 'emerge -uDNvp world'. Yes I know I can sit 
there and go through every package with --ask, but that is a huge
waist of time, particularly if you poll user desires. So I find all
the packages (ugly little cut|awk|sed|paste script) and install everything
that is not really block. Source && update and then concentrate on the 
actual blockage. I'd be surprised if this is anything other than a trivial
fix to portage (hello no, I'm not working on portage!; Zac is very smart and
 capable and look how he struggles...).


But our reticent developers think that is good for the rank and file
gentoo users; other see this sort of situation as obstinate.

So a simple improvement is to allow what can install, to install, in a
semantic where folks do not have to sit and watch the screen to keep the
updates rolling along; then leave the true blockage for close attention.
I.E. blockage should only *ever* effect the minimal of what has to be
blocked during an update.


YMMV_hth,
James

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Philip Webb]

150426 Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 04/26/2015 03:17 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
>> Portage needs to tell users (1) more clearly what's gone wrong,
>> (2) what their choices are, (3) how to resolve the problem.
> The process goes something like this:
> 1. Become frustrated with the obtuse portage output.
> 2. Get familiar with the portage source code.
> 3. Develop an understanding of the dependency resolution process
>    and all of the possible conflicts that can arise.
> 4. Come up with better ways to explain the error messages that are shown.
> 5. Never get around to writing the patch,
>    because now you understand what Portage is telling you.

That's far too much to expect of users : we're not dev's.

> More seriously, once you start working on (3), you'll realize
> that just because the error msgs suck doesn't mean you can make them better.

If they "suck", they're not worth issuing, are they ?
I'm not willing to become a dev, so I'll never know if I cd improve them,
but it doesn't follow that no-one else could.

> Maybe the best solution to a conflict is to buy a new video card for $5,
> so that a newer version of nvidia-drivers will work,
> so that the new version of xorg-server will work,
> so that the new version of opengl will work,
> so that you can upgrade tuxracer.
> Portage can't figure out stuff like that.

I'm not asking it to : citing extreme cases is a popular excuse for inaction.

> If you're willing to wait an hour, it might be able to come up
> with a list of ways you could resolve a conflict, but basically
> all of them will be wrong, eg suggestion #1, uninstall everything.

Really, this is a flippant response to a serious issue,
which is being raised more often on the Gentoo User list.

> All portage errors are essentially :
> "you want something and you can't have it".

Well, you said above that Portage doesn't know what the user wants (smile).

> The solution is then to adjust slightly what it is that you asked for,
> but Portage doesn't know what you really want
> or what you're willing to settle for,
> so the best it can do is give you the information you need
> so that you can ask it a different question.

Users need advice from Portage re the range + type of questions to ask.
Portage needs to list possibilities + alternatives, ok a short list.
At present, it spews out opaque lists of things it can't do
& offers no assistance to users re what it mb able to do.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1274 bytes --]

On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 17:28:47 -0400, Philip Webb wrote:

> > More seriously, once you start working on (3), you'll realize
> > that just because the error msgs suck doesn't mean you can make them
> > better.  
> 
> If they "suck", they're not worth issuing, are they ?

Of course they are, obtuse error messages are better than none.

However, one of the problems with portage's output, and it threw a few
people with the OP's original question, is that portage makes no clear
distinction between error and informational messages. The, not
unreasonable, assumption is that when portage spews out several lines of
information about not being able to install a package because of version
requirements of other packages an error has occurred. In many cases, like
this one, that is simply not the case. Even some colour highlighting of
messages would go a fair way to improving the readability of portage's
output.

However, I am prepared to accept that changes in this department are not
trivial and if no one else is prepared to do something, I can either fix
it myself or accept it as it is. I've been using Gentoo for too long to
be entitled to a refund for what I paid for it.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Pedestrians come in two types: Quick or Dead.

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Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 04/26/2015 05:28 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
> 
>> More seriously, once you start working on (3), you'll realize
>> that just because the error msgs suck doesn't mean you can make them better.
> 
> If they "suck", they're not worth issuing, are they ?
> I'm not willing to become a dev, so I'll never know if I cd improve them,
> but it doesn't follow that no-one else could.
> 

They give you the information you need to update your question.

You don't need to be a Gentoo developer to contribute to portage. They
have a mailing list and all patches are posted there for review, Gentoo
dev or not.


>> If you're willing to wait an hour, it might be able to come up
>> with a list of ways you could resolve a conflict, but basically
>> all of them will be wrong, eg suggestion #1, uninstall everything.
> 
> Really, this is a flippant response to a serious issue,
> which is being raised more often on the Gentoo User list.
> 

It wasn't meant that way -- I was trying to point out that this is one
of those problems that sounds easy but turns out to be incredibly hard.

Dependency resolution is already slow when it only takes your installed
packages into account. It would take oh-so-much longer if you wanted to
consider "what if" questions involving the entire tree. And most of the
suggestions it would come up with are indeed ridiculous. Uninstalling a
few things in @world will probably solve your conflict. Is that not a
valid suggestion in some cases? Why not? Can you determine those cases
automatically without input from the user?

I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's deceptively hard to
(automatically) come up with a list of non-ridiculous suggestions before
the user in question dies of old age. Relevant xkcd:

  https://xkcd.com/1425/

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Alan McKinnon]

On 26/04/2015 23:28, Philip Webb wrote:
> 150426 Michael Orlitzky wrote:
>> On 04/26/2015 03:17 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
>>> Portage needs to tell users (1) more clearly what's gone wrong,
>>> (2) what their choices are, (3) how to resolve the problem.
>> The process goes something like this:
>> 1. Become frustrated with the obtuse portage output.
>> 2. Get familiar with the portage source code.
>> 3. Develop an understanding of the dependency resolution process
>>    and all of the possible conflicts that can arise.
>> 4. Come up with better ways to explain the error messages that are shown.
>> 5. Never get around to writing the patch,
>>    because now you understand what Portage is telling you.
> 
> That's far too much to expect of users : we're not dev's.
> 
>> More seriously, once you start working on (3), you'll realize
>> that just because the error msgs suck doesn't mean you can make them better.
> 
> If they "suck", they're not worth issuing, are they ?
> I'm not willing to become a dev, so I'll never know if I cd improve them,
> but it doesn't follow that no-one else could.
> 
>> Maybe the best solution to a conflict is to buy a new video card for $5,
>> so that a newer version of nvidia-drivers will work,
>> so that the new version of xorg-server will work,
>> so that the new version of opengl will work,
>> so that you can upgrade tuxracer.
>> Portage can't figure out stuff like that.
> 
> I'm not asking it to : citing extreme cases is a popular excuse for inaction.
> 
>> If you're willing to wait an hour, it might be able to come up
>> with a list of ways you could resolve a conflict, but basically
>> all of them will be wrong, eg suggestion #1, uninstall everything.
> 
> Really, this is a flippant response to a serious issue,
> which is being raised more often on the Gentoo User list.
> 
>> All portage errors are essentially :
>> "you want something and you can't have it".
> 
> Well, you said above that Portage doesn't know what the user wants (smile).
> 
>> The solution is then to adjust slightly what it is that you asked for,
>> but Portage doesn't know what you really want
>> or what you're willing to settle for,
>> so the best it can do is give you the information you need
>> so that you can ask it a different question.
> 
> Users need advice from Portage re the range + type of questions to ask.
> Portage needs to list possibilities + alternatives, ok a short list.
> At present, it spews out opaque lists of things it can't do
> & offers no assistance to users re what it mb able to do.
> 


I'm with you on this Philip. By way of example, here's the output I get
every time I run emerge on my notebook:

==========
# emerge -avuND world

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!

Total: 0 packages, Size of downloads: 0 KiB

WARNING: One or more updates/rebuilds have been skipped due to a
dependency conflict:

dev-lang/swig:0

  (dev-lang/swig-3.0.5:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)
conflicts with
    <dev-lang/swig-3.0.5 required by
(dev-python/m2crypto-0.22.3-r3:0/0::gentoo, installed)
    ^              ^^^^^

dev-java/slf4j-api:0

  (dev-java/slf4j-api-1.7.7:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)
conflicts with
    <dev-java/slf4j-api-1.7.7:0 required by
(dev-java/jboss-logging-3.1.4:0/0::gentoo, installed)
    ^                   ^^^^^


Nothing to merge; quitting.
===========

I know what this means, swig and slf4j-api are pinned (in the style of
Debian) because other packages that use them require
less-than-most-recent versions. Fair enough, that's a normal everyday
occurrence. Now try infer the truth from the stated output.

Note that I have no local masks that get involved, this output is from
the state of the tree itself.

This is the kind of query we are getting more and more often here on
-user; old nvidia versions is also somewhat common but we Gentooers have
always accepted that as part of the deal if we want to use ancient
hardware. My example above was never part of the deal as I read it.



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Alan McKinnon]

On 27/04/2015 00:23, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 04/26/2015 05:28 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
>>
>>> More seriously, once you start working on (3), you'll realize
>>> that just because the error msgs suck doesn't mean you can make them better.
>>
>> If they "suck", they're not worth issuing, are they ?
>> I'm not willing to become a dev, so I'll never know if I cd improve them,
>> but it doesn't follow that no-one else could.
>>
> 
> They give you the information you need to update your question.
> 
> You don't need to be a Gentoo developer to contribute to portage. They
> have a mailing list and all patches are posted there for review, Gentoo
> dev or not.
> 
> 
>>> If you're willing to wait an hour, it might be able to come up
>>> with a list of ways you could resolve a conflict, but basically
>>> all of them will be wrong, eg suggestion #1, uninstall everything.
>>
>> Really, this is a flippant response to a serious issue,
>> which is being raised more often on the Gentoo User list.
>>
> 
> It wasn't meant that way -- I was trying to point out that this is one
> of those problems that sounds easy but turns out to be incredibly hard.
> 
> Dependency resolution is already slow when it only takes your installed
> packages into account. It would take oh-so-much longer if you wanted to
> consider "what if" questions involving the entire tree. And most of the
> suggestions it would come up with are indeed ridiculous. Uninstalling a
> few things in @world will probably solve your conflict. Is that not a
> valid suggestion in some cases? Why not? Can you determine those cases
> automatically without input from the user?
> 
> I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's deceptively hard to
> (automatically) come up with a list of non-ridiculous suggestions before
> the user in question dies of old age. Relevant xkcd:
> 
>   https://xkcd.com/1425/
> 
> 


I'm aware of the scope of the problem, and I'm not asking portage to
infer what I might want or suggest solutions I didn't ask for. Besides,
"what I want" is already unambiguously defined by world and the contents
of /etc/portage/.

I'd be much happier if portage took the information *it already has* and
formatted it's output as something a tad more parseable to human brains.
Right now what it's doing is the equivalent of a core dump with an
attitude of "ah, fuck it, I give up. Here, you figure this shit out."


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

[gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Martin Vaeth]

Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
>
>> If you're willing to wait an hour, it might be able to come up
>> with a list of ways you could resolve a conflict, but basically
>> all of them will be wrong, eg suggestion #1, uninstall everything.
>
> Really, this is a flippant response to a serious issue,

No. It is how facts are. Actually, making suggestions is an
NP-complete problem which means that if already, say, 20 possible
choices have influence to the solution (and cannot be trivially cut),
it would take hundreds of years to complete. If you come up with an
algorithm which can do essentially better, you have probably solved
the P=NP millenium problem and can expect an incredible award.
You can be very lucky if you get *one* suggestion (which is
what portage sometimes finds with high value of --backtrack).
Checking whether the suggestion is reasonable is the user's task.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 04/26/2015 04:48 PM, james wrote:
> 
> One simple fix is this blockage of packages that do not need to be blocked.
> When I wait more than 5 or 6 days to update, I often get many packages to
> build, running something like 'emerge -uDNvp world'. Yes I know I can sit 
> there and go through every package with --ask, but that is a huge
> waist of time, particularly if you poll user desires. So I find all
> the packages (ugly little cut|awk|sed|paste script) and install everything
> that is not really block. Source && update and then concentrate on the 
> actual blockage. I'd be surprised if this is anything other than a trivial
> fix to portage (hello no, I'm not working on portage!; Zac is very smart and
>  capable and look how he struggles...).
> 

File a bug for this! I've wished for it myself. Maybe it's easy to do
and it doesn't exist because nobody has asked.

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 27/04/2015 00:23, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
>> On 04/26/2015 05:28 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
>>>> More seriously, once you start working on (3), you'll realize
>>>> that just because the error msgs suck doesn't mean you can make them better.
>>> If they "suck", they're not worth issuing, are they ?
>>> I'm not willing to become a dev, so I'll never know if I cd improve them,
>>> but it doesn't follow that no-one else could.
>>>
>> They give you the information you need to update your question.
>>
>> You don't need to be a Gentoo developer to contribute to portage. They
>> have a mailing list and all patches are posted there for review, Gentoo
>> dev or not.
>>
>>
>>>> If you're willing to wait an hour, it might be able to come up
>>>> with a list of ways you could resolve a conflict, but basically
>>>> all of them will be wrong, eg suggestion #1, uninstall everything.
>>> Really, this is a flippant response to a serious issue,
>>> which is being raised more often on the Gentoo User list.
>>>
>> It wasn't meant that way -- I was trying to point out that this is one
>> of those problems that sounds easy but turns out to be incredibly hard.
>>
>> Dependency resolution is already slow when it only takes your installed
>> packages into account. It would take oh-so-much longer if you wanted to
>> consider "what if" questions involving the entire tree. And most of the
>> suggestions it would come up with are indeed ridiculous. Uninstalling a
>> few things in @world will probably solve your conflict. Is that not a
>> valid suggestion in some cases? Why not? Can you determine those cases
>> automatically without input from the user?
>>
>> I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's deceptively hard to
>> (automatically) come up with a list of non-ridiculous suggestions before
>> the user in question dies of old age. Relevant xkcd:
>>
>>   https://xkcd.com/1425/
>>
>>
>
> I'm aware of the scope of the problem, and I'm not asking portage to
> infer what I might want or suggest solutions I didn't ask for. Besides,
> "what I want" is already unambiguously defined by world and the contents
> of /etc/portage/.
>
> I'd be much happier if portage took the information *it already has* and
> formatted it's output as something a tad more parseable to human brains.
> Right now what it's doing is the equivalent of a core dump with an
> attitude of "ah, fuck it, I give up. Here, you figure this shit out."
>
>


+1

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin...

[Philip Webb]

150427 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 27/04/2015 00:23, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
>> I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's deceptively hard
>> to automatically come up with a list of non-ridiculous suggestions
>> before the user in question dies of old age :  https://xkcd.com/1425/ .

That expresses the extremes well enough,
but one would hope that the Portage output problem lies between them.

> I'm aware of the scope of the problem, and I'm not asking Portage
> to infer what I might want or suggest solutions I didn't ask for.
> Besides, "what I want" is already unambiguously defined by world
> and the contents of /etc/portage/.
> I'd be much happier if portage took the information *it already has*
> and formatted its output a tad more parseable to human brains.
> Right now what it's doing is the equivalent of a core dump
> with "ah, fuck it, I give up. Here, you figure this shit out".

This expresses Gentoo users' difficulties all too well (smile).

What we are asking is for the devs to accept there is a problem,
have a proper look at it & try to make Portage output more understandable.
We are always grateful for their volunteer efforts.

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