[gentoo-user] Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[gentoo-user] Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Daniel Campbell]

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Most of us know about the games.eclass history. Let's put that aside;
I'm looking for user consensus on packages that use(d) games.eclass.

1. Do you take advantage of games.eclass features, including restricting
game access to a given group and installing games outside of /usr and/or
on different media?

2. If yes, how do you feel about the removal of the eclass? Did you rely
on its functionality? Does your use case require it?

3. If yes, _what is your use case_? Which features are important to your
use case wrt games and what can Gentoo do to improve that?

We cannot make concrete decisions without concrete evidence, so please
answer and speak for your use case. This will serve as a public record
of interest, and might even inspire a few people. :)

Thanks for your time,

~zlg
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6


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[gentoo-user] Re: Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Ian Zimmerman]

On 2016-07-01 01:27 -0700, Daniel Campbell wrote:

> 1. Do you take advantage of games.eclass features, including restricting
> game access to a given group and installing games outside of /usr and/or
> on different media?

No, in fact I was rather surprised by this extra complexity in Gentoo
when I was migrating from Debian.

> 2. If yes, how do you feel about the removal of the eclass? Did you rely
> on its functionality? Does your use case require it?

I would not miss it, but I now that I am at last done with the
migration, and I have a bunch of games installed that are very important
to me, I am afraid of the potential new burden of transitioning to a
state where games are ordinary programs, even if such state would be
beautiful, clean, simple, etc.

-- 
Please *no* private copies of mailing list or newsgroup messages.
Why does the arrow on Hillary signs point to the right?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Ian Zimmerman <itz@buug.org> wrote:
>
> I would not miss it, but I now that I am at last done with the
> migration, and I have a bunch of games installed that are very important
> to me, I am afraid of the potential new burden of transitioning to a
> state where games are ordinary programs, even if such state would be
> beautiful, clean, simple, etc.
>

A fair concern, but unless you have scripts/etc that are directly
parsing games files I don't see much impact here.  The main impact is
that the file locations in /usr would change, and you'd no longer need
to be in the games group to run them.  If you do have scripts/etc that
touch games files then you'd need to edit some paths inside.  Being in
the games group wouldn't hurt anything.

If there are games where you had to install some file off of an
original install CD (like map data/etc where Gentoo is only providing
the engine) then you might need to re-install things to the proper
place.  I'm not sure if we still have anything like that in the tree,
or where we typically direct users to install such things.  I think
that in those situations it probably wouldn't hurt to have NEWS or
ELOG/etc as appropriate.  If save states are getting moved ideally
ebuilds should be tweaked to take care of that.

-- 
Rich

[gentoo-user] Re: Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Ian Zimmerman]

On 2016-07-01 11:34 -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:

> > I have a bunch of games installed that are very important to me, I
> > am afraid of the potential new burden of transitioning to a state
> > where games are ordinary programs, even if such state would be
> > beautiful, clean, simple, etc.

> If you do have scripts/etc that touch games files then you'd need to
> edit some paths inside.

This is indeed the case, but it wouldn't be too bad, perhaps an hour to
change over.  It would _really really_ need to be alerted in huge fat
letters though, in each affected package.

The other concerns do not apply to my situation.

-- 
Please *no* private copies of mailing list or newsgroup messages.
Why does the arrow on Hillary signs point to the right?

Re: [gentoo-user] Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Róbert Čerňanský]

On Fri, 1 Jul 2016 01:27:37 -0700
Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 1. Do you take advantage of games.eclass features, including
> restricting game access to a given group and installing games outside
> of /usr and/or on different media?

I'm not sure what are all the features it provides.  But I do like that
(at least) some games share scores between users (in /var/games). It is
"nice to have" feature.

Also it is great advantage that emerge can ask for original game
installation media.  I'd feel more sorry for this one to be gone.

> 3. If yes, _what is your use case_? Which features are important to
> your use case wrt games and what can Gentoo do to improve that?

More games. ;-)

Robert


-- 
Róbert Čerňanský
E-mail: openhs@tightmail.com
Jabber: hs@jabber.sk

Re: [gentoo-user] Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 1:27 PM, Róbert Čerňanský <openhs@tightmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure what are all the features it provides.  But I do like that
> (at least) some games share scores between users (in /var/games). It is
> "nice to have" feature.
>
> Also it is great advantage that emerge can ask for original game
> installation media.  I'd feel more sorry for this one to be gone.
>

Fortunately neither of these would go away.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-user] Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Terry Z.]

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On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 4:27 AM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Most of us know about the games.eclass history. Let's put that aside;
> I'm looking for user consensus on packages that use(d) games.eclass.
>
> 1. Do you take advantage of games.eclass features, including restricting
> game access to a given group and installing games outside of /usr and/or
> on different media?
>
>
I like the game group feature.  On a multiuser system it makes it fairly
simplistic to ensure access goes to whom I want to have access to those
games.  It also behaves similarly to other services which allow non root
users to run things based on their group membership.

I do not really care much about the ability to install outside of /usr, but
I can see that being very useful.  Of course, a symlink can provide this
same feature.

2. If yes, how do you feel about the removal of the eclass? Did you rely
> on its functionality? Does your use case require it?
>

I have very few personal ebuilds that take advantage of much of the
features other than the group reqs etc.  Still, I see the value in them.


>
> 3. If yes, _what is your use case_? Which features are important to your
> use case wrt games and what can Gentoo do to improve that.
>

I make use of the games group in my personal ebuilds.  I find some of the
other features provided in games.eclass potentially useful, but do not make
immediate needs of them.


> We cannot make concrete decisions without concrete evidence, so please
> answer and speak for your use case. This will serve as a public record
> of interest, and might even inspire a few people. :)
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> ~zlg
> --
> Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
> OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
> fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6
>
>


-- 
The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating system
and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world.
-- seen on the net

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 07/01/2016 07:39 AM, Ian Zimmerman wrote:
> On 2016-07-01 01:27 -0700, Daniel Campbell wrote:
> 
>> 1. Do you take advantage of games.eclass features, including restricting
>> game access to a given group and installing games outside of /usr and/or
>> on different media?
> 
> No, in fact I was rather surprised by this extra complexity in Gentoo
> when I was migrating from Debian.
> 
>> 2. If yes, how do you feel about the removal of the eclass? Did you rely
>> on its functionality? Does your use case require it?
> 
> I would not miss it, but I now that I am at last done with the
> migration, and I have a bunch of games installed that are very important
> to me, I am afraid of the potential new burden of transitioning to a
> state where games are ordinary programs, even if such state would be
> beautiful, clean, simple, etc.
> 

I haven't seen any documentation on how QA or others intend to
facilitate the switch, if they will add elog calls, write a news item,
move gamesaves, or anything like that, so for peace of mind I suggest
backing up your gamesaves. It's a good practice to get the hang of,
anyway. :)

In a perfect world, all you'd need to do is remerge the affected
packages and they'll install to the new locations.

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6


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Re: [gentoo-user] Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 07/01/2016 12:34 PM, Terry Z. wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 4:27 AM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org
> <mailto:zlg@gentoo.org>> wrote:
> 
>     Most of us know about the games.eclass history. Let's put that aside;
>     I'm looking for user consensus on packages that use(d) games.eclass.
> 
>     1. Do you take advantage of games.eclass features, including restricting
>     game access to a given group and installing games outside of /usr and/or
>     on different media?
> 
> 
> I like the game group feature.  On a multiuser system it makes it fairly
> simplistic to ensure access goes to whom I want to have access to those
> games.  It also behaves similarly to other services which allow non root
> users to run things based on their group membership.
> 
> I do not really care much about the ability to install outside of /usr,
> but I can see that being very useful.  Of course, a symlink can provide
> this same feature.

Could you share a little more about your use case? You mentioned
multi-user and restricting based on group membership. Do you have
children that you don't want playing specific games, is this a work
environment?

The more information, the merrier. With the removal of games.eclass,
this case is going away, so if I or others can learn more about your use
case, we might be able to help you figure out how to better meet that
use case, or begin drafting features and/or documentation to make this
possible again.

>     2. If yes, how do you feel about the removal of the eclass? Did you rely
>     on its functionality? Does your use case require it?
> 
> 
> I have very few personal ebuilds that take advantage of much of the
> features other than the group reqs etc.  Still, I see the value in them.
>  
Which features are your personal ebuilds using? Could you supply a
snippet or even a paste somewhere that shows what you're doing?

>     3. If yes, _what is your use case_? Which features are important to your
>     use case wrt games and what can Gentoo do to improve that.
> 
> 
> I make use of the games group in my personal ebuilds.  I find some of
> the other features provided in games.eclass potentially useful, but do
> not make immediate needs of them.
>  
> 
>     We cannot make concrete decisions without concrete evidence, so please
>     answer and speak for your use case. This will serve as a public record
>     of interest, and might even inspire a few people. :)
> 
>     Thanks for your time,
> 
>     ~zlg
>     --
>     Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
>     OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net <http://keys.gnupg.net>
>     fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6
> -- 
> The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
> system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world.
> -- seen on the net

Thanks again for supplying information to help form an accurate view of
things.


-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6


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[gentoo-user] Re: Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[James]

Daniel Campbell <zlg <at> gentoo.org> writes:


> 3. If yes, _what is your use case_? Which features are important to your
> use case wrt games and what can Gentoo do to improve that?

Personally, I'd like to see mechanisms where a gentoo sysadm can limit
both the games that are accessed and when any game is access by any
particular user on a network that I control. Log files of the amount
of time used, would be a great.

If windows based game can be install on a gentoo VM or container, those
details as part of the games strategic management documentation, would be
cool too, up and through hosting the (gentoo) server.

Perhaps on a gentoo games wiki, as section could also be devoted to 
using a gentoo firewall (iptables based ) to control or block windows
games access too, that are not run on a gentoo server/cluster/container/VM.


> We cannot make concrete decisions without concrete evidence, so please
> answer and speak for your use case. This will serve as a public record
> of interest, and might even inspire a few people. :)

Not sure this is easy/possible, but both as a parent, eventually grandparent
and on my small business, there needs to be logical, gentoo-centric *control
over all games*. So, since this thread popped up, I just thought I'd ask
what is possible and suggest a wiki page delineating the entire admin set of
tools, that are gentoo centric, regardless if they are in the portage tree
or not; a feature very necessary for todays parents and admins.


hth,
James

Re: [gentoo-user] Call for opinions and/or use cases regarding games.eclass

[Nils Freydank]

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At Friday, 1. Juli 2016, 01:27:37 CEST wrote Daniel Campbell:
> Most of us know about the games.eclass history. Let's put that aside;
> I'm looking for user consensus on packages that use(d) games.eclass.
> 
> 1. Do you take advantage of games.eclass features, including restricting
> game access to a given group and installing games outside of /usr and/or
> on different media?
Yes, I do use the games.eclass (or did it with EAPI=5) for installing all 
games at least into a different subdirectories than default $PATH. In addition 
I use a different user “games“ with $HOME=/home/games. This has its origins 
primarily in my personal way of data organisation & backups. All data that 
belong to any games which are „not packaged by portage“ (some games binaries, 
cached files, highscores, ...) are inside that home dir.

> 2. If yes, how do you feel about the removal of the eclass? Did you rely
> on its functionality? Does your use case require it?
I only used the eclass to separate games binaries and data from my main / to a 
different location where only the games user has acces to.

> 3. If yes, _what is your use case_? Which features are important to your
> use case wrt games and what can Gentoo do to improve that?
Honestly I didn’t really took a deeper look into all of games.eclass’s 
functions, because it was labeld deprecated shortly after I started using it.

> We cannot make concrete decisions without concrete evidence, so please
> answer and speak for your use case. This will serve as a public record
> of interest, and might even inspire a few people. :)
Great use ask the users - that’s how a community should work :)
 
> Thanks for your time,
Thanks for your call here ;)
 
> ~zlg
~nils

--
Nils Freydank, GnuPG: 0x44594171807206CF
holgersson at IRC/freenode

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