Re: [gentoo-user] world favorites: pros and cons

[Alexander Skwar <listen@alexander.skwar.name>]

Daniel Iliev wrote:

> I have no problem with the redundant cruft - when I want just to try
> some package I do "emerge --pretend" and record the list of dependencies
> it wants to pull-in. If I decide the package is not useful to me, I
> "un-emerge" not only the package, but also the dependencies it had
> pulled-in during its installation.

That's risky!

Suppose, you want to install "a". "a" needs "b". You keep "a" & "b"
installed.

Later on, you decide to try "c". "c" needs "b" as well. But as "b"
is already installed, "emerge -p c" won't show "b". You install "c"
and do *NOT* write down, that "c" needs "b", as you don't know that.

Even more later on, you decide to deinstall "a". According to what
you wrote above and according to your documentation, you'll see that
"b" got installed because of "a" and you'll remove "b" as well.

Yet more later on, you find out, that "c" is broken and wonder why.

The basic problem here is, that there's no way to see, which packages
depend on a given package - at least I don't know how to find that out.
What's required, is a way to be told, that packages "a" and "c" depend
on "b".

Now, if you'd use the world file as it was supposed to be used, you'd
remove "a" and could do a "emerge --depclean --pretend". Doing so, the
system would *NOT* show you package "b", as it's still a dependency
of "c". Only after you remove "c" as well, "b" would show up in a
depclean run.

Alexander Skwar
-- 
The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and
robbers there will be.
		-- Lao Tsu
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