[gentoo-user] Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[gentoo-user] Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

I just build firefox and noticed the following warning in the
ebuild output, and I'm a bit baffled by the grammar:

     All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
     compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
     blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags. 

Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?
  
-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 18 January 2009 18:02:10 Grant Edwards wrote:
> I just build firefox and noticed the following warning in the
> ebuild output, and I'm a bit baffled by the grammar:
>
>      All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
>      compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
>      blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags.
>
> Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?

It's saying that if you use firefox -3*, then you should remove "firefox" from 
your USE and add "xulrunner" instead. This way, nothing in the tree will try 
to pull in firefox-2* (which obviously conflicts with firefox-3*).

There have been 4 earlier threads on this very topic in the last fortnight. 
For more details, please check the recent archives (rehashing the same thing 
over and over is getting really tedious)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-18, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sunday 18 January 2009 18:02:10 Grant Edwards wrote:
>> I just build firefox and noticed the following warning in the
>> ebuild output, and I'm a bit baffled by the grammar:
>>
>>      All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
>>      compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
>>      blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags.
>>
>> Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?
>
> It's saying that if you use firefox -3*, then you should
> remove "firefox" from your USE and add "xulrunner" instead.
> This way, nothing in the tree will try to pull in firefox-2*
> (which obviously conflicts with firefox-3*).

Wow.  I'm not doubting that what you say is true, but how
anybody was supposed to get that from the emerge message is
beyond me.

> There have been 4 earlier threads on this very topic in the
> last fortnight.  For more details, please check the recent
> archives (rehashing the same thing over and over is getting
> really tedious)

Sort of makes you wonder if the message is a bit too cryptic,
eh?

-- 
Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-18, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

>>      All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
>>      compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
>>      blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags.
>>
>> Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?
>
> It's saying that if you use firefox -3*, then you should
> remove "firefox" from your USE and add "xulrunner" instead.
> This way, nothing in the tree will try to pull in firefox-2*
> (which obviously conflicts with firefox-3*).
>
> There have been 4 earlier threads on this very topic in the
> last fortnight.  For more details, please check the recent
> archives (rehashing the same thing over and over is getting
> really tedious)

Do we get any clues as to what to search for? I searched back a
few weeks looking for subject lines containing "firefox" and
didn't find anything relevent.

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Mike Kazantsev]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 421 bytes --]

On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:03:36 +0000 (UTC)
Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:

> Do we get any clues as to what to search for? I searched back a
> few weeks looking for subject lines containing "firefox" and
> didn't find anything relevent.

Try looking through (most recent, I believe - Jan 10) 'Trouble with
portage' thread, started by econti with answers from AllenJB.

-- 
Mike Kazantsev // fraggod.net

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 18 January 2009 18:44:40 Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2009-01-18, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sunday 18 January 2009 18:02:10 Grant Edwards wrote:
> >> I just build firefox and noticed the following warning in the
> >> ebuild output, and I'm a bit baffled by the grammar:
> >>
> >>      All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
> >>      compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
> >>      blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags.
> >>
> >> Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?
> >
> > It's saying that if you use firefox -3*, then you should
> > remove "firefox" from your USE and add "xulrunner" instead.
> > This way, nothing in the tree will try to pull in firefox-2*
> > (which obviously conflicts with firefox-3*).
>
> Wow.  I'm not doubting that what you say is true, but how
> anybody was supposed to get that from the emerge message is
> beyond me.
>
> > There have been 4 earlier threads on this very topic in the
> > last fortnight.  For more details, please check the recent
> > archives (rehashing the same thing over and over is getting
> > really tedious)
>
> Sort of makes you wonder if the message is a bit too cryptic,
> eh?

If I read that message out loud, it sounds suspiciously like a babelfish 
translation from Japanese to English. Whatever it is, the author of the 
message is certainly not a native English speaker.

But the intent is easy to see if you already know how it works. Briefly:

The gecko rendering engine was always part of firefox through versions 1 and 
2. This is plain silly as such a thing should really be an independent block 
of code that stands alone and everything else can use without requiring that 
all of firefox be present.

This has now been fixed, the engine is now in a package called xulrunner which 
firefox builds against. Other apps also need xulrunner, but if you 
keep "USE=firefox" intact those apps will pull in all of firefox-2 just to 
get gecko. If you have firefox-3 installed, you have an instant blocker. 
With "USE=xulrunner" they will build against xulrunner and firefox can be 
whatever you feel like installing.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[OT] Re: [gentoo-user] Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Willie Wong]

On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 07:49:10PM +0200, Penguin Lover Alan McKinnon squawked:
> If I read that message out loud, it sounds suspiciously like a babelfish 
> translation from Japanese to English. Whatever it is, the author of the 
> message is certainly not a native English speaker.

You have way too much faith in the education system provided by
English speaking countries. While I cannot argue for most of those
countries, I can claim, by example, that plenty of
native-English-speaking red-blooded Americans write in a way not
dissimilar to the snipplet cited above. 

This is not to say your conclusion is wrong; I just don't think it is
possible to conclude from the evidence given that the author of the
message is not a native English speaker, when I consider the kind of
junk submitted to my in-law, who teaches at a fairly affluent suburban
school district, by students who pretend that they are writing in
English. 

Of course, you can bloody-well argue, by way of Henry Higgins, that
"in America they haven't spoken [English] for years." :)

W
-- 
Herry Edsel Smith of Albany, NY:
Born 1903- Died 1942
Looked up the elevator shaft
to see if the car was on the
way down. It was.
Sortir en Pantoufles: up 772 days, 16:43

Re: [OT] Re: [gentoo-user] Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 18 January 2009 20:10:36 Willie Wong wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 07:49:10PM +0200, Penguin Lover Alan McKinnon 
squawked:
> > If I read that message out loud, it sounds suspiciously like a babelfish
> > translation from Japanese to English. Whatever it is, the author of the
> > message is certainly not a native English speaker.
>
> You have way too much faith in the education system provided by
> English speaking countries. While I cannot argue for most of those
> countries, I can claim, by example, that plenty of
> native-English-speaking red-blooded Americans write in a way not
> dissimilar to the snipplet cited above.
>
> This is not to say your conclusion is wrong; I just don't think it is
> possible to conclude from the evidence given that the author of the
> message is not a native English speaker, when I consider the kind of
> junk submitted to my in-law, who teaches at a fairly affluent suburban
> school district, by students who pretend that they are writing in
> English.
>
> Of course, you can bloody-well argue, by way of Henry Higgins, that
> "in America they haven't spoken [English] for years." :)

Forgive me, I was being foolish again :-) You see, I have this fatal flaw - 
assuming that the capacity for logical thought exists; when in fact, upon 
examination, one usually finds no such thing....

Oddly enough (or maybe not so oddly) if I look around the other desks at work, 
the standard of spoken English is higher amongst the non-native English 
speakers. Maybe they actually paid attention in class?

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [OT] Re: [gentoo-user] Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 18 January 2009 20:10:36 Willie Wong wrote:
>   
>> On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 07:49:10PM +0200, Penguin Lover Alan McKinnon 
>>     
> squawked:
>   
>>> If I read that message out loud, it sounds suspiciously like a babelfish
>>> translation from Japanese to English. Whatever it is, the author of the
>>> message is certainly not a native English speaker.
>>>       
>> You have way too much faith in the education system provided by
>> English speaking countries. While I cannot argue for most of those
>> countries, I can claim, by example, that plenty of
>> native-English-speaking red-blooded Americans write in a way not
>> dissimilar to the snipplet cited above.
>>
>> This is not to say your conclusion is wrong; I just don't think it is
>> possible to conclude from the evidence given that the author of the
>> message is not a native English speaker, when I consider the kind of
>> junk submitted to my in-law, who teaches at a fairly affluent suburban
>> school district, by students who pretend that they are writing in
>> English.
>>
>> Of course, you can bloody-well argue, by way of Henry Higgins, that
>> "in America they haven't spoken [English] for years." :)
>>     
>
> Forgive me, I was being foolish again :-) You see, I have this fatal flaw - 
> assuming that the capacity for logical thought exists; when in fact, upon 
> examination, one usually finds no such thing....
>
> Oddly enough (or maybe not so oddly) if I look around the other desks at work, 
> the standard of spoken English is higher amongst the non-native English 
> speakers. Maybe they actually paid attention in class?
>
>   

Well, English is all I know and sometimes what I type doesn't make sense
either.  I'm not stupid, I.Q. tests around 160 or so, but even tho it is
the only language I know, it is still hard to put something in print
that makes sense.  Now if you read that and understood it, you are
good.  LOL

This is also one of the things I hate about online dating or
friendships.  Saying something in print is hard enough, putting feelings
into print is impossible.  I guess the point is, you have to read
something and try to see what applies the most.  Some things just aren't
meant to make sense.  Like what I just wrote.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Dale]

Mike Kazantsev wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:03:36 +0000 (UTC)
> Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> Do we get any clues as to what to search for? I searched back a
>> few weeks looking for subject lines containing "firefox" and
>> didn't find anything relevent.
>>     
>
> Try looking through (most recent, I believe - Jan 10) 'Trouble with
> portage' thread, started by econti with answers from AllenJB.
>
>   

I would add in xulrunner if you can search the body of the message
instead of just the subject line.  I keep mine local and Seamonkey has a
decent search tool.

Dale

:-)  :-)

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-18, Mike Kazantsev <mike_kazantsev@fraggod.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:03:36 +0000 (UTC)
> Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>
>> Do we get any clues as to what to search for? I searched back a
>> few weeks looking for subject lines containing "firefox" and
>> didn't find anything relevent.
>
> Try looking through (most recent, I believe - Jan 10) 'Trouble with
> portage' thread, started by econti with answers from AllenJB.

Thanks.

"Trouble with portage." eh?

Sheesh. How's anybody supposed to know what a thread like
that's about. :/

-- 
Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-19, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Try looking through (most recent, I believe - Jan 10) 'Trouble with
>> portage' thread, started by econti with answers from AllenJB.
>
> I would add in xulrunner if you can search the body of the message
> instead of just the subject line.  I keep mine local and Seamonkey has a
> decent search tool.

I use gmane.org to search the list, and it searches message
bodies, so that should work.

-- 
Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-18, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>>      All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
>>>>      compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
>>>>      blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags.
>>>>
>>>> Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?
>>>
>>> It's saying that if you use firefox -3*, then you should
>>> remove "firefox" from your USE and add "xulrunner" instead.
>>> This way, nothing in the tree will try to pull in firefox-2*
>>> (which obviously conflicts with firefox-3*).
>>
>> Wow.  I'm not doubting that what you say is true, but how
>> anybody was supposed to get that from the emerge message is
>> beyond me.
>>
>>> There have been 4 earlier threads on this very topic in the
>>> last fortnight.  For more details, please check the recent
>>> archives (rehashing the same thing over and over is getting
>>> really tedious)
>>
>> Sort of makes you wonder if the message is a bit too cryptic,
>> eh?
>
> If I read that message out loud, it sounds suspiciously like a
> babelfish translation from Japanese to English. Whatever it
> is, the author of the message is certainly not a native
> English speaker.
>
> But the intent is easy to see if you already know how it
> works.

Yes, once somebody has told you the answer, it's possible to
make some sense of the message. But, I stand by my assertion
that give just the message very many people are going to figure
out that it means you need to replace the "firefox" use flag
with the "xulrunner" use flag so that apps will build against
firefox-3 instead of trying to build against firefox-2.

> Briefly:
>
> The gecko rendering engine was always part of firefox through
> versions 1 and 2. This is plain silly as such a thing should
> really be an independent block of code that stands alone and
> everything else can use without requiring that all of firefox
> be present.
>
> This has now been fixed, the engine is now in a package called
> xulrunner which firefox builds against. Other apps also need
> xulrunner, but if you keep "USE=firefox" intact those apps
> will pull in all of firefox-2 just to get gecko. If you have
> firefox-3 installed, you have an instant blocker.  With
> "USE=xulrunner" they will build against xulrunner and firefox
> can be whatever you feel like installing.

Now I'm confused.  I thought xulrunner was the user-interface
engine rather than the rendering engine.

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Dale]

Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2009-01-19, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>>> Try looking through (most recent, I believe - Jan 10) 'Trouble with
>>> portage' thread, started by econti with answers from AllenJB.
>>>       
>> I would add in xulrunner if you can search the body of the message
>> instead of just the subject line.  I keep mine local and Seamonkey has a
>> decent search tool.
>>     
>
> I use gmane.org to search the list, and it searches message
> bodies, so that should work.
>
>   


If they still can't find it, I can email them a copy direct if needed. 
I got about 32,000 emails for this list alone.  Sort of a pack rat.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Dale]

Grant Edwards wrote:
>
> Now I'm confused.  I thought xulrunner was the user-interface
> engine rather than the rendering engine.
>
>   

Somewhat on topic here.  I use Seamonkey for my browser.  Should I use
xulrunner too?  It is disabled right now but do I need to turn it on?

Just curious.

Dale

:-)  :-)

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-18, Willie Wong <wwong@Princeton.EDU> wrote:

> You have way too much faith in the education system provided by
> English speaking countries.

+1 QOTW

> Of course, you can bloody-well argue, by way of Henry Higgins,
> that "in America they haven't spoken [English] for years." :)

Rather more OT:

I once heard it argued (IIRC, by the guy that did "The Story of
English" series on the BBC) that British English that has
changed much more than American English since the two began to
diverge in the 1600's. He claimed that Shakespeare and other
Elizabethans would probably be more comfortable with modern
American English than modern British English (though both would
sound pretty foreign to them).  He mentioned a whole list of
"English" words that mean the same thing in America today that
they did in England in the 17th century, but now mean something
different in England.

IOW, they haven't spoken English in England for centuries...

And after you've heard the "proper" British pronunciation of
words like Featheringstonehaugh, it's pretty difficult to keep
a straight face when Brit's complain about what we Americans
have done to the lanugage...

;)

-- 
Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[»Q«]

In <gl0vo0$mpe$3@ger.gmane.org>,
Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:

> On 2009-01-18, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> But, I stand by my assertion that give just the message very many
> people are going to figure out that it means you need to replace the
> "firefox" use flag with the "xulrunner" use flag so that apps will
> build against firefox-3 instead of trying to build against firefox-2.

They won't build against Fx 3, they'll build against either Fx 2 or
xulrunner 1.8.1.x.  Once you have Fx 3, you can't have Fx 2, but you
can still have the older xulrunner, since xulrunner is slotted.

> > Briefly:
> >
> > The gecko rendering engine was always part of firefox through
> > versions 1 and 2. This is plain silly as such a thing should
> > really be an independent block of code that stands alone and
> > everything else can use without requiring that all of firefox
> > be present.
> >
> > This has now been fixed, the engine is now in a package called
> > xulrunner which firefox builds against. Other apps also need
> > xulrunner, but if you keep "USE=firefox" intact those apps
> > will pull in all of firefox-2 just to get gecko. If you have
> > firefox-3 installed, you have an instant blocker.  With
> > "USE=xulrunner" they will build against xulrunner and firefox
> > can be whatever you feel like installing.
> 
> Now I'm confused.  I thought xulrunner was the user-interface
> engine rather than the rendering engine.

xulrunner provides both gecko and the ABIs needed for using a UI made
of XUL.

-- 
»Q«
     Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 19 January 2009 06:32:00 Grant Edwards wrote:
> > This has now been fixed, the engine is now in a package called
> > xulrunner which firefox builds against. Other apps also need
> > xulrunner, but if you keep "USE=firefox" intact those apps
> > will pull in all of firefox-2 just to get gecko. If you have
> > firefox-3 installed, you have an instant blocker.  With
> > "USE=xulrunner" they will build against xulrunner and firefox
> > can be whatever you feel like installing.
>
> Now I'm confused.  I thought xulrunner was the user-interface
> engine rather than the rendering engine.

You might well be right. I don't concern myself too much with the details. The 
important bit is that xulrunner does something important, and the two flags 
control it.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Paul Hartman]

On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
> On 2009-01-18, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>>>      All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
>>>>>      compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
>>>>>      blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?
>>>>
>>>> It's saying that if you use firefox -3*, then you should
>>>> remove "firefox" from your USE and add "xulrunner" instead.
>>>> This way, nothing in the tree will try to pull in firefox-2*
>>>> (which obviously conflicts with firefox-3*).
>>>
>>> Wow.  I'm not doubting that what you say is true, but how
>>> anybody was supposed to get that from the emerge message is
>>> beyond me.
>>>
>>>> There have been 4 earlier threads on this very topic in the
>>>> last fortnight.  For more details, please check the recent
>>>> archives (rehashing the same thing over and over is getting
>>>> really tedious)
>>>
>>> Sort of makes you wonder if the message is a bit too cryptic,
>>> eh?
>>
>> If I read that message out loud, it sounds suspiciously like a
>> babelfish translation from Japanese to English. Whatever it
>> is, the author of the message is certainly not a native
>> English speaker.
>>
>> But the intent is easy to see if you already know how it
>> works.
>
> Yes, once somebody has told you the answer, it's possible to
> make some sense of the message. But, I stand by my assertion
> that give just the message very many people are going to figure
> out that it means you need to replace the "firefox" use flag
> with the "xulrunner" use flag so that apps will build against
> firefox-3 instead of trying to build against firefox-2.

Someone should file a bug to have the message changed to something clearer.

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-19, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-01-18, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>>>      All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
>>>>>>      compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
>>>>>>      blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?
>>>>>
>>>>> It's saying that if you use firefox -3*, then you should
>>>>> remove "firefox" from your USE and add "xulrunner" instead.
>>>>> This way, nothing in the tree will try to pull in firefox-2*
>>>>> (which obviously conflicts with firefox-3*).
>>>>
>>>> Wow.  I'm not doubting that what you say is true, but how
>>>> anybody was supposed to get that from the emerge message is
>>>> beyond me.
>>>>
>>>>> There have been 4 earlier threads on this very topic in the
>>>>> last fortnight.  For more details, please check the recent
>>>>> archives (rehashing the same thing over and over is getting
>>>>> really tedious)
>>>>
>>>> Sort of makes you wonder if the message is a bit too cryptic,
>>>> eh?
>>>
>>> If I read that message out loud, it sounds suspiciously like a
>>> babelfish translation from Japanese to English. Whatever it
>>> is, the author of the message is certainly not a native
>>> English speaker.
>>>
>>> But the intent is easy to see if you already know how it
>>> works.
>>
>> Yes, once somebody has told you the answer, it's possible to
>> make some sense of the message. But, I stand by my assertion
>> that give just the message very many people are going to figure
>> out that it means you need to replace the "firefox" use flag
>> with the "xulrunner" use flag so that apps will build against
>> firefox-3 instead of trying to build against firefox-2.
>
> Someone should file a bug to have the message changed to something clearer.

I'd be happy to do that.  Is the following correct?

  The UI and rendering libraries that were part of the
  mozilla-firefox 2.x package have been split from the mozilla
  firefox-3.x package and are now in the xulrunner package.  In
  order for ebuilds to use xulrunner instead of mozilla-firefox
  2.x, the "firefox" USE flag must be replaced by the
  "xulrunner" USE flag.  Failure to replace the "firefox" USE
  flag with the "xulrunner" USE flag will result in portage
  requiring mozilla-firefox 2.x which is incompatible with
  mozilla-firefox 3.x -- this will block some packages from
  building.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Gee, I feel kind of
                                  at               LIGHT in the head now,
                               visi.com            knowing I can't make my
                                                   satellite dish PAYMENTS!

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 19 January 2009 18:59:36 Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2009-01-19, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
> >> On 2009-01-18, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>      All the packages built against mozilla-firefox won't
> >>>>>>      compile, if after installing firefox 3.0 you get some
> >>>>>>      blockers, please add 'xulrunner' to your USE-flags.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Does anybody have idea what the above sentence is trying to say?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It's saying that if you use firefox -3*, then you should
> >>>>> remove "firefox" from your USE and add "xulrunner" instead.
> >>>>> This way, nothing in the tree will try to pull in firefox-2*
> >>>>> (which obviously conflicts with firefox-3*).
> >>>>
> >>>> Wow.  I'm not doubting that what you say is true, but how
> >>>> anybody was supposed to get that from the emerge message is
> >>>> beyond me.
> >>>>
> >>>>> There have been 4 earlier threads on this very topic in the
> >>>>> last fortnight.  For more details, please check the recent
> >>>>> archives (rehashing the same thing over and over is getting
> >>>>> really tedious)
> >>>>
> >>>> Sort of makes you wonder if the message is a bit too cryptic,
> >>>> eh?
> >>>
> >>> If I read that message out loud, it sounds suspiciously like a
> >>> babelfish translation from Japanese to English. Whatever it
> >>> is, the author of the message is certainly not a native
> >>> English speaker.
> >>>
> >>> But the intent is easy to see if you already know how it
> >>> works.
> >>
> >> Yes, once somebody has told you the answer, it's possible to
> >> make some sense of the message. But, I stand by my assertion
> >> that give just the message very many people are going to figure
> >> out that it means you need to replace the "firefox" use flag
> >> with the "xulrunner" use flag so that apps will build against
> >> firefox-3 instead of trying to build against firefox-2.
> >
> > Someone should file a bug to have the message changed to something
> > clearer.
>
> I'd be happy to do that.  Is the following correct?
>
>   The UI and rendering libraries that were part of the
>   mozilla-firefox 2.x package have been split from the mozilla
>   firefox-3.x package and are now in the xulrunner package.  In
>   order for ebuilds to use xulrunner instead of mozilla-firefox
>   2.x, the "firefox" USE flag must be replaced by the
>   "xulrunner" USE flag.  Failure to replace the "firefox" USE
>   flag with the "xulrunner" USE flag will result in portage
>   requiring mozilla-firefox 2.x which is incompatible with
>   mozilla-firefox 3.x -- this will block some packages from
>   building.

replace 
"will result in portage requiring mozilla-firefox 2.x" 
with 
"will result in portage attempting to merge mozilla-firefox-2.x"

It's not portage that requires firefox, but some other ebuilds.

Other than that, the language makes sense and is technically accurate - not 
too much detail, but enough info to tell the user what to do. You got the 
intent right - the user does not really have a choice about what to USE if 
they want ff-3

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Stroller]

On 19 Jan 2009, at 16:59, Grant Edwards wrote:
>> ...
>> Someone should file a bug to have the message changed to something  
>> clearer.
>
> I'd be happy to do that.  Is the following correct?
>
>  The UI and rendering libraries that were part of the
>  mozilla-firefox 2.x package have been split from the mozilla
>  firefox-3.x package and are now in the xulrunner package.  In
>  order for ebuilds to use xulrunner instead of mozilla-firefox
>  2.x, the "firefox" USE flag must be replaced by the
>  "xulrunner" USE flag.  Failure to replace the "firefox" USE
>  flag with the "xulrunner" USE flag will result in portage
>  requiring mozilla-firefox 2.x which is incompatible with
>  mozilla-firefox 3.x -- this will block some packages from
>  building.

It's kinda wordy.

How about:

    With Firefox 3 the "firefox" USE flag has become "xulrunner".  
Failure
    to change your USE flags will result in portage requiring mozilla- 
firefox
    2.x which is incompatible with mozilla-firefox 3.x and will block
    some packages from building.

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Allan Gottlieb]

At Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:39:13 +0000 Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:

> On 19 Jan 2009, at 16:59, Grant Edwards wrote:
>>> ...
>>> Someone should file a bug to have the message changed to something
>>> clearer.
>>
>> I'd be happy to do that.  Is the following correct?
>>
>>  The UI and rendering libraries that were part of the
>>  mozilla-firefox 2.x package have been split from the mozilla
>>  firefox-3.x package and are now in the xulrunner package.  In
>>  order for ebuilds to use xulrunner instead of mozilla-firefox
>>  2.x, the "firefox" USE flag must be replaced by the
>>  "xulrunner" USE flag.  Failure to replace the "firefox" USE
>>  flag with the "xulrunner" USE flag will result in portage
>>  requiring mozilla-firefox 2.x which is incompatible with
>>  mozilla-firefox 3.x -- this will block some packages from
>>  building.
>
> It's kinda wordy.
>
> How about:
>
>    With Firefox 3 the "firefox" USE flag has become "xulrunner".
> Failure
>    to change your USE flags will result in portage requiring mozilla- 
> firefox
>    2.x which is incompatible with mozilla-firefox 3.x and will block
>    some packages from building.

I would favor the original (with Alan McKinnon's change).  It is
somewhat wordy but this issue has caused several users grief and the
(admittedly repetitive) original wording makes it very clear what must
be done and gives some idea of what caused the change.

allan

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-19, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:

> I would favor the original (with Alan McKinnon's change).  It is
> somewhat wordy but this issue has caused several users grief and the
> (admittedly repetitive) original wording makes it very clear what must
> be done and gives some idea of what caused the change.

Being somewhat repetitive was was intentional. It's sort of
like the redundant information in an error-correction code. It
reduces the liklyhood of being misunderstood -- expecially by
readers for whom English is a second language.  Maybe it's just
me, but I'm always reluctant to follow instructions in emerge
warning messages where there's no explanation of what the
action is doing and why it is needed.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! When you get your
                                  at               PH.D. will you get able to
                               visi.com            work at BURGER KING?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Stroller]

On 19 Jan 2009, at 20:36, Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2009-01-19, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>> I would favor the original (with Alan McKinnon's change).  It is
>> somewhat wordy but this issue has caused several users grief and the
>> (admittedly repetitive) original wording makes it very clear what  
>> must
>> be done and gives some idea of what caused the change.
>
> Being somewhat repetitive was was intentional. It's sort of
> like the redundant information in an error-correction code. It
> reduces the liklyhood of being misunderstood -

It's also more likely to get skipped over & to cause busy  
administrators' eyes to glaze over.

I'm all for being explicit, but verbosity for its own sake is not  
beneficial - with excessively long messages I often tend to find that  
I have to read them over several times to make sure I'm understanding  
it properly. "WTF?!?! Are you REALLY telling me the same thing three  
times?"

A short concise note is more likely to make sense and get the point  
across. Assuming it is written in English - which the original, of  
course, was not - a short note will feel logical to the reader and he  
or she will know immediately how to respond to it.

But, hey! It's your bug. File it. The longer it's left unfiled the  
less relevant this discussion becomes. You asked for opinions - just  
make sure the subject line of your bug report explains the problem  
clearly ;). "ewarn message is poor English, doesn't make sense" is my  
best suggestion.

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 6:10 AM, Stroller
<stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On 19 Jan 2009, at 20:36, Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>> On 2009-01-19, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> I would favor the original (with Alan McKinnon's change).  It is
>>> somewhat wordy but this issue has caused several users grief and the
>>> (admittedly repetitive) original wording makes it very clear what must
>>> be done and gives some idea of what caused the change.
>>
>> Being somewhat repetitive was was intentional. It's sort of
>> like the redundant information in an error-correction code. It
>> reduces the liklyhood of being misunderstood -
>
> It's also more likely to get skipped over & to cause busy administrators'
> eyes to glaze over.
>
> I'm all for being explicit, but verbosity for its own sake is not beneficial
> - with excessively long messages I often tend to find that I have to read
> them over several times to make sure I'm understanding it properly. "WTF?!?!
> Are you REALLY telling me the same thing three times?"
>
> A short concise note is more likely to make sense and get the point across.
> Assuming it is written in English - which the original, of course, was not -
> a short note will feel logical to the reader and he or she will know
> immediately how to respond to it.
>
> But, hey! It's your bug. File it. The longer it's left unfiled the less
> relevant this discussion becomes. You asked for opinions - just make sure
> the subject line of your bug report explains the problem clearly ;). "ewarn
> message is poor English, doesn't make sense" is my best suggestion.
>
> Stroller.

Maybe a compromise would be a short "you should do the following steps
now" message suffixed with a "for more information, follow this link
(to a bug/forum post) that explains why".

[gentoo-user] Re: Trouble decrypting message from firefox ebuild

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-20, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe a compromise would be a short "you should do the following steps
> now" message suffixed with a "for more information, follow this link
> (to a bug/forum post) that explains why".

I filed the bug yesterday using the original wording with the
first suggested change that I received. So this probably best
discussed on bugzilla (I have no idea if the maintainer(s) for
the ebuild are follwing this thread).

Here's the bug:

  http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=255530

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Did I do an INCORRECT
                                  at               THING??
                               visi.com