[gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Wyatt Epp]

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Greets,

So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that I
had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things like the
danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask at a time.  So
I was curious...what have people that are *not* myself and my mate noticed
that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the Gentoo experience?

Cheers,
Wyatt

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[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Wyatt Epp wrote:
> Greets,
> 
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that 
> I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things 
> like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask 
> at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are /not/ myself 
> and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the 
> Gentoo experience?

Its installer.  I would prefer something like Sabayon's installer (which 
is a Gentoo-based distro.)

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Friday 03 April 2009, Wyatt Epp wrote:
> or the way portage will only show one mask at a time. 

that

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> Wyatt Epp wrote:
> > Greets,
> >
> > So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that
> > I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things
> > like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask
> > at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are /not/ myself
> > and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the
> > Gentoo experience?
>
> Its installer.  I would prefer something like Sabayon's installer (which
> is a Gentoo-based distro.)

there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Sebastian Günther]

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* Wyatt Epp (wyatt.epp@gmail.com) [03.04.09 20:00]:
> Greets,
> 
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that I
> had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things like the
> danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask at a time.  So
> I was curious...what have people that are *not* myself and my mate noticed
> that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
> 

Well honestly: nothing lately. depclean had never removed something what 
a -avtDuN and a revdep-rebuild couldn't repair.

> Cheers,
> Wyatt

Sebastian

BTW: There is no need for an installer...

-- 
 " Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. "      Karl Marx

 SEB@STI@N GÜNTHER         mailto:samson@guenther-roetgen.de

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Wyatt Epp]

2009/4/3 Sebastian Günther <samson@guenther-roetgen.de>:
> Well honestly: nothing lately. depclean had never removed something what
> a -avtDuN and a revdep-rebuild couldn't repair.

See, though, that's exactly the problem I'm talking about. :)  Right
now it seems a good chunk of the population uses it as a list command
with extra danger.
>
> Sebastian
>
> BTW: There is no need for an installer...
I'm inclined to agree with this.  Installers lack flexibility.

Cheers,
Wyatt

[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> Wyatt Epp wrote:
>>> Greets,
>>>
>>> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that
>>> I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things
>>> like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask
>>> at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are /not/ myself
>>> and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the
>>> Gentoo experience?
>> Its installer.  I would prefer something like Sabayon's installer (which
>> is a Gentoo-based distro.)
> 
> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.

He asked what annoys me, and I answered truthfully :P

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 4/3/2009 3:38 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.

I will agree that an installer doesn't belong near the top of anyones 
"show stopper" list of Gentoo defects.  Gentoo doesn't *need* an 
installer and all previous attempts at one have been less than 
successful.  We can all certainly get along fine without one.

But can you really provide a non-condescending, *rational* argument 
explaining why it would be an actively detrimental idea to have a 
working installer for Gentoo?  Why, if some person appeared tomorrow 
with a fully functional, debugged, tested, flexible, easy to use, 
fully-handbook-compliant, *optional* drop-in installation process, why 
that would be a bad thing?

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> >> Wyatt Epp wrote:
> >>> Greets,
> >>>
> >>> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> >>> that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so. 
> >>> Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> >>> one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are /not/
> >>> myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to
> >>> the Gentoo experience?
> >>
> >> Its installer.  I would prefer something like Sabayon's installer (which
> >> is a Gentoo-based distro.)
> >
> > there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
>
> He asked what annoys me, and I answered truthfully :P

yeah, but if you think about it for a moment you will see that an installer is 
the WRONG THING and then you won't be annoyed anymore but glad.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Paul Hartman]

2009/4/3 Sebastian Günther <samson@guenther-roetgen.de>:
> Well honestly: nothing lately. depclean had never removed something what
> a -avtDuN and a revdep-rebuild couldn't repair.

I use depclean after every update of world for the past 5 years and
never had any disaster... I always thought the warnings (which have
been toned down since then) were a bit FUD-inspiring. Either I am
really lucky or other people are doing something wrong. :) I guess if
you don't understand the concept of the world file you could really
get into a mess...

With the latest portage versions and preserved-rebuild option, even
revdep-rebuild has really become obsolete. I can't remember the last
time I had to run it. Latest portage deals well with blockers and
automatically resolving them when possible. Error messages when USE
flags are blocking and things like that are much more clear now than
in the old days.

Honestly I am more satisfied with Gentoo now than ever before. The
addition of above features, and layman with the vast array of
overlays, really bleeding-edge stuff, it seems like everything I need
is here. Thanks to all developers for doing a good job. :)

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Jarry]

Wyatt Epp wrote:

>> BTW: There is no need for an installer...
> I'm inclined to agree with this.  Installers lack flexibility.

I'd like to have a possibility of unattended installation.
Some kind of script which loads a prepared text-file with
parameters and does the rest.

There is a lot of typing and if one has to install gentoo
on a few computers, it might be annoying.

Jarry

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Friday 03 April 2009, Jarry wrote:
> Wyatt Epp wrote:
> >> BTW: There is no need for an installer...
> >
> > I'm inclined to agree with this.  Installers lack flexibility.
>
> I'd like to have a possibility of unattended installation.
> Some kind of script which loads a prepared text-file with
> parameters and does the rest.
>
> There is a lot of typing and if one has to install gentoo
> on a few computers, it might be annoying.
>
> Jarry

what? just copy around /etc and do emerge finalpackage like emerge @kde-4.2 
and you are done. Throw a --keep-going in and you can go to sleep.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Wyatt Epp <wyatt.epp@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greets,
>
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that I
> had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things like the
> danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask at a time.  So
> I was curious...what have people that are not myself and my mate noticed
> that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
>
> Cheers,
> Wyatt
>

Portage removing packages from my system that I need to keep the
system working only because someone outside my house decides it's not
going to be supported anymore. This has caused me lots of problems
over the years, most specifically with ATI drivers. New versions do
not support the S-Video outputs I need on my Myth frontend boxes so I
cannot build a Gentoo system from scratch anymore.

Something I'm using gets removed and I cannot upgrade due to the
hardware that's running. Then I have to go find an old version in the
attic, create an overlay, and start supporting that overlay by hand.
Easy for others, I think, but somehow not for me.

I'd really appreciate it if something would create the overlay for me
and move code out of distfiles and into my private overlay so t I
didn't ever lose anything. If I chose to delete it later, that's my
business, but it would happen on my schedule.

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Friday 03 April 2009, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Wyatt Epp <wyatt.epp@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Greets,
> >
> > So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that
> > I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things like
> > the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask at a
> > time.  So I was curious...what have people that are not myself and my
> > mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the Gentoo
> > experience?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Wyatt
>
> Portage removing packages from my system that I need to keep the
> system working only because someone outside my house decides it's not
> going to be supported anymore. This has caused me lots of problems
> over the years, most specifically with ATI drivers. New versions do
> not support the S-Video outputs I need on my Myth frontend boxes so I
> cannot build a Gentoo system from scratch anymore.
>
> Something I'm using gets removed and I cannot upgrade due to the
> hardware that's running. Then I have to go find an old version in the
> attic, create an overlay, and start supporting that overlay by hand.
> Easy for others, I think, but somehow not for me.
>
> I'd really appreciate it if something would create the overlay for me
> and move code out of distfiles and into my private overlay so t I
> didn't ever lose anything. If I chose to delete it later, that's my
> business, but it would happen on my schedule.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark

portage does not remove the packages from the distfiles directory and all 
ebuilds are available from cvs even years after they have been removed.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 22:15:40 +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> > He asked what annoys me, and I answered truthfully :P  
> 
> yeah, but if you think about it for a moment you will see that an
> installer is the WRONG THING and then you won't be annoyed anymore but
> glad.

Didn't we have this discussion a couple of months ago?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Caution, an incorrigible punster - don't incorrige.

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:27:57 +0200, Jarry wrote:

> I'd like to have a possibility of unattended installation.
> Some kind of script which loads a prepared text-file with
> parameters and does the rest.

http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/quickstart.php


-- 
Neil Bothwick

We are upping our standards - so up yours.

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> portage does not remove the packages from the distfiles directory and all
> ebuilds are available from cvs even years after they have been removed.
>

First comment is incorrect, or correct if you're doing your regular
Volker routine and think I should have said emerge instead of portage.
None the less, packages that have been depreciated are first removed
from portage and then when I run eix-sync are removed from my system,
and have been for years now.

ebuilds are available long after tha package has been depreciated.
Probably the actual code is available also. That said, once given to
me and put into use on my system it shouldn't be taken off my system
without permission just because someone doesn't want to support it.
(Even for security reasons. Even that should be my business, but I
understand others will have other opinions on this part.)

Even a flag that stated what revision I don't want to have removed
would be better than what goes on right now.

- Marl

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Daniel da Veiga]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 17:11, Mike Edenfield <kutulu@kutulu.org> wrote:
> On 4/3/2009 3:38 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>
>> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
>
> I will agree that an installer doesn't belong near the top of anyones "show
> stopper" list of Gentoo defects.  Gentoo doesn't *need* an installer and all
> previous attempts at one have been less than successful.  We can all
> certainly get along fine without one.
>
> But can you really provide a non-condescending, *rational* argument
> explaining why it would be an actively detrimental idea to have a working
> installer for Gentoo?  Why, if some person appeared tomorrow with a fully
> functional, debugged, tested, flexible, easy to use,
> fully-handbook-compliant, *optional* drop-in installation process, why that
> would be a bad thing?
>

I would still think its a problema.
People would install Gentoo, get a functional system, not read the
handbook, and flood the forums and this mailing list with already
answered and handbook questions. The installer would only benefit the
more experienced user that would get an unattended installation, and
yet, experienced users tend to customize their systems, so, no
installer would help them.

-- 
Daniel da Veiga

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> <SNIP>
>>
>> portage does not remove the packages from the distfiles directory and all
>> ebuilds are available from cvs even years after they have been removed.
>>
>
> First comment is incorrect, or correct if you're doing your regular
> Volker routine and think I should have said emerge instead of portage.
> None the less, packages that have been depreciated are first removed
> from portage and then when I run eix-sync are removed from my system,
> and have been for years now.
>
> ebuilds are available long after tha package has been depreciated.
> Probably the actual code is available also. That said, once given to
> me and put into use on my system it shouldn't be taken off my system
> without permission just because someone doesn't want to support it.
> (Even for security reasons. Even that should be my business, but I
> understand others will have other opinions on this part.)
>
> Even a flag that stated what revision I don't want to have removed
> would be better than what goes on right now.
>
> - Marl
>
Volker,
   I apologize for speaking quite so strongly here. No reason for me
to have done that.

   I think you may be correct, but the problem still exist. The
problem is that you can be running an driver on your system. The
portage maintainers depreciate it. the ebuilds get stripped form my
machine. Sometime later I choose to clean up distfiles and delete the
driver, thinking I can download it again because the version I'm
running is masked to be the only one I want. I do an emerge sync and
find out it's no longer in portage and have to do a lot of work to get
it back again.

   I think portage could be far more nuanced in this area if it
noticed what I was actually running on the system and moved a copy of
everything somewhere on my system to keep me safe.

   Again, I apologize for speaking so strongly. Your consistent
better-than-others tone sets me off, but that's no reason for me to
react publicly. My bad.

Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Friday 03 April 2009, Daniel da Veiga wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 17:11, Mike Edenfield <kutulu@kutulu.org> wrote:
> > On 4/3/2009 3:38 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> >> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
> >
> > I will agree that an installer doesn't belong near the top of anyones
> > "show stopper" list of Gentoo defects.  Gentoo doesn't *need* an
> > installer and all previous attempts at one have been less than
> > successful.  We can all certainly get along fine without one.
> >
> > But can you really provide a non-condescending, *rational* argument
> > explaining why it would be an actively detrimental idea to have a working
> > installer for Gentoo?  Why, if some person appeared tomorrow with a fully
> > functional, debugged, tested, flexible, easy to use,
> > fully-handbook-compliant, *optional* drop-in installation process, why
> > that would be a bad thing?
>
> I would still think its a problema.
> People would install Gentoo, get a functional system, not read the
> handbook, and flood the forums and this mailing list with already
> answered and handbook questions. The installer would only benefit the
> more experienced user that would get an unattended installation, and
> yet, experienced users tend to customize their systems, so, no
> installer would help them.

exactly. Installer = not reading documentation = epic failure waiting to 
happen

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
>> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> <SNIP>
>>>
>>> portage does not remove the packages from the distfiles directory and all
>>> ebuilds are available from cvs even years after they have been removed.
>>>
>>
>> First comment is incorrect, or correct if you're doing your regular
>> Volker routine and think I should have said emerge instead of portage.
>> None the less, packages that have been depreciated are first removed
>> from portage and then when I run eix-sync are removed from my system,
>> and have been for years now.
>>
>> ebuilds are available long after tha package has been depreciated.
>> Probably the actual code is available also. That said, once given to
>> me and put into use on my system it shouldn't be taken off my system
>> without permission just because someone doesn't want to support it.
>> (Even for security reasons. Even that should be my business, but I
>> understand others will have other opinions on this part.)
>>
>> Even a flag that stated what revision I don't want to have removed
>> would be better than what goes on right now.
>>
>> - Marl
>>
> Volker,
>   I apologize for speaking quite so strongly here. No reason for me
> to have done that.
>
>   I think you may be correct, but the problem still exist. The
> problem is that you can be running an driver on your system. The
> portage maintainers depreciate it. the ebuilds get stripped form my
> machine. Sometime later I choose to clean up distfiles and delete the
> driver, thinking I can download it again because the version I'm
> running is masked to be the only one I want. I do an emerge sync and
> find out it's no longer in portage and have to do a lot of work to get
> it back again.
>
>   I think portage could be far more nuanced in this area if it
> noticed what I was actually running on the system and moved a copy of
> everything somewhere on my system to keep me safe.
>
>   Again, I apologize for speaking so strongly. Your consistent
> better-than-others tone sets me off, but that's no reason for me to
> react publicly. My bad.

Maybe a "sunset" overlay with old obsolete ebuilds to complement the
"sunrise" overlay of things-yet-to-hit portage?

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 3:05 PM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> Maybe a "sunset" overlay with old obsolete ebuilds to complement the
> "sunrise" overlay of things-yet-to-hit portage?

I like the idea but does it solve the root-cause issue - whatever that
might really be - for portage maintainers removing ebuilds and code in
the first place? If it was in the sunset overlay then we'd say they
don't have to support it anymore, which is fine with me, but I'd still
be able to get it which would work. There needs to be a resting place
for the code also, not just the ebuilds. If that's on my system,
somewhere, then that's fine. I just need to know where to go to get it
if my drive crashes and backups fail.

If I added this overlay does that significantly increase what I see
when I do eix ati-drivers? If so then maybe there should be a filter
to only show what I want to see in the sunset overlay and not
everything that's there?

I do like the idea though.

thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 3:05 PM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> <SNIP>
>>
>> Maybe a "sunset" overlay with old obsolete ebuilds to complement the
>> "sunrise" overlay of things-yet-to-hit portage?
>
> I like the idea but does it solve the root-cause issue - whatever that
> might really be - for portage maintainers removing ebuilds and code in
> the first place? If it was in the sunset overlay then we'd say they
> don't have to support it anymore, which is fine with me, but I'd still
> be able to get it which would work. There needs to be a resting place
> for the code also, not just the ebuilds. If that's on my system,
> somewhere, then that's fine. I just need to know where to go to get it
> if my drive crashes and backups fail.
>
> If I added this overlay does that significantly increase what I see
> when I do eix ati-drivers? If so then maybe there should be a filter
> to only show what I want to see in the sunset overlay and not
> everything that's there?
>
> I do like the idea though.

I'm sure the ebuilds would break, dependencies would be a nightmare,
etc... all of the things that come from them not being maintained
anymore. But at least they'd be there easier than getting it from CVS
and making your own overlay. (mask them all and let the users sort 'em
out)

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Philip Webb]

090403 Wyatt Epp wrote:
> what have people that are *not* myself and my mate noticed
> that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the Gentoo experience?

Nothing at all serious: I remain very grateful to those who do the work.

But, I submitted Bug 255463 back on 2009-01-19 & there's been no reply.
Fltk 2 is needed to try out Dillo 2 , which I'ld like to do.

I don't like to complain when bug-fixers are volunteers, so haven't.

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

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Mick]

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On Friday 03 April 2009, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 22:15:40 +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > He asked what annoys me, and I answered truthfully :P
> >
> > yeah, but if you think about it for a moment you will see that an
> > installer is the WRONG THING and then you won't be annoyed anymore but
> > glad.
>
> Didn't we have this discussion a couple of months ago?

... and a couple of months before that, ... and a coupl...  <yawn>
  :)
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Arttu V.]

Wyatt Epp wrote:
> So I was curious...what have people that are /not/ myself and my mate 
> noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the Gentoo experience?

Mildly irritating, disruptive, etc:

- Managing USE flags is sometimes quite irritating, having to fidget 
around /etc/make.conf, /etc/portage/package.use and such with everyone's 
favourite text editors. (Maybe I'm micromanaging them too much?)

- Keeping the crud out of /etc/portage/package.keywords and other 
similar portage files (much like with the case of USE flags above) for 
us who don't run bleeding edge ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="arch ~arch".

- Difficulty of predicting how long some new package compilations (with 
dependencies, upgrades and revdep-rebuilds etc) will actually take 
(genlop -t only knows about individual packages that have been emerged 
before)

- Portage 2.2 stopping dead with "you should re-emerge foo with USE=bar" 
with the new cat/foo[bar]-style dependencies.

-- 
Arttu V.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Dan Cowsill]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Daniel da Veiga <danieldaveiga@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would still think its a problema.
> People would install Gentoo, get a functional system, not read the
> handbook, and flood the forums and this mailing list with already
> answered and handbook questions.
> Daniel da Veiga
>

I think the minute you start looking at Gentoo or the installation
process as a sort of 'proving ground' for advanced users, you lose
your objectivity in a discussion like this.  The bottom line is that
if a user is willing, he will learn and prosper with Gentoo, installer
or no installer.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Mark David Dumlao]

On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 1:59 AM, Wyatt Epp <wyatt.epp@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greets,
>
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that I
> had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things like the
> danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask at a time.  So

I always did want an emerge option or frontend that showed the tree of
blockers and masks when doing emerge -a and friends and suggested
resolution paths. aptitude works it pretty fine.

[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>> On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>>> Its installer.  I would prefer something like Sabayon's installer (which
>>>> is a Gentoo-based distro.)
>>> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
>> He asked what annoys me, and I answered truthfully :P
> 
> yeah, but if you think about it for a moment you will see that an installer is 
> the WRONG THING and then you won't be annoyed anymore but glad.

I thought about it and I would still like an installer.  People asked me 
"I want that too" after they see what Gentoo can do and is about.  I 
could help them learn to keep their Gentoo healthy and running, but I am 
not willing to install it for them or teach them how to install it 
themselves.  Too much work.  So from my observational point, the lack of 
an installer just means that people who would like to try Gentoo just 
don't, because the learning curve is too steep, beginning right at the 
installation.  To learn, you need a system that already runs so you can 
learn that system.  Gentoo needs to be installed by someone who already 
knows.  Chicken and egg.

If it wasn't for the GUI installer of the 2007 live DVD (it's what I 
used to install it), I wouldn't ever have installed Gentoo.  I have a 
life.  And so does the majority of other people.  I learned Gentoo (and 
I think I learned it quite well) even while I used the GUI installer. 
And I believe even that I learned Gentoo the right way.  I am proof that 
an installer doesn't only produce clueless Gentoo users.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Saturday 04 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> >> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> >>> On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> >>>> Its installer.  I would prefer something like Sabayon's installer
> >>>> (which is a Gentoo-based distro.)
> >>>
> >>> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
> >>
> >> He asked what annoys me, and I answered truthfully :P
> >
> > yeah, but if you think about it for a moment you will see that an
> > installer is the WRONG THING and then you won't be annoyed anymore but
> > glad.
>
> I thought about it and I would still like an installer.  People asked me
> "I want that too" after they see what Gentoo can do and is about.  I
> could help them learn to keep their Gentoo healthy and running, but I am
> not willing to install it for them or teach them how to install it
> themselves.  Too much work.  So from my observational point, the lack of
> an installer just means that people who would like to try Gentoo just
> don't, because the learning curve is too steep, beginning right at the
> installation.  To learn, you need a system that already runs so you can
> learn that system.  Gentoo needs to be installed by someone who already
> knows.  Chicken and egg.
>
> If it wasn't for the GUI installer of the 2007 live DVD (it's what I
> used to install it), I wouldn't ever have installed Gentoo.  I have a
> life.  And so does the majority of other people.  I learned Gentoo (and
> I think I learned it quite well) even while I used the GUI installer.
> And I believe even that I learned Gentoo the right way.  I am proof that
> an installer doesn't only produce clueless Gentoo users.

maybe, but at the high time of the installer the forum was full with clueless 
(and it still is). Following the handbook is not hard. 

[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> [...]
> maybe, but at the high time of the installer the forum was full with clueless 
> (and it still is). Following the handbook is not hard. 

If you don't have a second PC, it's not easy either.  And besides, what 
have the clueless done to you? :D  Just let them be.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Saphirus Sage]

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>> On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>>> On Friday 03 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>>>> Its installer.  I would prefer something like Sabayon's installer
>>>>> (which
>>>>> is a Gentoo-based distro.)
>>>> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
>>> He asked what annoys me, and I answered truthfully :P
>>
>> yeah, but if you think about it for a moment you will see that an
>> installer is the WRONG THING and then you won't be annoyed anymore
>> but glad.
>
> I thought about it and I would still like an installer.  People asked
> me "I want that too" after they see what Gentoo can do and is about. 
> I could help them learn to keep their Gentoo healthy and running, but
> I am not willing to install it for them or teach them how to install
> it themselves.  Too much work.  So from my observational point, the
> lack of an installer just means that people who would like to try
> Gentoo just don't, because the learning curve is too steep, beginning
> right at the installation.  To learn, you need a system that already
> runs so you can learn that system.  Gentoo needs to be installed by
> someone who already knows.  Chicken and egg.
>
> If it wasn't for the GUI installer of the 2007 live DVD (it's what I
> used to install it), I wouldn't ever have installed Gentoo.  I have a
> life.  And so does the majority of other people.  I learned Gentoo
> (and I think I learned it quite well) even while I used the GUI
> installer. And I believe even that I learned Gentoo the right way.  I
> am proof that an installer doesn't only produce clueless Gentoo users.
>
>
I made my first install from the 2008.0 Minimal CD, which was all fun
and good, but later on a laptop when I was completely unaware of
initramfs, a LiveCD was my only way to actually manage to install
Gentoo. I can see how a completely "Wizard-like" installer would go
against a lot of what this distro seems to have centered as a primary
focus, but it certainly could act as a way to influence more to use it.
Then again, being something of a "developer' distro", where one will
usually compile every package they install, it may have by that single
mechanism lost a lot of those who would otherwise use it. Granted, it's
a feature of Gentoo I rather like.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 9:28 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>> maybe, but at the high time of the installer the forum was full with
>> clueless (and it still is). Following the handbook is not hard.
>
> If you don't have a second PC, it's not easy either.  And besides, what have
> the clueless done to you? :D  Just let them be.

My first install I was determined to do stage 1, I had a printed
handbook, no network, no second computer... finally i had to give up
and go to stage 2 so i could at least get it going :P

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Saturday 04 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > [...]
> > maybe, but at the high time of the installer the forum was full with
> > clueless (and it still is). Following the handbook is not hard.
>
> If you don't have a second PC, it's not easy either. 

I wrote down the 27 steps on a single sheet of a5 paper and followed them when 
I installed gentoo 1.0. Later I just saved the handbook on the usb stick I was 
using ...

> And besides, what
> have the clueless done to you? :D  Just let them be.

well, I try to be a good member of the community - and that means helping in 
the forum. And it sucks to deal with the complete clueless. Even worse are 
people who are clueless and become aggressive when pointed to the 
documentation.

When I started with Linux 'RTFM' was seen as an appropriate answer - but today 
you could hurt someones precious feelings - and not hurting an imbecile is 
very, very hard and taxing.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>> maybe, but at the high time of the installer the forum was full with
>> clueless (and it still is). Following the handbook is not hard.
>
> If you don't have a second PC, it's not easy either.  And besides, what have
> the clueless done to you? :D  Just let them be.
>

In the couple of cases I've dealt with this setup I've used a second
console and Alt-Ctrl-F1/F2 to go back and forth so even that doesn't
have to be an excuse. (And I totally get that you aren't trying to
make an excuse, I'm just saying it doesn't have to be.) It's not as
easy as copy/paste in a terminal, but it works.

I've done installs in Australia from California. Once the machine is
booted and shh is running, it works. My friend went to bed and woke up
to a fully working machine. He ran 4 or 5 Gentoo machines for years
and recently quit completely to use Arch Linux because he was
frustrated with packages being 'broken all the time' according to him.
I run the same software for the most part and don't notice it.

All that said, and speaking for myself I'm not looking for an
installer, but for years I've wondered why there isn't a really,
really, really 'simple install' that just puts a bootable kernel and
grub on a machine and gets the machine booting in 15 minutes. Nothing
fancy, not cool, no graphics. Just really basic in that it gets you
past the CD and working with your hardware pretty quickly, so that
then I can do the 25-30 steps on my own schedule without the CD in the
machine.

That said, I'm not asking for anything or even frustrated with
anything. Gentoo is just Gentoo. It is the way it is. I don't think
anyone is stopping anyone else from making it better, if better really
means an installer, but I'd never really ask anyone to invest the time
to do these things. I figure there are lots of smart people here so if
anyone smart wanted it then it will get done, right?

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Mark David Dumlao]

On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 11:27 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 04 April 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> And besides, what
>> have the clueless done to you? :D  Just let them be.
>
> well, I try to be a good member of the community - and that means helping in
> the forum. And it sucks to deal with the complete clueless. Even worse are
> people who are clueless and become aggressive when pointed to the
> documentation.
>
> When I started with Linux 'RTFM' was seen as an appropriate answer - but today
> you could hurt someones precious feelings - and not hurting an imbecile is
> very, very hard and taxing.

"The goal of Gentoo is to design tools and systems that allow a user
to do that work as pleasantly and efficiently as possible, as /they/
see fit. Our tools should be a joy to use, and should help the user to
appreciate the richness of the Linux and free software community, and
the flexibility of free software. This is only possible when the tool
is designed to reflect and transmit the will of the user, and leave
the possibilities open as to the final form of the raw materials (the
source code.) If the tool forces the user to do things a particular
way, then the tool is working against, rather than for, the user. We
have all experienced situations where tools seem to be imposing their
respective wills on us. This is backwards, and contrary to the Gentoo
philosophy."

I have been using gentoo for quite a while and I like the way it does
things. However, is that because the tools have allowed me to work as
_I_ see fit, or is it because I have adapted to the workflow that the
developers have seen fit for me?

Gentoo is a set of tools for advanced users. Some of us love poking
around, solving puzzles and tweaking things to no end. Some of us just
want things done. I am of the first kind, but I do not believe that I
am some "special, priviledged member" of the community that should be
catered to at the expense of the other. I don't care if users flood
the forums or the community just because the tools are sufficiently
complete and correct, as they were originally supposed to be,
currently strive to be, and eventually in the future should be.

If that hurts people who believe that gentoo only belongs to them,
then tough luck for them. They are wrong.

As for the specific question at hand, the question is not "should
there be a gentoo installer", but "are we ready for one?" and "what
form should it take?". I believe a gentoo installer that is actually
just a guided handbook might be all that we are ready to develop - and
support - at the present moment.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 03 April 2009 22:11:28 Mike Edenfield wrote:
> On 4/3/2009 3:38 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
>
> I will agree that an installer doesn't belong near the top of anyones
> "show stopper" list of Gentoo defects.  Gentoo doesn't *need* an
> installer and all previous attempts at one have been less than
> successful.  We can all certainly get along fine without one.
>
> But can you really provide a non-condescending, *rational* argument
> explaining why it would be an actively detrimental idea to have a
> working installer for Gentoo?  Why, if some person appeared tomorrow
> with a fully functional, debugged, tested, flexible, easy to use,
> fully-handbook-compliant, *optional* drop-in installation process, why
> that would be a bad thing?

This mythical thing - a working installer - probably does not exist and likely 
never will.

There are just too many decisions the human must make while installing Gentoo 
and too many of them do not have sane defaults. So the installer is still 
going to ask the human to make decisions, it is going to provide a list of 
possibilities and say "pick one", and then automate whatever that means.

Now, this stuff is all in the handbook anyway; google, the docs, ls* and dmesg 
still give the answers, they still have to be used, so actually an installer 
changes nothing. The same questions will still be asked on the forums and here 
and nothing will really change. Which isn't surprising, an installer is just a 
front end to the same back end.

gentoo is not a binary distro, it does not work like a binary distro. You are 
not limited to the narrow choices provided you by the packagers. You can do 
anything you like that the sources support, and an installer author is 
unlikely to ever know everything about that.

Besides, we already have a perfect installer. You are just all confused about 
it's name. Folk think it's called "genkernel" or "LiveCD" or some such. 
Actually, it goes by these names:

bash
vi
tar
emerge

Note that these are the *exact* *same* *tools* you are going to use every day 
after the install is done.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:14:05 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:

> I like the idea but does it solve the root-cause issue - whatever that
> might really be - for portage maintainers removing ebuilds and code in
> the first place? If it was in the sunset overlay then we'd say they
> don't have to support it anymore, which is fine with me, but I'd still
> be able to get it which would work. There needs to be a resting place
> for the code also, not just the ebuilds.

There is, upstream's server. If upstream no longer makes the code
available, you can hardly blame the Gentoo devs for not wanting it in
portage.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

There are two standards for anything...
One for the U.S. and one for the rest of the world.

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 03 April 2009 23:46:44 Mark Knecht wrote:
>    I think you may be correct, but the problem still exist. The
> problem is that you can be running an driver on your system. The
> portage maintainers depreciate it. the ebuilds get stripped form my
> machine. Sometime later I choose to clean up distfiles and delete the
> driver, thinking I can download it again because the version I'm
> running is masked to be the only one I want. I do an emerge sync and
> find out it's no longer in portage and have to do a lot of work to get
> it back again.

I'd like a way to completely lock a package to the current running version, 
and be able to do something like this:

emerge --lock <some-package-some-version>

emerge could then move the ebuild to a local overlay, mask out higher 
versions, and remember the original ebuild source (portage tree|overlay) and 
keep checking back in for -r updates.

This would let people lock video drivers to a certain version while still 
getting -r* bug-fix updates. It would fix the problem of having to go and 
fetch ebuilds from a repo after they have been uninstalled. It would also fix 
my current issue of having to closely inspect emerge output to make sure that 
KDE-4 ebuilds are coming from the tree, not the overlay.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:24:58 +0300, Arttu V. wrote:

> - Managing USE flags is sometimes quite irritating, having to fidget 
> around /etc/make.conf, /etc/portage/package.use and such with
> everyone's favourite text editors. (Maybe I'm micromanaging them too
> much?)

emerge flagedit

> - Keeping the crud out of /etc/portage/package.keywords and other 
> similar portage files (much like with the case of USE flags above) for 
> us who don't run bleeding edge ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="arch ~arch".

eix-test-obsolete

> - Difficulty of predicting how long some new package compilations (with 
> dependencies, upgrades and revdep-rebuilds etc) will actually take 
> (genlop -t only knows about individual packages that have been emerged 
> before)

That's got to be harder than providing an accurate weather forecast.

> - Portage 2.2 stopping dead with "you should re-emerge foo with
> USE=bar" with the new cat/foo[bar]-style dependencies.

Would you rather portage simply re-emerged installed packages with
different USE flags without consulting you? I suppose a "package X needs
to be remerged with USE=Y, proceed Y/n" message could be useful, maybe
with an option to do accept this automatically.

Gentoo is about providing ultimate control to the admin, so you can't
really complain about having to make those choices :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Velilind's Laws of Experimentation:
1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 04 April 2009 01:24:58 Arttu V. wrote:
> - Portage 2.2 stopping dead with "you should re-emerge foo with USE=bar"
> with the new cat/foo[bar]-style dependencies.

Sadly, that one is unavoidable. You have a circumstance where it is not 
possible to continue and the missing bit must be fixed first. Note that this 
is not a new problem, it just has an easier way to detect it and a new syntax 
to annoy you with.

emerge is non-interactive and is intended to run till completion without 
intervention, so putting a interactive prompt in is contrary to it's design. 
What could work is a way to do these checks during the initial phase so you 
get told about it before the actual building starts, just like with blockers.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 09:45:01 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> bash
> vi
> tar
> emerge
> 
> Note that these are the *exact* *same* *tools* you are going to use
> every day after the install is done.

You must be joking, I wouldn't be caught dead using the first two ;-)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

DCE seeks DTE for mutual exchange of data.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 04 April 2009 09:59:15 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 09:45:01 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > bash
> > vi
> > tar
> > emerge
> >
> > Note that these are the *exact* *same* *tools* you are going to use
> > every day after the install is done.
>
> You must be joking, I wouldn't be caught dead using the first two ;-)

OK.

alias bash='zsh'
alias vi='nano'

See, that wasn't so hard was it?

:-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Dale]

Dan Cowsill wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Daniel da Veiga <danieldaveiga@gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> I would still think its a problema.
>> People would install Gentoo, get a functional system, not read the
>> handbook, and flood the forums and this mailing list with already
>> answered and handbook questions.
>> Daniel da Veiga
>>
>>     
>
> I think the minute you start looking at Gentoo or the installation
> process as a sort of 'proving ground' for advanced users, you lose
> your objectivity in a discussion like this.  The bottom line is that
> if a user is willing, he will learn and prosper with Gentoo, installer
> or no installer.
>
>
>   

I wouldn't saying installing is a proving ground but it is a learning
tool.  I don't like the idea of a installer either.  I have installed
form a CD that had a installer and I always did it manually.  It is
faster and you only have to do it once.  If you use a installer, you end
up doing it again anyway.  There will be something the installer set up
that is not the way you want it to be and you have to change it.

I have to say, of all the things the -devs have on their plate to deal
with, a installer shouldn't be one of them.  It's not like there is
enough devs and some are just sitting around with nothing to do.  I
would guess that they wish they had more time to deal with what they
currently have in front of them.

My opinion, agree with it or not.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Sebastian Günther]

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* Nikos Chantziaras (realnc@arcor.de) [04.04.09 03:55]:
> 
> I thought about it and I would still like an installer.  People asked me 
> "I want that too" after they see what Gentoo can do and is about.  I 
> could help them learn to keep their Gentoo healthy and running, but I am 
> not willing to install it for them or teach them how to install it 
> themselves.  Too much work. 

1.) If they want it, then they *have* to learn it. No convinience 
    here!
2.) They learn much more about their system, when they install it, than 
    from a running system: For once they *know* what is installed and 
    how that is configured.

> So from my observational point, the lack of 
> an installer just means that people who would like to try Gentoo just 
> don't, because the learning curve is too steep, beginning right at the 
> installation.  To learn, you need a system that already runs so you can 
> learn that system.  Gentoo needs to be installed by someone who already 
> knows.  Chicken and egg.
>

1) If the people need to learn Linux: give them Ubuntu. If they are 
   annoyed enough about how the things are configured there, then they 
   are willing to learn the things they need for Gentoo.
2) You only have the chicken and egg problem if you want every newbie to 
   Linux start with Gentoo and also support his/her unwillingness to 
   RTFM.

Gentoo is not for people, which want to be washed, but not to get wet!

Sebastian

-- 
 " Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. "      Karl Marx

 SEB@STI@N GÜNTHER         mailto:samson@guenther-roetgen.de

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[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[ABCD]

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Alan McKinnon wrote:
> What could work is a way to do these checks during the initial phase so you 
> get told about it before the actual building starts, just like with blockers.
> 

Which is exactly how it works, now, with the new USE-deps (before you
had to wait until the pkg_setup phase, now it stops while calculating
dependencies).

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Stroller]

On 4 Apr 2009, at 08:56, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:24:58 +0300, Arttu V. wrote:
> ...
>> - Difficulty of predicting how long some new package compilations  
>> (with
>> dependencies, upgrades and revdep-rebuilds etc) will actually take
>> (genlop -t only knows about individual packages that have been  
>> emerged
>> before)
>
> That's got to be harder than providing an accurate weather forecast.

Back in the day people were asking for this when I was installing  
Gentoo from stage 1 on Pentium III 500mhz machines.

I read the -dev list at that time, and have seen the responses  
explaining why Neil's is an entirely accurate characterisation.

What we did then was just left our emerges running overnight. I find  
it hard to believe that - in these days when many on this list will be  
using Core 2 Duo machines - this is really such a problem. We're no  
longer talking of emerges taking days or even weeks (yes, I have seen  
`emerge -e world` take 3 weeks or so!) we're now talking in terms of  
minutes per package. Do you really need to know EXACTLY how many? Or  
can you just accept a little patience as the cost of using Gentoo?

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 04 April 2009 10:59:35 ABCD wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > What could work is a way to do these checks during the initial phase so
> > you get told about it before the actual building starts, just like with
> > blockers.
>
> Which is exactly how it works, now, with the new USE-deps (before you
> had to wait until the pkg_setup phase, now it stops while calculating
> dependencies).

Ah, OK. I haven't run into one of these yet so didn't know how it worked with 
latest versions.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:24:58 +0300, Arttu V. wrote:
>> [...]
>> - Difficulty of predicting how long some new package compilations (with 
>> dependencies, upgrades and revdep-rebuilds etc) will actually take 
>> (genlop -t only knows about individual packages that have been emerged 
>> before)
> 
> That's got to be harder than providing an accurate weather forecast.

Time would be impossible to predict.  But compilation progress might be 
feasible.  CMake does this, for example.  It's nice to know I'm about 
70% done with the build.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Dominic Kexel]

I am using Gentoo for some years now, and installing Gentoo on a new
box isn't hard at all, but you have to be prepared. You need a running
linux-system, a live-CD (or USB-Stick), and the handbook.

So, i have SLAX and the handbook on my USB-Stick which i use to install
Gentoo. Boot SLAX, look at the handbook, and the installation is pretty
easy. When i started using Linux (with SuSE 7.1 iirc), i soon tried other
distros and got stuck with Gentoo, and i had no problems with installing,
even when i was a total noob at linux.

When someone ask me: "Hey, you know that linux-stuff. I have heard it must
be pretty cool, i want to give it a try! Which distro should i try?", i
think two seconds about it and then always say "Gentoo", because when
someone is not able to install it, i think he should not use a computer at
all. I think there are a lot of people using a computer who should not be
allowed to use one ;)

Installing Gentoo (and using Linux (maybe except Ubuntu) in general) 
forces you to learn how computer and operation systems works, how one 
gearwheel fits into another etc.

> If they want it, then they *have* to learn it.


On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 10:52:29 +0200
Sebastian Günther <samson@guenther-roetgen.de> wrote:

> * Nikos Chantziaras (realnc@arcor.de) [04.04.09 03:55]:
> > 
> > I thought about it and I would still like an installer.  People asked me 
> > "I want that too" after they see what Gentoo can do and is about.  I 
> > could help them learn to keep their Gentoo healthy and running, but I am 
> > not willing to install it for them or teach them how to install it 
> > themselves.  Too much work. 
> 
> 1.) If they want it, then they *have* to learn it. No convinience 
>     here!
> 2.) They learn much more about their system, when they install it, than 
>     from a running system: For once they *know* what is installed and 
>     how that is configured.
> 
> > So from my observational point, the lack of 
> > an installer just means that people who would like to try Gentoo just 
> > don't, because the learning curve is too steep, beginning right at the 
> > installation.  To learn, you need a system that already runs so you can 
> > learn that system.  Gentoo needs to be installed by someone who already 
> > knows.  Chicken and egg.
> >
> 
> 1) If the people need to learn Linux: give them Ubuntu. If they are 
>    annoyed enough about how the things are configured there, then they 
>    are willing to learn the things they need for Gentoo.
> 2) You only have the chicken and egg problem if you want every newbie to 
>    Linux start with Gentoo and also support his/her unwillingness to 
>    RTFM.
> 
> Gentoo is not for people, which want to be washed, but not to get wet!
> 
> Sebastian
> 
> -- 
>  " Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. "      Karl Marx
> 
>  SEB@STI@N GÜNTHER         mailto:samson@guenther-roetgen.de
> 


-- 
Dominic Kexel <nexenta@evil-monkey-in-my-closet.com>

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Arttu V.]

On 4/4/09, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:24:58 +0300, Arttu V. wrote:
>
>> - Managing USE flags is sometimes quite irritating, having to fidget
>> around /etc/make.conf, /etc/portage/package.use and such with
>> everyone's favourite text editors. (Maybe I'm micromanaging them too
>> much?)
>
> emerge flagedit

Yes, flagedit sure helps on a single box, but when running several
Gentoo boxes, with slightly differing USE settings, arches and whatnot
(firewall, server, old box for light browsing/office work, new-ish
multimedia/gaming workstation, a laptop, one with radeon-drivers,
another with nvidia-drivers etc), it all tends to get a bit hairy.

What I'm maybe thinking about is some kind of Microsoft AD / SUS style
or similar pushing parts of policies or changes across all boxes in a
domain (or whatever they call them there). But then again, if that is
a priority, then running Windows or CentOS Linux with Red Hat's stuff
might be better for that than Gentoo in the first place? :)

>> - Keeping the crud out of /etc/portage/package.keywords and other
>> similar portage files (much like with the case of USE flags above) for
>> us who don't run bleeding edge ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="arch ~arch".
>
> eix-test-obsolete

That was a good call, thank you! I have been avoiding eix for various
reasons, but now I emerged it and tried it. Blindfolded and both hands
tied behind its back eix-test-obselete beat my own embarrassingly
simplistic helper perl-scripts. Very good indeed, thanks!

> Would you rather portage simply re-emerged installed packages with
> different USE flags without consulting you? I suppose a "package X needs
> to be remerged with USE=Y, proceed Y/n" message could be useful, maybe
> with an option to do accept this automatically.

Yes, I think this is more of a default settings issue. I'm betting
999/1000 cases or even worse, the user/admin just goes and emerges the
dep with the required USE anyway. So why waste the time (or introduce
compulsory interactivity) from most people and not have it as a
default?

Ok, I admit, it might create some really hairy situations for deep
trees when some critical system package would get silently re-emerged
with a new flag -- but maybe the automagic could only work for
packages not in system/@system? Then  there would be hope of having a
reasonably sane box (command line) remaining even if the automagic in
the emerge would end up shooting yourself in the foot ...

> Gentoo is about providing ultimate control to the admin, so you can't
> really complain about having to make those choices :)

Hrpmft, I thought by now -- after about a decade or so of development
of the brightest young minds of planet Earth -- there would be a
package available in Gentoo with a command or script like
eix-do-what-i-mean(t). ;)

-- 
Arttu V.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Sebastian Günther]

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* Alan McKinnon (alan.mckinnon@gmail.com) [04.04.09 09:57]:
> 
> emerge --lock <some-package-some-version>
> 
I find this suggestion very good, and would like to ask the more 
experienced participants, if such thing was thought of before.

I'm thinking about some options to freeze a system totally, servers 
would like this, and some options to gradually move back from testing to 
stable.

That was the thing that annoyed me in the last weeks:
a simple possibility to say: hold this packageversion until it is back 
to stable.

So I'm suggesting the following new options for emerge:

--freeze: hold this package version *and* revision
--hold: hold this package version, but allow revision updates
--hold-til-stable: hold this package, until it hits stable, and then use 
the stable version.

--testing: set the ~x86 keyword for this package and necessary 
dependencies

I know that this is done relatively easy for one package, but with 
sets this can become a really powerful feature. Since I started to 
catogorize my whole system with sets, this could be a really wonderfull 
way to easily say, keep that version of XFCE, that I have installed:

emerge --hold @xfce #assuming you have all xfce packages in that set...

is a little less work, than masking every package by hand.

And a little helper to create a local overlay:

--copy-to-local: make a local overlay entry for that package

I would gladly help to implement this, but I did not read anything about 
becoming a dev.

Sebastian

-- 
 " Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. "      Karl Marx

 SEB@STI@N GÜNTHER         mailto:samson@guenther-roetgen.de

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Arttu V.]

On 4/4/09, Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> Do you really need to know EXACTLY how many? Or
> can you just accept a little patience as the cost of using Gentoo?

I'd be happy for a modest, rough guesstimator. A "Gentoo emerge
weather forecast"-gauge/meter if you will. :)

I'm currently running boxes from ~1Ghz up to this four-year-old
single-core AthlonXP 3500+ (and thinking about getting one of 'em
blisteringly fast Phenom IIs or Core2Duos), so I may be an anachronism
with my systems.

I think in theory one could probably use the kernel's bogomips value,
CPU count, source package language and size, and maybe some known few
key system package's emerge times to guesstimate the emerge time of
the rest. It could provide, e.g., a guessed worst and best scenario.
Naturally it couldn't do much about the potential revdep-rebuild part,
though.

Darn, maybe I have to allocate some time to try to build one myself?
Just don't hold your breath while waiting nor keep hopes too high ...
;)

-- 
Arttu V.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Thomas Kahle]

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Wyatt Epp wrote:
> Greets,
> 
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that
> I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things
> like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask
> at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are /not/ myself
> and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the
> Gentoo experience?

Two things, but I think there is not much you can do about it:

1) There are too many ebuilds in bugzilla which should either
a) move on to the tree at some point, or if there is something wrong
b) someone point to mistakes such that the contributing user can learn
new things and do better next time.

This fact is the most frustrating when you try to contribute things as a
'normal user'.
On the other hand of course developers are not paid and no one can be
forced to care for ebuilds that he or she does not find interesting...

2) Hidden dependencies. Especially Hardware related packages like
hal/dbus/kernel/xorg/... always seemed to have hidden dependencies. It
feels like this: All the latest versions of ~x86 work, and likewise all
the latest stable versions work together, but if you try to mix them you
trigger bugs and run into all sorts of trouble.
Often it is also hard to find people able to reproduce the bug because
devs mostly use the latest versions of everything.
But I guess this is a general problem with a metadistribution. Just not
every combination can be checked.

Ok, so much for my 2c.

Tom


> 
> Cheers,
> Wyatt


-- 
Thomas Kahle

The fundamental theorem of algebra is open source. Like any other
mathematical theorem it can be applied free of charge and everybody
has access to its proof and can convince himself how it works. Why
should software be any different?


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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 14:55:47 +0300, Arttu V. wrote:

> > Do you really need to know EXACTLY how many? Or
> > can you just accept a little patience as the cost of using Gentoo?  
> 
> I'd be happy for a modest, rough guesstimator. A "Gentoo emerge
> weather forecast"-gauge/meter if you will. :)

Before genlop came along, I used a script I found on the forums that
compared the number of .c and .o files in the build directory, giving an
estimate of how far you'd got through the compilation. It was reasonably
helpful most of the time.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

How is it possible to have a civil war?

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 09:54:50 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> I'd like a way to completely lock a package to the current running
> version, and be able to do something like this:
> 
> emerge --lock <some-package-some-version>
> 
> emerge could then move the ebuild to a local overlay, mask out higher 
> versions, and remember the original ebuild source (portage
> tree|overlay) and keep checking back in for -r updates.

This would be great, but it seems very complex. Portage would also need
to do the same for dependencies. Worse, a package could depend on what
was the latest version of a package when the ebuild was still
maintained, but break with later versions out now.
 

-- 
Neil Bothwick

OPERATOR ERROR: Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah!

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 14:06:49 +0300, Arttu V. wrote:

> > emerge flagedit
> 
> Yes, flagedit sure helps on a single box, but when running several
> Gentoo boxes, with slightly differing USE settings, arches and whatnot
> (firewall, server, old box for light browsing/office work, new-ish
> multimedia/gaming workstation, a laptop, one with radeon-drivers,
> another with nvidia-drivers etc), it all tends to get a bit hairy.

That's a fair point, and one that could be managed by using directories
for package.{use,keywords,etc}. Then you could have a file with global
settings that it pushed out to all computers and other files for
machine-specific settings. 

> > eix-test-obsolete
> 
> That was a good call, thank you! I have been avoiding eix for various
> reasons,

Various reasons? I can't think of one. The indexing is so useful and
test-obsolete is a bonus.

> > Would you rather portage simply re-emerged installed packages with
> > different USE flags without consulting you? I suppose a "package X
> > needs to be remerged with USE=Y, proceed Y/n" message could be
> > useful, maybe with an option to do accept this automatically.
> 
> Yes, I think this is more of a default settings issue. I'm betting
> 999/1000 cases or even worse, the user/admin just goes and emerges the
> dep with the required USE anyway. So why waste the time (or introduce
> compulsory interactivity) from most people and not have it as a
> default?

Making portage suddenly start re-emerging packages as a default is a bad
idea. The feature should be useful, but it should be turned on on the
command line, after seeing the need for it when running emerge -p/a
 
> > Gentoo is about providing ultimate control to the admin, so you can't
> > really complain about having to make those choices :)
> 
> Hrpmft, I thought by now -- after about a decade or so of development
> of the brightest young minds of planet Earth -- there would be a
> package available in Gentoo with a command or script like
> eix-do-what-i-mean(t). ;)

You know that computers only do what you tell them to, not what you
mean :(


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Eat shit - 50 million flies can't be wrong
Use Microsoft . . . . .

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Norman Rieß]

I am annoyed by a little more generous thing lately, which i am afraid
isn't fixable by a summer of code. But you wanted to know what annoys
me, so here it is.

There was a lib update, that broke sancho a while ago. A new version of
sancho fixed this. But i had to use this new version from the developers
site, because even ~arch package was several versions lower.
Some weeks ago the oscar protocol or something was changed and pidgin
was not able to login to icq. New version fixed this instantly, but it
took a while till this version hit ~arch. Again i had to install a
program outside of portage.
Gnome 2.26 was released and 2.24 hit portage around that time.
I just built me an openbox desktop today. Google and Openbox Hompage
show quite a few docks which can be used. None of them is in portage or
it is hardmasked. There where two docks available, one segfaulted! I
found a great taskbar named tint2, not in portage. I compiled it and it
works perfectly.

This is what annoys me most lately. And yes, i am planning on reading
into ebuild stuff and trying to contribute.

regards
Norman

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 04 April 2009 22:42:00 Norman Rieß wrote:
> I am annoyed by a little more generous thing lately, which i am afraid
> isn't fixable by a summer of code. But you wanted to know what annoys
> me, so here it is.
>
> There was a lib update, that broke sancho a while ago. A new version of
> sancho fixed this. But i had to use this new version from the developers
> site, because even ~arch package was several versions lower.
> Some weeks ago the oscar protocol or something was changed and pidgin
> was not able to login to icq. New version fixed this instantly, but it
> took a while till this version hit ~arch. Again i had to install a
> program outside of portage.

These are indeed tricky problems. And you rightly know that it is a human 
problem not solveable with code. It requires testing and more specifically 
unit testing that detects regressions.

> Gnome 2.26 was released and 2.24 hit portage around that time.
> I just built me an openbox desktop today. Google and Openbox Hompage
> show quite a few docks which can be used. None of them is in portage or
> it is hardmasked. There where two docks available, one segfaulted! I
> found a great taskbar named tint2, not in portage. I compiled it and it
> works perfectly.

Gnome in portage has it's share of problems. There is a very interesting bug 
at bugs.gentoo.org that lays out why portage is eternally ages behind gnome 
upstream. I don't recall the details anymore, but I do remember it was a very 
interesting read and gave me a real reason for problems with the gnome ebuilds 
(to replace the "gnome is just a piece of crap" reason I had in my head at the 
time...) 

> This is what annoys me most lately. And yes, i am planning on reading
> into ebuild stuff and trying to contribute.

Best possible answer IMHO. Portage is only as good as it's devs and users make 
the tree. Someone has to do the work and someone has to write the first ebuild 
for a package. There's no valid reason why that person can't be you.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Mike Edenfield]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> This mythical thing - a working installer - probably does not exist and likely 
> never will.

This may be true, and it certainly is the case right now. 
But that's not a good reason to reject one out of hand 
before you even see it.

> There are just too many decisions the human must make while installing Gentoo 
> and too many of them do not have sane defaults. So the installer is still 
> going to ask the human to make decisions, it is going to provide a list of 
> possibilities and say "pick one", and then automate whatever that means.

When I run through an install by following the handbook, I 
feel more like a script interpreter than a human being.  The 
only real decisions I make when installing Gentoo are:

* How to allocate my hard drive (sane default: what the 
handbook suggests)
* What mirrors to use (sane default: what the handbook 
suggests -- mirrorselect)
* Which equally usable option from the possible loggers, 
crons, dhcp clients, and boot loaders (sane default: who 
cares? just pick one)
* What book to read for the rest of the time I'm staring at 
emerge waiting to have to type something else. (sane 
default: the handbook, duh.)

Everything else is just copying and pasting out of the 
handbook.  That's practically the definition of an 
automatable process.

--Mikr

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Mike Edenfield]

Daniel da Veiga wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 17:11, Mike Edenfield <kutulu@kutulu.org> wrote:
>> On 4/3/2009 3:38 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>
>>> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
>> I will agree that an installer doesn't belong near the top of anyones "show
>> stopper" list of Gentoo defects.  Gentoo doesn't *need* an installer and all
>> previous attempts at one have been less than successful.  We can all
>> certainly get along fine without one.
>>
>> But can you really provide a non-condescending, *rational* argument
>> explaining why it would be an actively detrimental idea to have a working
>> installer for Gentoo?  Why, if some person appeared tomorrow with a fully
>> functional, debugged, tested, flexible, easy to use,
>> fully-handbook-compliant, *optional* drop-in installation process, why that
>> would be a bad thing?
>>
> 
> I would still think its a problema.
> People would install Gentoo, get a functional system, not read the
> handbook, and flood the forums and this mailing list with already
> answered and handbook questions.

Aside from this being exactly what I meant by condescending, 
I don't find "if there was an installer then stupid people 
would use it" to be a convincing argument.

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Mike Edenfield]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Friday 03 April 2009, Daniel da Veiga wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 17:11, Mike Edenfield <kutulu@kutulu.org> wrote:
>>> On 4/3/2009 3:38 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>>> there is no installer anymore. And that is a good thing.
>>> I will agree that an installer doesn't belong near the top of anyones
>>> "show stopper" list of Gentoo defects.  Gentoo doesn't *need* an
>>> installer and all previous attempts at one have been less than
>>> successful.  We can all certainly get along fine without one.
>>>
>>> But can you really provide a non-condescending, *rational* argument
>>> explaining why it would be an actively detrimental idea to have a working
>>> installer for Gentoo?  Why, if some person appeared tomorrow with a fully
>>> functional, debugged, tested, flexible, easy to use,
>>> fully-handbook-compliant, *optional* drop-in installation process, why
>>> that would be a bad thing?
>> I would still think its a problema.
>> People would install Gentoo, get a functional system, not read the
>> handbook, and flood the forums and this mailing list with already
>> answered and handbook questions. The installer would only benefit the
>> more experienced user that would get an unattended installation, and
>> yet, experienced users tend to customize their systems, so, no
>> installer would help them.
> 
> exactly. Installer = not reading documentation = epic failure waiting to 
> happen

Each time I read this, it occurs to me that you are 
seriously confusing "reading the documentation" with 
"understanding the documentation."

The number of people who manage to parrot the handbook 
instructions into a bash prompt, get Gentoo up, then do 
absolutely idiotic things to break it that show up on IRC 
should be proof enough that just reading the handbook does 
not a Gentoo expert make.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 05 April 2009 00:11:08 Mike Edenfield wrote:
> > I would still think its a problema.
> > People would install Gentoo, get a functional system, not read the
> > handbook, and flood the forums and this mailing list with already
> > answered and handbook questions.
>
> Aside from this being exactly what I meant by condescending,
> I don't find "if there was an installer then stupid people
> would use it" to be a convincing argument.

Then try this one:

There is no installer (after the fashion of a binary distro installer) as the 
very idea is horribly broken. All attempts to make one have resulted in a 
horrible unmaintainable mess and caused more grief on support channels than 
they were worth - creating the very thing they were designed to prevent.

In other words:

Installers are a bloody stupid idea. Get over it.

There is such a thing as a prerequisite level of expertise. Every field has 
this and every field SHOULD enforce it. You don't get to drive a car on a 
public road till you have proven that you have learned how to drive a car, and 
you don't learn how on public roads. Why is gentoo any different, and why is 
it every time this thread comes up we get flooded with the idea that we must 
entertain stupid people? It's not elitist, it's a simple fact of life.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 05 April 2009 00:07:12 Mike Edenfield wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > This mythical thing - a working installer - probably does not exist and
> > likely never will.
>
> This may be true, and it certainly is the case right now.
> But that's not a good reason to reject one out of hand
> before you even see it.

I'm not doing that. There isn't a claimed working installer to evaluate.

I said that "this *class of thing* called an installer is unlikely to work 
right on gentoo".
I did not say "every installer written or to be written must necessarily be 
rejected"

> > There are just too many decisions the human must make while installing
> > Gentoo and too many of them do not have sane defaults. So the installer
> > is still going to ask the human to make decisions, it is going to provide
> > a list of possibilities and say "pick one", and then automate whatever
> > that means.
>
> When I run through an install by following the handbook, I
> feel more like a script interpreter than a human being.  The
> only real decisions I make when installing Gentoo are:
>
> * How to allocate my hard drive (sane default: what the
> handbook suggests)
> * What mirrors to use (sane default: what the handbook
> suggests -- mirrorselect)
> * Which equally usable option from the possible loggers,
> crons, dhcp clients, and boot loaders (sane default: who
> cares? just pick one)
> * What book to read for the rest of the time I'm staring at
> emerge waiting to have to type something else. (sane
> default: the handbook, duh.)
>
> Everything else is just copying and pasting out of the
> handbook.  That's practically the definition of an
> automatable process.

Then why has it not been done if it's so conceptually simple?

Maybe because it's a *seriously* hard problem to solve.

But, the onus is actually on you to produce a working installer that does the 
right thing correctly and thereby to prove your position as correct.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 00:38:45 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> There is such a thing as a prerequisite level of expertise. Every field
> has this and every field SHOULD enforce it. You don't get to drive a
> car on a public road till you have proven that you have learned how to
> drive a car, and you don't learn how on public roads. Why is gentoo any
> different, and why is it every time this thread comes up we get flooded
> with the idea that we must entertain stupid people? It's not elitist,
> it's a simple fact of life.

There is another point here - developer resources are limited. Unless you
are prepared to work on an installer yourself, and no-one is stopping
you, resurrecting the defunct GLI project could impinge on development in
other areas. As installation is a rare occurrence with Gentoo, once in the
lifetime of each computer, it is understandable that effort is put into
other areas.

Or maybe no-one want an installer badly enough to work on one, with the
possible exception of quickstart.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Plagarism prohibited. Derive carefully.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Dale]

Mike Edenfield wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>> On Friday 03 April 2009, Daniel da Veiga wrote:
>>>
>>> I would still think its a problema.
>>> People would install Gentoo, get a functional system, not read the
>>> handbook, and flood the forums and this mailing list with already
>>> answered and handbook questions. The installer would only benefit the
>>> more experienced user that would get an unattended installation, and
>>> yet, experienced users tend to customize their systems, so, no
>>> installer would help them.
>>
>> exactly. Installer = not reading documentation = epic failure waiting
>> to happen
>
> Each time I read this, it occurs to me that you are seriously
> confusing "reading the documentation" with "understanding the
> documentation."
>
> The number of people who manage to parrot the handbook instructions
> into a bash prompt, get Gentoo up, then do absolutely idiotic things
> to break it that show up on IRC should be proof enough that just
> reading the handbook does not a Gentoo expert make.
>
>
>

When I installed Gentoo, ages ago, I followed the handbook, even did
some copy and paste.  I must agree with Volker here, doing the install
the Gentoo way does teach a person a lot.  I'm not saying they know
everything but they do learn a lot about Gentoo. 

I used to notice people on the forums and this list back when there was
a installer, asking questions that had they installed the manual way
would not have to be asked.  They would have learned how to do things
during the install.

Gentoo had a installer and it didn't work out.  Can't we let the thing
rest in peace?  I seriously doubt the devs will be working on that for a
good long time.  I can't recall hearing any dev saying they wanted to
either, at least not on gentoo-dev anyway.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Graham Murray]

Norman Rieß <norman@smash-net.org> writes:

> There was a lib update, that broke sancho a while ago. A new version of
> sancho fixed this. But i had to use this new version from the developers
> site, because even ~arch package was several versions lower.
> Some weeks ago the oscar protocol or something was changed and pidgin
> was not able to login to icq. New version fixed this instantly, but it
> took a while till this version hit ~arch. Again i had to install a
> program outside of portage.

This seems very varied. With some herds/maintainers/developers new
versions show up in ~arch within hours of upstream release. With others
~arch can be months behind upstream even when there are bugzilla entries
from users reporting that just copying the latest ebuild to the new
version number works fine for them. There have even been cases where the
latest version in ~arch has no longer been supported by upstream.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday 03 April 2009 18:59:24 Wyatt Epp wrote:

> I was curious...what have people [...] noticed that is mildly irritating
> and disruptive to the Gentoo experience?

/usr/portage/profiles/use.desc and ...use.local.desc (though "mildly" isn't 
the word I'd use). For the most part they remind me of the old programming 
style that added such fatuous comments as "Set X = 1" to the simple 
assignment.

These files are recommended in the installation documents as a source of 
information to guide decisions. With some notable exceptions, they give no 
such thing. 

I raised a bug complaining of this not long ago, which received one reply. 
Then silence. It's too hard a job, requiring understanding, imagination and 
a flair with words.

It's also the hardest stumbling block in the way of a new installer.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 05 April 2009 10:22:26 Peter Humphrey wrote:

> I raised a bug complaining of this not long ago, which received one
> reply. Then silence. It's too hard a job, requiring understanding,
> imagination and a flair with words.

Actually, I've just checked, and some of the specific entries I complained 
about have been fixed, but with no follow-up to the bug report so I assumed 
nothing was happening. Maybe things are improving.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Stroller]

On 5 Apr 2009, at 10:35, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> On Sunday 05 April 2009 10:22:26 Peter Humphrey wrote:
>
>> I raised a bug complaining of this not long ago, which received one
>> reply. Then silence. It's too hard a job, requiring understanding,
>> imagination and a flair with words.
>
> Actually, I've just checked, and some of the specific entries I  
> complained
> about have been fixed, but with no follow-up to the bug report so I  
> assumed
> nothing was happening. Maybe things are improving.

I doubt it. I complained about this on the -dev list YEARS ago. An  
then complained again 6 months later. Made no difference.

I guess if you filed bugs against each poor description individually  
then you'd see results for them, but it seems that asking developers  
to keep in mind that use descriptions should be _useful_ is an  
unreasonable expectation.

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Saphirus Sage]

On Apr 5, 2009, at 6:06 AM, Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk>  
wrote:

>
> On 5 Apr 2009, at 10:35, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>
>> On Sunday 05 April 2009 10:22:26 Peter Humphrey wrote:
>>
>>> I raised a bug complaining of this not long ago, which received one
>>> reply. Then silence. It's too hard a job, requiring understanding,
>>> imagination and a flair with words.
>>
>> Actually, I've just checked, and some of the specific entries I  
>> complained
>> about have been fixed, but with no follow-up to the bug report so I  
>> assumed
>> nothing was happening. Maybe things are improving.
>
> I doubt it. I complained about this on the -dev list YEARS ago. An  
> then complained again 6 months later. Made no difference.
>
> I guess if you filed bugs against each poor description individually  
> then you'd see results for them, but it seems that asking developers  
> to keep in mind that use descriptions should be _useful_ is an  
> unreasonable expectation.
>
> Stroller.
I would usually consider it unwise to attempt a Gentoo installation  
without access to the handbook and any other online resource (Google).  
If a user is actually wondering what flags they need to enable, simply  
checking wikipedia would suffice in most cases. Gentoo, as someone  
pointed out earlier, seems to opperate in a manner that requires  
individuals to have certain pre-requisites in their competence with  
computers, if they wanted it simple and to just "work" without any  
real modifications to conf filed, they would go with a *buntu. 

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 05 April 2009 15:43:40 Saphirus Sage wrote:

> I would usually consider it unwise to attempt a Gentoo installation
> without access to the handbook and any other online resource (Google).
> If a user is actually wondering what flags they need to enable, simply
> checking wikipedia would suffice in most cases. Gentoo, as someone
> pointed out earlier, seems to opperate in a manner that requires
> individuals to have certain pre-requisites in their competence with
> computers, if they wanted it simple and to just "work" without any
> real modifications to conf filed, they would go with a *buntu.

One may have quite broad experience of administration of other Linuxes and 
yet still have little idea of what detailed configuration is needed in a 
Gentoo system. And it's often impractical to go surfing the Web while up to 
one's ears in a Gentoo installation. What's needed at that time is just 
what is promised by the installation docs: "A full description on the 
available USE flags can be found on your system 
in /usr/portage/profiles/use.desc." 

It's fashionable to sneer at others' ignorance on this list (well, in this 
thread anyway), but we all have to start somewhere.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Daniel Troeder]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2931 bytes --]

On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 13:59 -0400, Wyatt Epp wrote:
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.
> Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are not
> myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to
> the Gentoo experience?
I have three ideas for improval:

1.
==
When updates hit the portage tree, that are known to cause problems to
lots of people - why not tell that directly after the "--sync"?

I can remember very well the e2fsprogs-thing, where you had to download
the sources of the blocked package before uninstalling the blockers,
because wget wouldn't work without the uninstalled libs! There were LOTS
of people in forums and mailing lists asking for help.
That could have been circumvented easily, if after "--sync" a message
appeared, telling you to read /usr/portage/upgrading/12345-e2fsprogs.txt
before upgrading e2fsprogs.
The message should be displayed only, if the upgrade has not have been
done (by checking for the existence of the old packages or new package).

2.
==
I'd like the ebuilds to be more verbose on possible problems, runtime
dependencies, common errors and some nice hints would be great, too.
Maybe this could be switched on/off by a VARIABLE, for those who feel
annoyed.

The app-office/openoffice-bin ebuild (at the end in pkg_postinst()) is a
nice example of useful information.

I know this cannot be solved technically - but I'd like to encourage all
ebuild devs to be more verbose, as I think it improves user experience.

3.
==
The "q" family (app-portage/portage-utils) could have a new member that
lists me all bugs from http://bugs.gentoo.org that belong to a certain
package.

Optionally, if a package fails to compile, this "qbug" could
automatically make a lookup in the bugzilla-db, and list me all bugs
that are known for the failed package (ID, Status and Summary from
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=e2fsprogs). I think
something like:
# wget 'http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?field-1-0-0=bug_status&field0-0-0=product&field0-0-1=component&field0-0-2=short_desc&field0-0-3=status_whiteboard&query_format=advanced&remaction=&type-1-0-0=anyexact&type0-0-0=substring&type0-0-1=substring&type0-0-2=substring&type0-0-3=substring&value-1-0-0=REOPENED%2CNEW%2CASSIGNED%2CUNCONFIRMED&value0-0-0=e2fsprogs&value0-0-1=e2fsprogs&value0-0-2=e2fsprogs&value0-0-3=e2fsprogs&ctype=csv' -O - | cut -d ',' -f1,6,8
sorted chronologically, and without the bug reports from last year.

As this would be my first starting point anyway - why not automate it?


Bye,
Daniel

-- 
PGP key @ http://pgpkeys.pca.dfn.de/pks/lookup?search=0xBB9D4887&op=get
# gpg --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net 0xBB9D4887


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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sunday 05 April 2009, Daniel Troeder wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 13:59 -0400, Wyatt Epp wrote:
> > So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> > that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.
> > Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> > one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are not
> > myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to
> > the Gentoo experience?
>
> I have three ideas for improval:
>
> 1.
> ==
> When updates hit the portage tree, that are known to cause problems to
> lots of people - why not tell that directly after the "--sync"?
>
> I can remember very well the e2fsprogs-thing, where you had to download
> the sources of the blocked package before uninstalling the blockers,
> because wget wouldn't work without the uninstalled libs! There were LOTS
> of people in forums and mailing lists asking for help.
> That could have been circumvented easily, if after "--sync" a message
> appeared, telling you to read /usr/portage/upgrading/12345-e2fsprogs.txt
> before upgrading e2fsprogs.
> The message should be displayed only, if the upgrade has not have been
> done (by checking for the existence of the old packages or new package).
>
> 2.
> ==
> I'd like the ebuilds to be more verbose on possible problems, runtime
> dependencies, common errors and some nice hints would be great, too.
> Maybe this could be switched on/off by a VARIABLE, for those who feel
> annoyed.
>

elog and elogv - look into it.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 05 April 2009 21:45:16 Daniel Troeder wrote:

> When updates hit the portage tree, that are known to cause problems to
> lots of people - why not tell that directly after the "--sync"?

Unfortunate timing here - within 24 hours the X11 upgrade included exactly 
this feature by way of eselect news!

-- 
Rgds
Peter

[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Wyatt Epp wrote:
> Greets,
> 
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things that 
> I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.  Things 
> like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show one mask 
> at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are /not/ myself 
> and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and disruptive to the 
> Gentoo experience?

I just thought of this one.  Sometimes devs love to change ebuilds 
without bumping them.  That's annoying; a bug gets fixed and you don't 
know about it because "emerge -u" doesn't find any newer version or 
revision.  It would be helpful in this case if emerge had an option to 
check if the installed ebuild differs from the one in the tree/overlays.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 848 bytes --]

On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:52:05 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

> I just thought of this one.  Sometimes devs love to change ebuilds 
> without bumping them.  That's annoying; a bug gets fixed and you don't 
> know about it because "emerge -u" doesn't find any newer version or 
> revision.

That's a bad ebuild/dev. The rule is that the ebuild is not bumped if the
change does not affect the installed files, i.e. it fixes an
installation error,because then you don't want to rebuild it if it's
already installed. If the installed files are different, the ebuild
should be bumped.

One special case of this is that some upstream's update their packages
without bumping them, so the ebuild does not change, only the manifest,
but the installed files do.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context!

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[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Francesco Talamona]

On Friday 03 April 2009, Wyatt Epp wrote:
> Greets,
>
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so. 
> Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
> *not* myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
> disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
>
> Cheers,
> Wyatt

aemaeth portage # emerge -a1 app-editors/joe-3.5

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

Calculating dependencies                        t,           

!!! 'app-editors/joe-3.5' is not a valid package atom.
!!! Please check ebuild(5) for full details.
!!! (Did you specify a version but forget to prefix 
with '='?)                                                                                                                                                                                                              ... 
done!
aemaeth portage # emerge -C app-editors/joe-3.5

 app-editors/joe
    selected: 3.5 
   protected: none 
     omitted: none 

>>> 'Selected' packages are slated for removal.
>>> 'Protected' and 'omitted' packages will not be removed.

>>> Waiting 5 seconds before starting...
>>> (Control-C to abort)...
>>> Unmerging in: 5 4 3 2 1 
>>> Unmerging app-editors/joe-3.5...

 * GNU info directory index is up-to-date.

Why in some circumstances emerge is perfectly able to spot user omission 
and fill-in it automatically, while with other options it just 
complains?

The inability to add missing "=" and the inconsistence annoy me. IMHO 
emerge should be able to add the equal sign when it makes perfect sense 
as it already does sometimes.

Ciao
	Francesco

-- 
Linux Version 2.6.29-gentoo, Compiled #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 26 20:25:16 
CET 2009
Two 1GHz AMD Athlon 64 Processors, 4GB RAM, 4018.42 Bogomips Total
aemaeth

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 06 April 2009 19:53:51 Francesco Talamona wrote:
> Why in some circumstances emerge is perfectly able to spot user omission
> and fill-in it automatically, while with other options it just
> complains?
>
> The inability to add missing "=" and the inconsistence annoy me. IMHO
> emerge should be able to add the equal sign when it makes perfect sense
> as it already does sometimes.

That is incorrect. Portage does not know what you mean so cannot fill it in 
correctly.

When you attempt an install with a version number but without a comparison 
operator, portage does not known if you want a version greater than, less 
than, or equal to the stated version so it does not even try to guess; it 
insists that you tell it what you want. Imagine the bug reports if '=' was the 
default and users mistyped a ">="

When unmerging a packet, there are only two sane options

- all versions installed if you didn't specify a version
- the exact version you stated, and only that one.

So portage's current behaviour is correct.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Michael Higgins]

On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 13:31:35 +0200
Sebastian Günther <samson@guenther-roetgen.de> wrote:

> * Alan McKinnon (alan.mckinnon@gmail.com) [04.04.09 09:57]:
> > 
> > emerge --lock <some-package-some-version>
> > 
> I find this suggestion very good, and would like to ask the more 
> experienced participants, if such thing was thought of before.
> 
> I'm thinking about some options to freeze a system totally, servers 
> would like this, and some options to gradually move back from testing
> to stable.

This is like what I've been working on for myself, keeping the convenience of emerge world for ebuild revisions but not moving most packages to the next version.

> 
> That was the thing that annoyed me in the last weeks:
> a simple possibility to say: hold this packageversion until it is
> back to stable.

So far, with masking the next major version in package.mask, all I've gotten is ‑rN ebuilds.

It's an ugly mess of scripting, but it did what I intended so far, that some key packages will stay at current version for a while, some keep closer to current offerings (or from an overlay, or whatever) and others won't register at all every time I sync.

> 
> So I'm suggesting the following new options for emerge:
> 
> --freeze: hold this package version *and* revision

Mask anything '>' current installed ebuild version.

> --hold: hold this package version, but allow revision updates

This by masking '>=' next version is what I did, but:

It'd be helpful to know for this purpose how the versioning of the release corresponds to the ebuild. Like ${package_major_release_version_position} or something. I don't *think* that's part of the spec yet.

> --hold-til-stable: hold this package, until it hits stable, and then
> use the stable version.

This should be doable.
 
> --testing: set the ~x86 keyword for this package and necessary 
> dependencies

I think "autounmask" is for that, no? Never used it myself. Unmasking specific versions is the trick, rather than a blanket unmask for a package. IDK how that's handled.

If you move package.keywords you'll be offered a downgrade for anything not stable, grep out the packages (formerly) in package.keywords from emerge -p world to see if they are still unstable.

> I know that this is done relatively easy for one package, but with 
> sets this can become a really powerful feature.

Haven't looked into sets, but it sounds great.

> --copy-to-local: make a local overlay entry for that package

++

> I would gladly help to implement this, but I did not read anything
> about becoming a dev.

I *think* all you need is some way to read the caches and in your favourite language make something that works. '-)

For example:

https://projects.gentooexperimental.org/eix/browser/trunk/doc/format.txt.in

For /var/cache/eix... and /usr/portage/metadata/cache is pretty straightforward...

app-portage/portage-utils
small and fast portage helper tools written in C

 qcache <action> <args>
              : search the metadata cache

These tools probably could be incorporated into a set of scripts to run after emerge and do things like you want. Since this is important to me as well, I might just look a little further. ;-)

Cheers,

-- 
 |\  /|        |   |          ~ ~  
 | \/ |        |---|          `|` ?
 |    |ichael  |   |iggins    \^ /
 michael.higgins[at]evolone[dot]org

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Daniel Troeder]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 995 bytes --]

On Mon, 2009-04-06 at 11:16 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Sunday 05 April 2009 21:45:16 Daniel Troeder wrote:
> 
> > When updates hit the portage tree, that are known to cause problems to
> > lots of people - why not tell that directly after the "--sync"?
> 
> Unfortunate timing here - within 24 hours the X11 upgrade included exactly 
> this feature by way of eselect news!
Oh yes - that's great :)

I think it was triggered when I ran "emerge -pvuND world" after
"--sync".

Unfortunately I had other things on my mind at that time, so I can't
remember well.
* Is there a way to reproduce the event?
* Where can I find old "news"? With "eselect news read all" I get
nothing. Did I maybe "purge" it?... that brings me back to my first
question :)


Seems like some of my wishes have already become true :)

Bye,
Daniel

-- 
PGP key @ http://pgpkeys.pca.dfn.de/pks/lookup?search=0xBB9D4887&op=get
# gpg --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net 0xBB9D4887


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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Daniel Troeder]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 485 bytes --]

On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 14:24 +0200, Daniel Troeder wrote:
> * Where can I find old "news"? With "eselect news read all" I get
> nothing. Did I maybe "purge" it?... that brings me back to my first
> question :)
Hmm... from another [gentoo-user] thread I
found /usr/portage/metadata/news/ , but how can I reproduce the event?
I tried "# rm -r /usr/portage/metadata/news/2009-04-06-x_server-1_5/",
and then "eix-sync" and "emerge -pvuND world", but nothing happened...

Daniel


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[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[ABCD]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Daniel Troeder wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-04-06 at 11:16 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> On Sunday 05 April 2009 21:45:16 Daniel Troeder wrote:
>>
>>> When updates hit the portage tree, that are known to cause problems to
>>> lots of people - why not tell that directly after the "--sync"?
>> Unfortunate timing here - within 24 hours the X11 upgrade included exactly 
>> this feature by way of eselect news!
> Oh yes - that's great :)
> 
> I think it was triggered when I ran "emerge -pvuND world" after
> "--sync".
> 
> Unfortunately I had other things on my mind at that time, so I can't
> remember well.
> * Is there a way to reproduce the event?
> * Where can I find old "news"? With "eselect news read all" I get
> nothing. Did I maybe "purge" it?... that brings me back to my first
> question :)
> 
> 
> Seems like some of my wishes have already become true :)
> 
> Bye,
> Daniel
> 

All news, whether or not it is relevant or has been seen, is shipped
with the portage tree in files named like:
    ${PORTDIR}/metadata/news/${YYYY}-${MM}-${DD}-${TITLE}/
        ${YYYY}-${MM}-${DD}-${TITLE}.${LANGUAGE}.txt

For example, the xorg upgrade announcement is in
    ${PORTDIR}/metadata/news/2009-04-06-x_server-1_5/
        2009-04-06-x_server-1_5.en.txt
and the teTeX to TeXLive migration announcement is in
    ${PORTDIR}/metadata/news/2009-04-06-tetex/2009-04-06-tetex.en.txt
(note that ${PORTDIR} is /usr/portage on most systems, unless you
changed it in /etc/make.conf)

Therefore, no matter what you do, so long as you do not delete the
portage tree itself (and if you do, just `emerge --sync`), you will have
a copy of every news item published (all 4 of them, so far), as of your
last sync.

- --
ABCD
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[gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[ABCD]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Daniel Troeder wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 14:24 +0200, Daniel Troeder wrote:
>> * Where can I find old "news"? With "eselect news read all" I get
>> nothing. Did I maybe "purge" it?... that brings me back to my first
>> question :)
> Hmm... from another [gentoo-user] thread I
> found /usr/portage/metadata/news/ , but how can I reproduce the event?
> I tried "# rm -r /usr/portage/metadata/news/2009-04-06-x_server-1_5/",
> and then "eix-sync" and "emerge -pvuND world", but nothing happened...
> 
> Daniel
> 

In order for the news item to appear at all, you must have
<x11-base/xorg-server-1.5 installed.  If you have already upgraded or
uninstalled x11-base/xorg-server, then the news item disappears
completely, as it no longer applies (according to the line
"Display-If-Installed: <x11-base/xorg-server-1.5").

- --
ABCD
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tE0AoNJQP94zo/GpVoOuyru3Ocv44A3s
=vBoz
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What annoys you?

[Daniel Troeder]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1015 bytes --]

On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 10:35 -0400, ABCD wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Daniel Troeder wrote:
> > On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 14:24 +0200, Daniel Troeder wrote:
> >> * Where can I find old "news"? With "eselect news read all" I get
> >> nothing. Did I maybe "purge" it?... that brings me back to my first
> >> question :)
> > Hmm... from another [gentoo-user] thread I
> > found /usr/portage/metadata/news/ , but how can I reproduce the event?
> > I tried "# rm -r /usr/portage/metadata/news/2009-04-06-x_server-1_5/",
> > and then "eix-sync" and "emerge -pvuND world", but nothing happened...
> > 
> > Daniel
> > 
> 
> In order for the news item to appear at all, you must have
> <x11-base/xorg-server-1.5 installed.  If you have already upgraded or
> uninstalled x11-base/xorg-server, then the news item disappears
> completely, as it no longer applies (according to the line
> "Display-If-Installed: <x11-base/xorg-server-1.5").

That makes sense - thank you :)


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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Dale]

Wyatt Epp wrote:
> Greets,
>
> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so. 
> Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
> /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
> disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
>
> Cheers,
> Wyatt

After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
feature.  Something like emerge --undo-updates world that puts
everything back to the way it was before a recent upgrade.  Maybe even
make it so we can set a stable point and return to that.  Crap, that
sounds like something windoze has.  o_O  I still think it would be a
cool idea.  Sometimes upgrades cause all kinds of issues and need to be
undone.  Going back to a known stable point would be great.

Now someone tell me this exists already.  lol  They have added so much
to portage lately I haven't been able to keep up.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Dale]

Momesso Andrea wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 08:35:23AM -0500, Dale wrote:
>   
>> Wyatt Epp wrote:
>>     
>>> Greets,
>>>
>>> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
>>> that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so. 
>>> Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
>>> one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
>>> /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
>>> disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Wyatt
>>>       
>> After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
>> feature.  Something like emerge --undo-updates world that puts
>> everything back to the way it was before a recent upgrade.  Maybe even
>> make it so we can set a stable point and return to that.  Crap, that
>> sounds like something windoze has.  o_O  I still think it would be a
>> cool idea.  Sometimes upgrades cause all kinds of issues and need to be
>> undone.  Going back to a known stable point would be great.
>>
>> Now someone tell me this exists already.  lol  They have added so much
>> to portage lately I haven't been able to keep up.
>>
>>     
> I don't think portage has this option, and I hope it will never.
>
> Suppose you have to deal with a big upgrade (that icludes glibc) and the
> next day you tell portage to rollback...
>
> I prefer the old way, read the emerge log (or use genlop), and rollback
> manually. FEATURES="buildsyspkg" can be helpful when you break mission
> critical stuff.
>
> ---
> TopperH
> http://topperh.blogspot.com
>   

In that case, portage can tell you it can't roll back.  It could even
tell you that before the upgrade.  The thing about yesterday, I had no
keyboard or mouse.  If I hadn't wrote down how to add softlevel=boot on
the end of the grub boot line, I have no idea what I would have done at
that point. 

Of course, it would have also been nice if hal had just wrote to a log
that it couldn't find the proper driver or whatever for the keyboard
and/or mouse then defaulted to the old way.  That has to be better than
being forced to unplug a computer without a proper shutdown.

Just tossing ideas for something more positive in the future.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Momesso Andrea wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 08:35:23AM -0500, Dale wrote:
>>
>>> Wyatt Epp wrote:
>>>
>>>> Greets,
>>>>
>>>> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
>>>> that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.
>>>> Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
>>>> one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
>>>> /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
>>>> disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Wyatt
>>>>
>>> After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
>>> feature.  Something like emerge --undo-updates world that puts
>>> everything back to the way it was before a recent upgrade.  Maybe even
>>> make it so we can set a stable point and return to that.  Crap, that
>>> sounds like something windoze has.  o_O  I still think it would be a
>>> cool idea.  Sometimes upgrades cause all kinds of issues and need to be
>>> undone.  Going back to a known stable point would be great.
>>>
>>> Now someone tell me this exists already.  lol  They have added so much
>>> to portage lately I haven't been able to keep up.
>>>
>>>
>> I don't think portage has this option, and I hope it will never.
>>
>> Suppose you have to deal with a big upgrade (that icludes glibc) and the
>> next day you tell portage to rollback...
>>
>> I prefer the old way, read the emerge log (or use genlop), and rollback
>> manually. FEATURES="buildsyspkg" can be helpful when you break mission
>> critical stuff.
>>
>> ---
>> TopperH
>> http://topperh.blogspot.com
>>
>
> In that case, portage can tell you it can't roll back.  It could even
> tell you that before the upgrade.  The thing about yesterday, I had no
> keyboard or mouse.  If I hadn't wrote down how to add softlevel=boot on
> the end of the grub boot line, I have no idea what I would have done at
> that point.
>
> Of course, it would have also been nice if hal had just wrote to a log
> that it couldn't find the proper driver or whatever for the keyboard
> and/or mouse then defaulted to the old way.  That has to be better than
> being forced to unplug a computer without a proper shutdown.
>
> Just tossing ideas for something more positive in the future.
>
> Dale

I think everyone on ~arch had the no keyboard/mouse problem many
months ago (including me, luckily i have more than 1 computer and was
able to ssh in to make the needed changes), and there were dozens
(hundreds?) of threads here and on the forums about people having this
problem and how to fix it, so I am /shocked/ that "they" didn't put a
warning on the ebuild telling you what you might need to do before you
restart X the next time. It seems like it would help cure people from
running into that problem. Or make X depend on evdev when hal USE flag
is enabled, or change the xorg.conf to have the needed settings, or
something other than just forcing people to learn the hard way.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Momesso Andrea]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1546 bytes --]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 08:35:23AM -0500, Dale wrote:
> Wyatt Epp wrote:
> > Greets,
> >
> > So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> > that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so. 
> > Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> > one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
> > /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
> > disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Wyatt
> 
> After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
> feature.  Something like emerge --undo-updates world that puts
> everything back to the way it was before a recent upgrade.  Maybe even
> make it so we can set a stable point and return to that.  Crap, that
> sounds like something windoze has.  o_O  I still think it would be a
> cool idea.  Sometimes upgrades cause all kinds of issues and need to be
> undone.  Going back to a known stable point would be great.
> 
> Now someone tell me this exists already.  lol  They have added so much
> to portage lately I haven't been able to keep up.
>
I don't think portage has this option, and I hope it will never.

Suppose you have to deal with a big upgrade (that icludes glibc) and the
next day you tell portage to rollback...

I prefer the old way, read the emerge log (or use genlop), and rollback
manually. FEATURES="buildsyspkg" can be helpful when you break mission
critical stuff.

---
TopperH
http://topperh.blogspot.com

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Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Dale]

Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Momesso Andrea wrote:
>>     
>>> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 08:35:23AM -0500, Dale wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Wyatt Epp wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> Greets,
>>>>>
>>>>> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
>>>>> that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.
>>>>> Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
>>>>> one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
>>>>> /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
>>>>> disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Wyatt
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
>>>> feature.  Something like emerge --undo-updates world that puts
>>>> everything back to the way it was before a recent upgrade.  Maybe even
>>>> make it so we can set a stable point and return to that.  Crap, that
>>>> sounds like something windoze has.  o_O  I still think it would be a
>>>> cool idea.  Sometimes upgrades cause all kinds of issues and need to be
>>>> undone.  Going back to a known stable point would be great.
>>>>
>>>> Now someone tell me this exists already.  lol  They have added so much
>>>> to portage lately I haven't been able to keep up.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> I don't think portage has this option, and I hope it will never.
>>>
>>> Suppose you have to deal with a big upgrade (that icludes glibc) and the
>>> next day you tell portage to rollback...
>>>
>>> I prefer the old way, read the emerge log (or use genlop), and rollback
>>> manually. FEATURES="buildsyspkg" can be helpful when you break mission
>>> critical stuff.
>>>
>>> ---
>>> TopperH
>>> http://topperh.blogspot.com
>>>
>>>       
>> In that case, portage can tell you it can't roll back.  It could even
>> tell you that before the upgrade.  The thing about yesterday, I had no
>> keyboard or mouse.  If I hadn't wrote down how to add softlevel=boot on
>> the end of the grub boot line, I have no idea what I would have done at
>> that point.
>>
>> Of course, it would have also been nice if hal had just wrote to a log
>> that it couldn't find the proper driver or whatever for the keyboard
>> and/or mouse then defaulted to the old way.  That has to be better than
>> being forced to unplug a computer without a proper shutdown.
>>
>> Just tossing ideas for something more positive in the future.
>>
>> Dale
>>     
>
> I think everyone on ~arch had the no keyboard/mouse problem many
> months ago (including me, luckily i have more than 1 computer and was
> able to ssh in to make the needed changes), and there were dozens
> (hundreds?) of threads here and on the forums about people having this
> problem and how to fix it, so I am /shocked/ that "they" didn't put a
> warning on the ebuild telling you what you might need to do before you
> restart X the next time. It seems like it would help cure people from
> running into that problem. Or make X depend on evdev when hal USE flag
> is enabled, or change the xorg.conf to have the needed settings, or
> something other than just forcing people to learn the hard way.
>
>   

I had read here that people was having trouble.  I also monitor -dev as
well.  I had set evdev in make.conf a long time ago.  I had been
checking some settings and such when reading the thread so I was
expecting a somewhat smooth transition.  What really upset me was having
to pull the plug.  I got backups of most things on here but I'm on
dial-up and getting it to work off the CD is a PITA to say it lightly. 

I also wanted to read a link that elog had in it to only find out the
link don't even work.  I got a nice pretty 404 error message tho.  My
plan at the moment is to leave it masked until I know for sure it is
going to work or at the least let me be able to shutdown without pulling
the plug.  Maybe by then hal will have the config files where I can just
copy them over.  I read somewhere that it is in the works. 

I'm glad I been using Gentoo for several years.  If I was a newbie, I'd
be screwed.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 10 April 2009, Dale wrote:
> Wyatt Epp wrote:
> > Greets,
> >
> > So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> > that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.
> > Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> > one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
> > /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
> > disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Wyatt
>
> After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
> feature.  

emerge demerge
man demerge

NAME
       demerge - Revert to previous installation states.

VERSION
       This document refers to version 0.047 of demerge

SYNOPSIS
       demerge [option]...

DESCRIPTION
       Using demerge you can easily record and restore your system state.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Dale]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Freitag 10 April 2009, Dale wrote:
>   
>> Wyatt Epp wrote:
>>     
>>> Greets,
>>>
>>> So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
>>> that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.
>>> Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
>>> one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
>>> /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
>>> disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Wyatt
>>>       
>> After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
>> feature.  
>>     
>
> emerge demerge
> man demerge
>
> NAME
>        demerge - Revert to previous installation states.
>
> VERSION
>        This document refers to version 0.047 of demerge
>
> SYNOPSIS
>        demerge [option]...
>
> DESCRIPTION
>        Using demerge you can easily record and restore your system state.
>
>
>
>   

Holy crap.  I'm not going to say that I can't believe someone already
thought of this. I got to look into this, like yesterday.  LOL

Dale

:-)  :-)

P. S.  I wish the link had a man page or something. 

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 10 April 2009 15:35:23 Dale wrote:
> Wyatt Epp wrote:
> > Greets,
> >
> > So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> > that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.
> > Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> > one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
> > /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
> > disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Wyatt
>
> After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
> feature.  Something like emerge --undo-updates world that puts
> everything back to the way it was before a recent upgrade.  Maybe even
> make it so we can set a stable point and return to that.  Crap, that
> sounds like something windoze has.  o_O  I still think it would be a
> cool idea.  Sometimes upgrades cause all kinds of issues and need to be
> undone.  Going back to a known stable point would be great.
>
> Now someone tell me this exists already.  lol  They have added so much
> to portage lately I haven't been able to keep up.

ZFS can do that, so can lvm snapshots.

But, they roll back everything, not just what portage did :-)

You can roll back manually, by examining genlop and fiddling with 
package.mask...

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Montag 13 April 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Friday 10 April 2009 15:35:23 Dale wrote:
> > Wyatt Epp wrote:
> > > Greets,
> > >
> > > So while gearing up for the Summer of Code, I noted a lot of things
> > > that I had come to accept as normal that I feel should not be so.
> > > Things like the danger of depclean or the way portage will only show
> > > one mask at a time.  So I was curious...what have people that are
> > > /not/ myself and my mate noticed that is mildly irritating and
> > > disruptive to the Gentoo experience?
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Wyatt
> >
> > After the mess with my updates yesterday, I wish portage had a undo
> > feature.  Something like emerge --undo-updates world that puts
> > everything back to the way it was before a recent upgrade.  Maybe even
> > make it so we can set a stable point and return to that.  Crap, that
> > sounds like something windoze has.  o_O  I still think it would be a
> > cool idea.  Sometimes upgrades cause all kinds of issues and need to be
> > undone.  Going back to a known stable point would be great.
> >
> > Now someone tell me this exists already.  lol  They have added so much
> > to portage lately I haven't been able to keep up.
>
> ZFS can do that, so can lvm snapshots.
>
> But, they roll back everything, not just what portage did :-)
>
> You can roll back manually, by examining genlop and fiddling with
> package.mask...

or, as I already wrote, he can use dmerge.

Re: [gentoo-user] What annoys you?

[Alex Schuster]

Daniel Troeder writes:

> On Mon, 2009-04-06 at 11:16 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > On Sunday 05 April 2009 21:45:16 Daniel Troeder wrote:
> > > When updates hit the portage tree, that are known to cause problems
> > > to lots of people - why not tell that directly after the "--sync"?
> >
> > Unfortunate timing here - within 24 hours the X11 upgrade included
> > exactly this feature by way of eselect news!
>
> Oh yes - that's great :)

Indeed!

> I think it was triggered when I ran "emerge -pvuND world" after
> "--sync".
>
> Unfortunately I had other things on my mind at that time, so I can't
> remember well.
> * Is there a way to reproduce the event?
> * Where can I find old "news"? With "eselect news read all" I get
> nothing. Did I maybe "purge" it?... that brings me back to my first
> question :)

"eselect news list" shows all news, including a section with already read 
news. "eselect news read 2009-04-06-x_server-1_5" then displays it.

	Wonko

[gentoo-user] how to stop the mailing list?

[Norman Hakim]

Hi all,

i would like to unsubscribe from mailing list. how to unsubscribe?

Thank you

NORMAN HAKIM YAHYA 





      

Re: [gentoo-user] how to stop the mailing list?

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Am Freitag, 17. April 2009 19:23:30 schrieb Norman Hakim:

> i would like to unsubscribe from mailing list. how to unsubscribe?

Unsubscribe address is in the headers of each mail you get.

HTH...

	Dirk

Re: [gentoo-user] how to stop the mailing list?

[Tomáš Krasničan]

To unsubscribe send a message to:

gentoo-user+unsubscribe@lists.gentoo.org

And for help send a message to:

gentoo-user+help@lists.gentoo.org


Norman Hakim wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> i would like to unsubscribe from mailing list. how to unsubscribe?
> 
> Thank you
> 
> NORMAN HAKIM YAHYA 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>       
>