Re: [gentoo-user] Handbrake: Is it is or is it ain't in portage

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Stroller wrote:
>
> On 16 Aug 2010, at 01:43, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>
>> There's a program I really want to use, and I was hoping it existed 
>> in Gentoo.
>> It's called handbrake.  eix can't find it.  equery cannot find it.  
>> But there's
>> a bug (#89432) filed against it, with the last comment (#111) just 4 
>> days ago.
>>
>> So where in the portage is handbrake-0.9.4.ebuild?
>
> To expand on Dale's answer, Handbrake is unlikely ever to be in Portage.
>
> The Handbrake developers use the poor practice of snapshotting the 
> upstream libraries they depend upon (I'm not sure if they also patch 
> or modify them, instead of pushing those changes upstream) and then 
> packaging those libs with Handbrake (in a particularly ugly way, too, 
> one might add).
>
> So when you install Handbrake you download a bunch of additional 
> libraries (which you likely already have installed on your system) and 
> it is compiled against those versions.
>
> The correct way to do this would be for the handbrake developers to 
> simply specify which libraries are required and link against the ones 
> already installed on your system. If a specific version of a library 
> is required - but generally speaking it shouldn't be - then that can 
> be done as part of the ebuild / makefile dependency checking.
>
> The link you posted to handbrake-0.9.4.ebuild is an ebuild. You can 
> install it something like this:
>
> # mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/media-video/handbrake/
> # curl http://bugs.gentoo.org/attachment.cgi?id=229397 > \
>      /usr/local/portage/media-video/handbrake/handbrake-0.9.4.ebuild
> # ebuild manifest 
> /usr/local/portage/media-video/handbrake/handbrake-0.9.4.ebuild
> # emerge handbrake
>
> It's a shitty ebuild, and it has to be, because that's inherent in the 
> way the Handbrake devs "package" their program, but the ebuild does 
> install and work the way the Handbrake devs intended.
>
> I would have thought you'd already know this if you had fully read bug 
> #89432.
>
> I know that transcoding is a bit of a black art, but I'm not convinced 
> Handbrake is actually that good.
>
> Stroller.
>

Now I'm curious.  Basically the programmers have a crappy way of making 
their package and Gentoo doesn't need the headache?  Based on your 
explanation, I can't blame the Gentoo devs for that.   They got enough 
headaches already.

I also noticed that bug report was started about 5 years ago.  I really 
think you are right that it won't ever be added, unless the people at 
handbrake do things differently.

Didn't Googleearth start out this way tho?  I know it used to be a huge 
mess.

Dale

:-)  :-)