From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A2B0D138C9D for ; Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:11:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4ED5AE0931; Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:11:39 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-qk0-f170.google.com (mail-qk0-f170.google.com [209.85.220.170]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0119DE0929 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:11:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: by qkx62 with SMTP id 62so80576025qkx.0 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 2015 07:11:37 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=0T+/wg/koliCLc9YuPxcVO30998P63Qaalz/D66jCWo=; b=B2nqvzI1didFvyg2S1W/3BiLh7ldbbfuHHkqGQTB8GyxKW+pbgMprUgKkwCwud2JiS UCdMJyPM/rQP+60QwMY54D1nIbhaeFbQlZqfbNtXzwu/8DKhLxPR0v4C1k7I5SQfrL8B dnHwaX4sSngpoyhbKFtLVxJT7Ad3L35vU7lp0Ghw50L/BWqGuZQIR0fWlEIwW5uW7jLE JW8LlrL0a4ORzIc3Dew+TaGl73UxGDH/kHYxuy5oUHCfiYHIc4AgERIclVLYue5qs5oy 1lefhPxdXP2g191ZF1fapNL8TKP5n8XFOyFmfb8KXs8TKKArEOIv9FcY48uZ+wLjo69t dRIQ== X-Received: by 10.140.99.65 with SMTP id p59mr11938823qge.46.1430230297466; Tue, 28 Apr 2015 07:11:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.2.5] (adsl-65-0-94-100.jan.bellsouth.net. [65.0.94.100]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id 189sm8073064qhh.31.2015.04.28.07.11.36 (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Tue, 28 Apr 2015 07:11:36 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <553F9517.4050800@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 09:11:35 -0500 From: Dale User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0 SeaMonkey/2.32 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] And so the emerge spake: Let there be conflicts...and see, everything was chaos and sin... References: <20150425160758.GA32271@solfire> <553C955D.9070905@gmail.com> <20150426091742.3cb310cb@digimed.co.uk> <553CECDF.3000101@gmail.com> <20150426181742.2a535138@digimed.co.uk> <20150426191753.GD1067@ca.inter.net> <553D494B.3060201@gentoo.org> <20150426212847.GF1067@ca.inter.net> <553D6554.90100@gentoo.org> <553DCD8E.3030206@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <553DCD8E.3030206@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: d55ebd14-84af-481e-8145-e6efb24142bd X-Archives-Hash: ed9aaddc0d44a0edc3047a3394619dba Alan McKinnon wrote: > On 27/04/2015 00:23, Michael Orlitzky wrote: >> On 04/26/2015 05:28 PM, Philip Webb wrote: >>>> More seriously, once you start working on (3), you'll realize >>>> that just because the error msgs suck doesn't mean you can make them better. >>> If they "suck", they're not worth issuing, are they ? >>> I'm not willing to become a dev, so I'll never know if I cd improve them, >>> but it doesn't follow that no-one else could. >>> >> They give you the information you need to update your question. >> >> You don't need to be a Gentoo developer to contribute to portage. They >> have a mailing list and all patches are posted there for review, Gentoo >> dev or not. >> >> >>>> If you're willing to wait an hour, it might be able to come up >>>> with a list of ways you could resolve a conflict, but basically >>>> all of them will be wrong, eg suggestion #1, uninstall everything. >>> Really, this is a flippant response to a serious issue, >>> which is being raised more often on the Gentoo User list. >>> >> It wasn't meant that way -- I was trying to point out that this is one >> of those problems that sounds easy but turns out to be incredibly hard. >> >> Dependency resolution is already slow when it only takes your installed >> packages into account. It would take oh-so-much longer if you wanted to >> consider "what if" questions involving the entire tree. And most of the >> suggestions it would come up with are indeed ridiculous. Uninstalling a >> few things in @world will probably solve your conflict. Is that not a >> valid suggestion in some cases? Why not? Can you determine those cases >> automatically without input from the user? >> >> I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's deceptively hard to >> (automatically) come up with a list of non-ridiculous suggestions before >> the user in question dies of old age. Relevant xkcd: >> >> https://xkcd.com/1425/ >> >> > > I'm aware of the scope of the problem, and I'm not asking portage to > infer what I might want or suggest solutions I didn't ask for. Besides, > "what I want" is already unambiguously defined by world and the contents > of /etc/portage/. > > I'd be much happier if portage took the information *it already has* and > formatted it's output as something a tad more parseable to human brains. > Right now what it's doing is the equivalent of a core dump with an > attitude of "ah, fuck it, I give up. Here, you figure this shit out." > > +1 Dale :-) :-)