From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1S7AMY-0003LF-Pw for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:52:55 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 53A98E0D5E; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:52:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-wi0-f175.google.com (mail-wi0-f175.google.com [209.85.212.175]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F20E5E0CCB for ; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:50:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wibhn6 with SMTP id hn6so3787359wib.10 for ; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:50:54 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=Y2o/Ww3he0Nd3ed0tsGkLAk1npzqq9Lp4hkr/Ld4bwY=; b=fW7IZjm7eYDztb8vO2dr7UGMVVABCHdKifFv24bBq2BsT2/OlDZrTc7XVii87vLrZ1 Jx1INjQ3OqLC48rV7lJJKQI7d6eb/Xh0WAdLp3Z5jWu0A8GEA1mKCB6pUVRPE+cm1jht E9iMEO6KHuPlcHxFU/HCuTw7o00hkgzxIluMVKNn0d7gGkvy+IkUV01aezUbOA5H9WgE AgdgyYb6Tqg9qAhInIlBlcuAl1TiAoetH89BJXIYRCtfa7TUhx7FjoXVPWK4VXYtoUk4 acmqjWUzRfFNtSsOK5GQgc7AWK+a20Ui3gMthvOVwh/Iin6o/oCyRkR/eeqB3WH+gtIb Nauw== Received: by 10.180.95.129 with SMTP id dk1mr560526wib.3.1331578254225; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:50:54 -0700 (PDT) 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 Sender: paul.hartman@gmail.com Received: by 10.227.97.70 with HTTP; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:50:33 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <1669924605.604523.1331575521916.JavaMail.open-xchange@email.1and1.com> References: <1669924605.604523.1331575521916.JavaMail.open-xchange@email.1and1.com> From: Paul Hartman Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:50:33 -0500 X-Google-Sender-Auth: JTlqCQfZFYHREWtav0iLON3_K3I Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] virtual/shadow To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: a2a4bcac-7f8d-4f5e-95d2-17abd6bbf537 X-Archives-Hash: 5c89129fdecfc8601a54b0eb858e26ee On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Bruce Hill, Jr. wrote: > =A0These virtual apps are irritating me, and the fanboi answers in #gento= o > are worse. > > What is the purpose of virtual/shadow and why would I want it? Virtual packages are kind of an abstraction layer for compatible alternative packages. Other packages can depend on the virtual instead of depending on every combination of possible alternatives, and the user can install whichever of the alternatives he prefers. For example, MariaDB is a drop-in replacement for MySQL. From a dependency standpoint, they are compatible. Instead of any program depending on MySQL being modified to check for either MySQL or MariaDB, virtual/mysql was created and it can be satisfied by either dev-db/mysql or dev-db/mariadb being installed. In the case of shadow, he new virtual is to allow you to use either sys-apps/shadow or sys-apps/hardened-shadow. See here: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/gentoo/dev/249394 If you view the virtual package's ebuild, this line is the key: RDEPEND=3D"|| ( >=3Dsys-apps/shadow-4.1 sys-apps/hardened-shadow )" HTH :)