Re: [gentoo-user] KDE and NetworkManager

["András Csányi" <sayusi.ando@sayusi.hu>]

On 17 July 2013 14:49, Bruce Hill <daddy@happypenguincomputers.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 01:39:36PM +0200, András Csányi wrote:
>> On 17 July 2013 11:35, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
>> > On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 10:04:12 +0200, András Csányi wrote:
>> >
>> >> Ok. How is possible to get the post-install message of an ebuild
>> >> without re-emerge the package neither opening the log file? The man
>> >> page of emerge cannot say anything about it.
>> >
>> > Read the ebuild.
>>
>> I don't think this is a friendly solution in 2013.
>
> What would _you_ consider friendly? Gentoo is a source based Linux
> distribution. That means _all_ your software is built from source; however, it
> is _your_ responsibility to customize this software to make it work best for
> your computer's hardware, and your software usage. Gentoo is _not_ a binary
> distribution where every package has been built for the lowest common
> denominator of computer, so that it works on almost anyone's computer just by
> clicking the Install button, or some such {easy,friendly} solution.

When I sad that to read the ebuild is not user friendly I thought of
that it should be a better solution to get post install message than
open the ebuild and read it. The elogv is fine for me.

The definition of something is user friendly has many layers in my
head and it up to the role I "play".
When we speak about gentoo and I configure my system than I play *nix
system administrator like role where I have to deal my task using
terminal. However, the fact that I use terminal to achieve what I want
does not exclude there are usable tools to get information easily
and/or feasible.

The other role I play when I use my system as a user or I develop my
java stuff or I want watch a movie. Then I really don't want to deal
with terminal except maven. I want the click-way user experience.

The good is that gentoo is able to give me both experience. It is not
smarter than it is expected - like Windows or Ubuntu -, but not a
rock. I mean the portage system and tools give lot of help to "heal"
the system if I messed up something.

> If you were to install software on another Linux distribution, for which there
> was no package prebuilt for that package manager, you would basically:
>
> download source
> untar source
> cd source-directory
> ./configure -help (and read the options)
> write your own build script with your options
> make
> make install
> (or whatever method for that software and distro)
>
> You would also be responsible for reading to find out where to install the
> software, what dependencies it requires, what permissions and groups should be
> used, etc.
>
> Gentoo has provided all this for you, but you must learn The Gentoo Way (TM)
> in order to Make It Work (TM). You seem to be lacking a proper understanding
> in that area.

No, I don't. Or I don't think so. Rather I was lazy to do it or I
missed the attitude of my question. I have been using Gentoo since
2006 and I love it. Unfortunately, I moved toward programming part of
IT from system administrating.

> If you installed Gentoo using the Gentoo Handbook (why would you not?), then
> you should have read: 12. Where to go from here? And there you would read this
> sentence: You should definitely take a look at the next part of the Gentoo
> Handbook entitled Working with Gentoo which explains how to keep your software
> up to date, how to install more software, what USE flags are, how the Gentoo
> init system works, etc.
>
> There is a lot of information there, and a lot to learn. But I find that
> _most_ people _stop_ reading the Handbook at that point, and begin their
> learning by trial and error. That is acceptable, even friendly, but it might
> take you _much_longer_ to get that information than simply reading the book.

You are absolutely right! I stopped to reading the handbook there and
I'm learning the system the way you described. It is my
responsibility. I read the mailing list to pick up knowledge about
different area of the whole.

> If you hang out in #gentoo on FreeNode you will be able to learn a _lot_ of
> what you read on this mailing list in a much shorter time. In fact, you can
> log the channel, and use that as another option to _search_ for support
> answers. Often I will issue:
> grep wicd irclogs/#gentoo.log
> and maybe:
> grep postinst irclogs/#gentoo.log
> to find some answers. Then maybe that search will lead me to issue:
> awk '/iamben/ && /postinst/ { print }' irclogs/#gentoo.log
> because my previous search revealed that iamben gave a lot of answers
> concerning postinst and people got their question answered.
>
> Last but not least, there are search engines, such as Google. Just open your
> web browser to http://wwww.google.com and type "post-install message of an
> ebuild" and see if any of the results answers your question. The first hit for
> me was "Gentoo Development Guide: Messages", which for me was simple and easy
> to read, but might not be so for you if you have no experience reading/writing
> ebuilds. The second hit was "Gentoo Forums :: View topic - How to read emerge
> messages? (I ..." which gave 'friendly' answers to your question. (Which you
> already got on this list, also.)

I searched for something like this. But, the problem was that I was
not able to create the question. It was due to that I did not know the
expression which describe what I want. On the other hand, sometimes I
have difficulties in English. If you read my email where I asked about
the post-install message you can see that I use this word. But I
picked up from a previous letter in this thread. The lack of
knowledge, I mean not knowing the proper expression, may come that I
did not read further the handbook. :)

> Gentoo is not considered a "user friendly" distro in 2013 by many people. The
> primary reason is that _most_ people have been trained to "point and click"
> but never _read_ anything. Those are the people for whom Mark Shuttleworth
> designed Ubuntu Linux.

I agree.

> Gentoo wasn't designed for the "point and click" crowd. Read
> http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml to get a better idea of Gentoo's
> intended audience.


--
--  Csanyi Andras (Sayusi Ando)  -- http://sayusi.hu --
http://facebook.com/andras.csanyi
--  ""Trust in God and keep your gunpowder dry!" - Cromwell