Re: [gentoo-user] Re: anti-portage wreckage?

[Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>]

On Sun, 31 Dec 2006, Mike Myers wrote:

> On 12/31/06, Mark Kirkwood <markir@paradise.net.nz> wrote:Mike Myers wrote:
> > > I just wanted to add something to the original post.
> > >
> > > I've recently began experimenting with Debian and noticed their updating
> > > system is exactly like what I was asking about.  Basically, there's
> > > package updates, and then there's distro updates.  Why is it
> > > unreasonable for Gentoo to have something like this?  I think it would
> > > help Gentoo a lot in the server market, where scalability is important.
> >
> > While this is true, one of the differentiating points of Gentoo is
> > precisely the build-from-source idea (there are plenty of binary update
> > distros out there).
> 
> 
> I'm not trying to suggest that Gentoo should go to a binary distro or
> anything like that.  Besides, it's easy enough to just use a binary package
> server if that's what one needs.  I'm just wondering why there isn't some
> kind of update management system to like, differentiate minor updates like
> firefox 1.5.0.5 to firefox 1.5.0.7 and major ones like, y'know, gcc 3.4.4 to
> 4+?  The way it is now, they're all lumped together like one big update.
> The lack of such a system might make it easier for the devs.. but this is a
> pain in the ass for the users when they run into a problem like this
> unexpectedly.  It's even worse when that user is managing several Gentoo
> machines.  This kind of thing does not scale at all.

The problem is that the chance of something breaking gets higher the more 
you do at once, and the chance of something you need to be able to recover 
also breaking goes up sharply. I've been watching people use Debian for 
quite a while now, and I've rarely if ever seen a system upgrade without 
major problems. People have problems like: the new release has a version 
of Apache that has a different config file arrangement, and it's hard to 
make a new config file that handles the web app the system is supposed to 
be running; the old Apache worked fine, but the new release doesn't use 
it, and the old binary requires a ton of libraries that the new release 
doesn't have, either. And there's no easy way to downgrade to the old 
release until you have time to mess with config files.

With Gentoo, you find that the new apache doesn't work with your config 
files, so you mask it until you have time to deal with it.

> I'm just asking for a relief from having to constantly worry if updating 
> something out of the 300 packages that need updated is going to break 
> something, and not having to make sure etc-update isn't going to destroy 
> my custom configs afterwards.  If it wasn't for that, Gentoo would be 
> perfect.  I'm sure there's got to be others that would agree.

Well, there are two goals here: make it so you can do all the safe updates 
without any of the ones which will require manual fixing, and make it so 
your custom configs are protected.

I think it would be useful to have an ebuild thing for "upgrading to this 
package from version {expression} requires the following steps", such that 
the message will be displayed only if you're doing that, and such that the 
upgrade will be masked if you're being conservative in upgrading.

I also think that emerge should keep track of the config files installed 
by packages, so that etc-update knows if you've got local modifications, 
and give you a big warning when you might lose a change you made.

	-Daniel
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