Re: [gentoo-user] --depclean wants to remove openrc. Yikes!

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Neil.

On Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 10:03:44 +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 21:01:34 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> > > > It seems it's insisting on removing all packages but one which
> > > > satisfy a virtual.  Maybe that is unwise, and it should keep _all_
> > > > such packages which are currently installed.  

> > > Well, the whole point of an any-of dependency is to only require one
> > > of them.  Why force packages to stick around if they aren't needed?  

> > I would say all packages in @system _are_ needed, unless the user
> > explicitly says otherwise.

> They are, @system is a set of packages and nothing it it will be
> depcleaned. However, openrc is not part of @system, the virtual is.

Ah, that's it.  So we have critical system packages which aren't part of
@system.  I think openrc is a critical system package.

> > > Now, whether daemontools actually should satisfy the dependency I
> > > don't want to comment on without doing more research.  Surely though
> > > there is little point in having openrc and systemd and runit on the
> > > same system unless the user explicitly wants this (and if they do they
> > > can just stick them in @world).  

> > The user might be switching between them, doing comparisons.  (No, I
> > don't know if this is practical.)  I don't know either whether it's
> > practical to boot Gentoo with just daemontools.  But there are use cases
> > which require both openrc and daemontools on the same system, so there's
> > something not quite right about the service-manager ebuild, or emerge.

> That is possible, but it is also possible that this is entirely down to
> you installing things outside of portage and handling their dependencies
> manually, creating unwanted side-effects like this.

Quite the contrary.  If I'd've stuck to the daemontools I installed from
a tarball, this whole thing wouldn't have happened.  It's BECAUSE I
switched to using the portage version that this danger reared its ugly head. 

> > I think that would be solving the wrong problem.  The fact is, it is
> > easy, far too easy, to shoot yourself in the foot here.  As well as
> > openrc, --depclean also wanted to remove nano (the editor) for the same
> > reason.  That might be serious for some people.

> It did that because you have another suitable editor installed. I don't
> like nano so I'm happy to install something else that satisfies
> virtual/editor and let depclean get rid of nano, knowing that it won't do
> it unless I already have a suitable alternative installed.

> > Maybe the answer is to regard --depclean as a tool for experts only,
> > since it is capable in ordinary innocent use of rendering a system
> > unusable.

> I feel it's more a case of Gentoo being a system for those that
> understand what they are doing with the system - with great power comes
> great responsibility and all that.

That feels needlessly patronising, Neil.  I fear the Gentoo maintainers
will take the same attitude.  Not only can the user shoot himself in the
foot, but it's Gentoo that provides the gun, innocently wrapped, with a
"press here" direction on the packaging above a hidden trigger.  Nobody
accepts any responsibility for preventing accidents.

The implication of what you say is that nobody should use portage
without understanding every last intricate detail of it.  This doesn't
feel reasonable.

Nobody but me seems to see anything wrong with all this.  It's one thing
saying users should look after themselves, but surely it's quite another
thing to provide an obsure mechanism where one's one keypress away from
destroying ones system.

I'm quite a bit less enthusiastic about Gentoo than I was a few days
ago.

> -- 
> Neil Bothwick

> Caution, an incorrigible punster - don't incorrige.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).