[gentoo-amd64] Re: new clean rebuild

[Duncan]

Beso <givemesugarr@×××××.com> posted
d257c3560805181401j68c2acdfu869cbe9066872721@××××××××××.com, excerpted
below, on  Sun, 18 May 2008 21:01:47 +0000:

[I replied to the pan stuff earlier.]

> also i cannot
> understand why the hell kde insist on knode instead of putting klibido
> in its place. damn, there's kmail that does a part of knode and it does
> better and there is klibido that does what knode does in a far far far
> better way and also it has better stuff.

Wait a moment...  Are you saying klibido handles text posts and posting 
(at least text) now?  Back when I used it, it was a binary downloader 
only, no upload and it didn't do text, and there was no hint that was 
going to change.  However, that was quite some time ago.

If klibido handles all that now, then it's high time I take another look 
at it.  If it doesn't, then that's why they are keeping knode around, 
since knode does text and posting.

> i've tried the nzb qt4 package but either it's me that is idiot or the
> program that simply doesn't work.
>
> anyway, do you have some advices for a full system rebuild
> configuration?! i seem to remember that you're using kde4-svn version.
> are you by chance using it with xorg-git version?!

I was building kde4-svn for awhile, but really hadn't had a lot of time 
to really play with it.  When I did, and this was after 4.0.1 IIRC, 
certainly after 4.0.0 to my very great disappointment, it was what I'd 
call not even beta yet, more alpha or developer preview, in that it 
wasn't even fully functional yet.  (Traditionally, alpha or developer 
preview means features are still incomplete.  After feature completion, 
it's beta while the bugs are worked out, then release candidate after the 
big ones are out and they want testers before release, then release, then 
updates after release... so not fully functional, big features still 
missing, indicates alpha, to me.)

There was enough functionality missing that I decided they were right, it 
was NOT ready for ordinary users yet, or even normally bleeding edge 
users like me willing to put up with instability if it's at least 
decently functional.  It's not going to be there for me until at least 
4.1.0, and possibly 4.2.0.  So I unmerged it and went back to my still 
nicely functional now KDE 3.5.9, and haven't worried about it since then. 

FWIW, the deal breaker here is that I use multiple panels of different 
sizes, both top and bottom of a dual monitor setup, some panels flyout/
popup, some always-on-top, and even some time after 4.0 originally came 
out, plasma was still limited to a single panel at the bottom.  I read 
shortly after I gave up on it that it had just gotten a resize dialog, so 
before that, it wasn't even possible to resize the single panel!  Even 
MSWormOS 98 had multiple panels, and that was and is functionality I'm 
not going to do without.

Now, in KDE4, the supposed ability to move app from normal floating full 
apps to the live desktop, and from there to the panel, and again to the 
desktop or regular apps, may have eliminated the need for all those extra 
panels, only that functionality wasn't complete either.  It just felt 
like a very early developer preview, despite the fact that this was post 
4.0 release.

So I decided I'd have to wait some more, and unmerged it while I did.  
We'll see if 4.1 has matured well enough, or if it'll be 4.2.  I believe 
it'll get there, but I'm a demanding power user, and the functionality 
just isn't going to be there for me until at least 4.1.

Obviously, I was rather disappointed.  It's really due to all the 
publicity and claims about how nice and easy to work with the new system 
was, however.  Had they toned down the publicity some (well, more than 
some) early on, people's expectations wouldn't have been so high, and 
given it /was/ a port to qt4 and nearly a ground-up rewrite, then started 
on the high publicity about the upcoming 4.x, after the the developer 
preview, which should have been 3.99 instead of 4.0, I think it would 
have gone over better.  Oh, well...

As for xorg, no, I'm not running git.  In fact, while I'm up2date on xorg-
server and all that, I've masked the now ~arch xf86-video-ati-6.8.0-rX 
series, as I've not figured out how to get it to run both monitors at 
1600x1200.  I can get it running one @ 1600x1200, or both at 1024x768 or 
maybe 1280x960 (IDR which), but not both at 1600x1200.  I've been going 
to post to the xorg lists and see if I can get some help, but as I'm 
still running an old Radeon 92xx series card because it was for quite 
some time the best freedomware supported hardware around, and CRT based 
monitors, I've been thinking about upgrading to LCD based and a new card 
at some point, and I might actually do that and see how it works first.  
(Or better yet, post /before/ I buy, asking what's going to work best 
with freedomware drivers on the still AGP bus I have to slot it into, 
that also supports dual dual-dvi.)

However...  I do have quite some experience doing full system rebuilds, 
as with the system I have now, it's actually a fairly simple and fast 
proposition, particularly as with the dual-dual-cores building in tmpfs 
with 8 gig memory, a single build barely affects desktop responsiveness 
at all, even playing streaming media.  I recently upgraded to gcc-4.3 
(still masked but about to be ~arch) for instance, and rebuilt the entire 
system with it.  There were a dozen or so packages that needed patches to 
build with gcc-4.3, but all but one or two are already fixed and in-tree 
by now, so a full rebuild should be pretty smooth, now.

I'll reply on that theme up-thread from this, however, and probably 
tomorrow as I should be going to bed now, but remembered I had this reply 
to write first.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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