[gentoo-amd64] Re: KDE 4.0.4 upgrade, sort of.

[Duncan]

Beso <givemesugarr@×××××.com> posted
d257c3560805310208o5e6df42as66e855ae009f937c@××××××××××.com, excerpted
below, on  Sat, 31 May 2008 09:08:38 +0000:

> 2008/5/31 Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net>:

>> So seeing someone that's actually using pkgcore is helpful. =8^)

> does pkgcore has more features than portage?! i seem to remember trying
> it about one year ago and it had the same portage features and almost
> the same drawbacks, so i've decided to stay with portage that time.
> (this is just a question from an ignorant about pkgcore and doesn't want
> in any way to start another flame).

Good question.  I'd love to see a decent discussion of pkgcore, but 
please start a new thread for it.  A link to a forums thread on the 
subject, or maybe a users-list thread (web archive, gmane or gentoo, 
probably), may be useful to get it started and avoid a bunch of repeat 
questions and answers.

> the same goes for me, a kde user. i really need some gnome apps like pan
> or firefox and just for it i need a big deal of gnome deps. and you
> should understand what i'm saying, since you're also an experienced pan
> users.

Well, to be fair, pan and firefox/iceweasel only require GTK+ and perhaps 
a couple misc dependencies that GNOME also needs.  They certainly don't 
require all of GNOME or even most of its core.  I know, as I have both of 
them merged here, but don't have GNOME merged.  That's like saying 
anything depending on qt depends on KDE.

Every so often I've toyed with the idea of switching to klibido, maybe 
knode or something else for text (thus my excitement when I read 
something implying klibido was a whole substitute for pan, now, seems 
not, unfortunately), unmerging pan, hoping to be able to kill GTK+ with 
it.  However, if iceweasel/firefox needs it as I think it does now that 
you mention it, that's not likely to work unless I decide I can also live 
without iceweasel... which actually might be reasonable once again if 
webkit continues to grow in popularity.  The only thing I've /really/ 
needed it for the last few years is doing taxes, and if khtml/webkit 
eventually works properly for that...

> about the db issue with klibido, getting back to db-4.5 fixed it.
> and no, klibido doesn't support posting.

Too bad. =8^)  I had my hopes up there for a bit.

> i'll try to look into it after
> i understand well the package, and if noone takes it i'll take on to
> port it to qt4 and cmake build system. i'm now starting to work on qt4
> and this could be an interesting challenge and could help me improve my
> skills with it.

Hopefully klibido follows to KDE4.  It'd be a shame to see it stuck on 
KDE3, after all the work that has gone into it and as sparse on the 
ground as real binary news harvesters seem to be.

>> Doing an emerge --pretend paludis, it doesn't have /that/
>> unreasonable a list of new merges, and a good share of the ones it
>> /does/ have are simply null-package virtuals, already filled by newer
>> gcc versions[.]

> and that some tools like pcre (always needed by paludis) is now not
> needed only by it. as i've said before, mainly xorg has pushed in these
> deps (of course the use flags also helped a lot).

For pcre, certain other packages have been using it for awhile.  pan 
does, and I it, so it didn't show up on my dependency list.  (You 
mentioned xorg, it depends on it too now? I guess it really /is/ getting 
around!  I wouldn't have known since I have it merged for pan.)  Point 
about eye of the beholder...  But based on a post (yours I think) I see 
since I posted the grandparent, it seems the newer gcc does indeed take 
care of what might have been quite a stack of deps.

> also, i'm now trying to do as you've said with pan and the cached
> articles, but i find it somehow long to do. maybe it's because i'm not
> used to it. so for the moment being i've gone back with klibido.

Well, it's not that it's longer... it takes that time to download the 
posts either way... but it does seem to take longer since you download 
them all before starting to work on them.

There's to it tho that make it not seem so bad.

First, depending on what you are downloading and from where (groups), it 
may be possible to train yourself to setup a smaller group download 
first, then the larger group, scheduled after the small group.  For some 
things (mainly single part binaries), that works reasonably well, as the 
shorter group may be mostly downloaded by the time you get thru sorting 
thru and deleting the stuff you do NOT need to download on the larger 
group, then scheduling the rest of it for download.  That way you can 
switch to the shorter group, and with it mostly or all downloaded, go 
right to work sorting and saving what downloaded.  If it works out right, 
by the time you finish that, the larger group (or some portions thereof, 
see below) will be done.

Second, you can download text groups first, then binaries, then read and 
reply to the text groups giving the binaries a chance to get partly done 
before you switch back to them.

Third, there's nothing saying you have to download the whole group at 
once.  In the first round (with only headers), at least on some groups, 
you can download samples, preview stills or clips, then decide if you 
want to download the whole series.  If not, delete the series right there 
and go on.  If you want to download it, setup the download to cache right 
then and there, and go on.  By the time you've worked thru the group and 
setup the last of the downloads, the first will hopefully be done or 
close to it.  As the downloads to cache complete, the icon will change 
from download to in-cache, so you can see what messages were in jobs that 
have already completed downloading.  Thus, you can go thru and process 
the downloaded series while others are still downloading.  Of course, you 
may have to flip the sort order between subject/author/date/scored a bit 
to get the series together and make it easy to go thru them, but a binary 
news junkie will probably be accustomed to doing some of that already.

Fourth, while it can be hard to discipline yourself to do so, at least 
initially, you can also train yourself to setup the new downloads at the 
END of your working session, before you go to work or to bed or do family 
or friend stuff or whatever.  Then it downloads while you are doing 
something else, and you come back and have everything nicely ready for 
your NEXT session.  Do your sorting and saving and whatever (without 
checking for new messages yet), delete the now garbage headers and 
cache, /then/ grab new headers, select what you want to download deleting 
the rest, set it downloading, and your session is finished.  Again, when 
you get thru sleeping or working or whatever, you'll have another fresh 
batch of downloads already stored locally.  No waiting for the downloads 
to finish, as you let the computer do that while you're away doing other 
things!  Of course, this works better on a desktop you leave where it is, 
than on a laptop you disconnect to take with you when you are finished.  
Still, even with a laptop that's normally on the go with you, you gotta 
sleep sometime, and you might as well let it be downloading while you do.
Admittedly, tho, this takes discipline, as once you decide you want the 
files, it's hard to wait until the next session to actually go thru them.

-- 
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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