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Uwe Thiem <uwix@××××.na> posted 200607210817.30392.uwix@××××.na, excerpted |
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below, on Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:17:30 +0100: |
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> On 21 July 2006 04:26, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: |
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>> Duncan wrote: |
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>> > I don't see it as... annoying; I see it as... challenging! =8^) |
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>> > |
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>> > Seriously, computing is my hobby, and as such, it needs to remain a bit |
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>> > challenging from time to time, or it would cease to be of interest. |
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>> |
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>> Just out of curiosity, are there three "versions" -- stable, testing and |
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>> unstable -- or just two -- stable and unstable? |
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> |
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> Three. |
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> |
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>> And if one uses "~x86", |
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>> is that "testing" or "unstable"? I just think of it as "~x86". |
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> |
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> That's testing. |
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Depends how you look at it. There's officially two levels, stable aka |
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arch(-stable) and ~arch, called variously unstable or testing, which |
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correspond to Debian levels, I tend to use ~arch, as that has a precise |
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Gentoo meaning. |
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By the Gentoo definition, with certain exceptions, only candidates for |
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arch-stable can go in ~arch. ~arch means the package upstream is stable, |
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but the Gentoo packaging, that is, the ebuild script and any necessary |
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Gentoo specific patches may not be stable. If it's not considered a |
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stable release upstream, it's generally not a candidate for ~arch, tho it |
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may be in the tree as -* or unkeyworded, for those who want to play around |
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with it without the usual Gentoo safety net even of ~arch. |
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The biggest exceptions to the above policy are Gentoo core packages such as |
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portage and baselayout where Gentoo /is/ "upstream. Both these packages |
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routinely have -pre and -rc builds in ~arch that are never intended to |
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reach arch-stable. |
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The third level, as already mentioned, is hard-masked. If one chooses to |
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play with their package.unmask and package.keywords such that they can |
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merge these, it's without the usual Gentoo safety net. Sometimes, as with |
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the gcc-4.0 and early 4.1 packages, even unmasking isn't enough, one has |
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to set something like I_WANT_A_BROKEN_SYSTEM=1 to get them to merge. Even |
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there, however, Gentoo makes things easier to manage due to gcc-config |
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(now eselect compiler) and a slotted gcc, so it wasn't too hard to run a |
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default gcc-4.0 compiled system and eselect compiler set <3.4> for |
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packages that weren't yet fixed for gcc4. |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |
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-- |
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