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i've been using Gentoo for 6 mth (Linux & UNIX much longer) |
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& am steadily learning how things are set up & work in practice. |
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i'ld like to make a couple of suggestions based on that experience. |
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|
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(1) instead of Portage adding emerged pkgs to 'world' automatically, |
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it sb upto the user to ask for that to be done by an explicit flag. |
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i suspect present behaviour goes back to the beginnings of Gentoo |
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& has never been re-examined: it doesn't work out well in practice. |
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often, i find myself wanting to update a pgm wh is needed for something else, |
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but wh i don't want to add to my 'world', wh is the end-products i do want. |
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yes, you can explicitly exclude things w '--oneshot', |
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but that has to be done each time & has no short equivalent. |
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|
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my suggestion is to replace '--oneshot' w its opposite '-w', |
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wh wd explicitly tell Portage to add the pkg to 'world'; |
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otherwise, the pkg wd not be added to 'world'. |
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|
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(2) 'qpkg -I' will list all emerged pkgs, |
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wh seem to be recorded in /var/db/pkg/... (a set of dirs). |
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however, it wb really useful to have a simple file listing them, |
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wh wb updated at each emerge by Portage & cb annotated by the user. |
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|
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i have created such a file for my own system. the 1st few lines are: |
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|
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app-admin/addpatches-0.2 # for gentoo-sources |
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W 031121 app-admin/chkrootkit-0.41-r1 |
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040212 app-admin/fam-2.7.0 # for kdelibs |
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W 031128 app-admin/gkrellm-1.2.13 |
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W 040307 app-admin/gkrellm-2.1.25 # invoke 'gkrellm2' |
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040322 app-admin/sudo-1.6.7_p5 # for postgresql |
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S 040314 app-admin/sysklogd-1.4.1-r10 |
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S app-arch/bzip2-1.0.2-r2 |
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031005 app-arch/cabextract-0.6 # CD1 for xfree |
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S app-arch/cpio-2.5 |
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S app-arch/gzip-1.3.3-r2 |
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|
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the 1st col identifies it as world/system/other, the 2nd is the date, |
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then there is the full version name & lastly comments preceded by '#'. |
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|
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my suggestion is that Portage shd create such a file at installation |
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-- eg /etc/pkglist -- , then update it whenever a pkg is emerged, |
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respecting the user's comments (anything on a line after '#'). |
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wd this require more work than writing a simple script ? |
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|
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the most important advantage of Gentoo over other distros |
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-- as shown by users' comments when asked why they prefer Gentoo -- |
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is that it gives users real control over the shape of their systems. |
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both suggestions shd add something to that feeling of control. |
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|
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-- |
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========================,,============================================ |
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SUPPORT ___________//___, Philip Webb : purslow@××××××××××××××.ca |
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ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Centre for Urban & Community Studies |
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TRANSIT `-O----------O---' University of Toronto |
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|
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-- |
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