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lxnay@××××××××××××.org posted |
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fv50wm3klntqyetcw4UYAxe124vaj_firegpg@××××××××××.com, excerpted below, on |
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Mon, 25 May 2009 12:16:06 +0200: |
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> This is what I am doing in Sabayon, creating a new layer over Portage => |
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> Entropy. I'm almost done, just need to work out some documentation and |
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> apidocs. http://gitweb.sabayon.org/?p=entropy.git;a=summary |
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Agreed. |
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Gentoo is in general a from-source metadistribution. There's limited |
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support for binary packages in at least one of the package managers |
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(portage), but honestly, that's not what Gentoo's best at, and I don't |
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believe that will ever change without making it significantly worse at |
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what it IS best at now, the normal from-source Gentoo we know and love. |
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|
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Better to leave the serious distribution level binary repackaging to the |
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Gentoo-based distributions like Sabayon. Let them do what they do best, |
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and let Gentoo continue doing what it does best. By definition, binary |
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packaging isn't broken and doesn't need fixed, as that's not part of what |
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defines Gentoo, so don't fix what ain't broken! =:^) |
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|
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That said, I could envision an eselect like "binary profile" switcher, |
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that subject to settings in a config file, changes USE flags, CFLAGS, gcc- |
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configs an appropriate gcc version, etc, changing PKGDIR appropriately as |
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well, so one could easily enough create as many "binary profiles" as |
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desired and as the use case dictated. It's likely various reasonably |
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large Gentoo deployments are already doing something like this as it |
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could certainly be scripted, but an emergable package to make it easy for |
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ordinary joe Gentoo user would be useful, and I believe appreciated by |
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many. |
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(Here, I'd put it to use when testing new gcc versions, making it easy to |
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swap out PKGDIRs and revert to the old version either per-package or |
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system-wide, if the new version was breaking too much.) |
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|
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So here: No to the whole big complicated let's fix Gentoo binaries |
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thing. There's already Gentoo-based binary solutions like Sabayon for |
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those so interested, and I can't see Gentoo doing better than they're |
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doing, at least not without breaking the from-source that Gentoo's good |
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at. But yes to anyone interested in developing a nice new "binary |
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profile" switcher to make managing binary package sets easier for those |
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Gentoo admins that would find such a thing useful. Whether they then |
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start making those profiles public and whether anyone else chooses to use |
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them is entirely up to the individual admins whose systems would be |
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affected. |
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|
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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 |