Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] gentoo-x86 migration to repo-per-package

[Fabian Groffen]

On 07-08-2011 07:05:03 -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> What exactly are you thinking about here.  How about this use case:
>
> I have a list of 150 packages/versions.  I want to make all of them go
> from ~x86 to x86 at the same time.
>
> If they're all in one git repo, then I can use a script or whatever to
> go through every one at leisure and rekeyword them.  Then I can do a
> repoman scan on the entire repository for an hour or two if I want.
> When I'm happy I can commit everything atomically.
>
> How do you envision doing this by just making a single commit to the
> rsync tree script if the files are in multiple repos?  Right now that
> rsync tree is pulling in all those files already - in the ~x86
> version.  Do you propose cloning all the repos, fixing the arch flag
> in the new repos, and then re-pointing the rsync tree atomically?
> That would work, but any commits to the 150 packages by others in the
> meantime would get lost, and it seems a bit painful to do it this way.
>  I can see how you could atomically add or remove 150 packages
> entirely, but not how you can tweak individual versions of packages
> without a fair bit of pain.  Admittedly, you could have some clever
> solution in mind that I'm just not grokking.

Not sure.  You could branch I guess.  It takes more work, undoubtedly.

> The other thing that was tossed out is having multiple repos, but
> putting things like kde/gnome in their own bigger repos.  I'm not sure
> this is going to work, since it only works for those particular
> situations.  A package can only be in one repo, so you can't have one
> repo for kde, and another repo for everything that uses qt, and
> another for everything that uses pulseaudio, or whatever.  Atomic
> changes to many packages could be required for any number of unforseen
> reasons.

This indeed makes it difficult.

> I can see the elegance of allowing the portage tree to be a collage of
> packages from different sources, but I'm not convinced we really need
> this.  Users can already accomplish this on their end with overlays.
> It seems like we're just making the portage tree an overlay of its
> own.  I'm not sure what it really buys us.  Just using git in the
> first place already simplifies distributed development.  If you took
> this idea to an extreme you might not have the rsync server assemble
> the tree at all, but just push out the official list as a
> "recommended" list of overlays, and let the users put their own trees
> together (with the ability to override parts of it).

I don't feel users should be playing with these things in general.  I
see the tree assembling thing more as a technical way to deal with some
given legacy and limitations.  Admittedly, it isn't perfect, and many
people seem to intend doing things with a git-based tree that cannot be
done with now CVS, and an assembled tree wouldn't really support it out
of the box either.


-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo on a different level